The third book in the crazy good and wonderfully gruesome Monstrumologist series takes plucky young protagonist Will Henry to a far darker place than ever before, and this time it’s not the monsters outside he fears so much as the monster within. After receiving a mysterious package that contains a grisly nest made of shredded human tissue and bone, Will and Dr. Warthrop are launched on a grim new quest to find and capture Typhoeus magnificum, The Father of All Monsters. This mysterious beast has never been seen, and its only calling cards are the flesh nests it makes of its victims and it’s corrosive spit that if touched, turns men into cannibalistic zombies. Every monstrumologist who has tried to track it down it down has never been seen or heard from again. Naturally, Warthrop has second thoughts about taking Will Henry on such a dangerous mission, and ends up leaving him with his mentor Dr. von Helrung in New York. But when von Helrung receives word that Warthrop is dead, Will Henry decides to take matters into his own young hands and find out the truth—even if it means losing his life. Sailing from America to darkest Africa and meeting such literary luminaries as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (you didn’t know he was such a fan of monstrumology, did you?) and Arthur Rimbaud (with an encore appearance of fan favorite, the dastardly Jack Kearns) along the way, Will’s gripping globetrotting journey is nothing compared to the long bleak road he is walking within. As Warthrop slowly begins to give his humanity more airtime than his burning ambition in this most excellent third volume, Will disturbingly begins to slide the other way. “I thought I knew the cost of service to the one whose path lies in the darkness. I did not.” Always pure of heart in the past, now Will finds himself committing not one but two desperate and irrevocable acts that will have consequences he can’t quite understand, but that the world weary Warthrop knows all too well. Will has always served as Warthrop’s moral compass (“You are the one thing that keeps me humanâ€) but now it may be the egotistical but ultimately good doctor’s turn to help Will expunge the darkness that has begun to take deep root in his soul. Oh, how I love these books! Oh, how I wish there was a real Society for the Advancement of the Science of Monstrumology, and that I could sit down and have Darjeeling tea with Will and Dr. Warthrop! Like The Historian
Category: Boy Meets Book
Books from the male perspective for everyone.
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay and inspired by Siobhan Dowd
What would you do if you had a fear that was bigger than you were? Run away? Hide? Or would you call for help? Thirteen-year-old Conor is keeping a terrible secret about his mother’s illness, one that is so awful he doesn’t dare speak it aloud. So when a giant monster shows up outside his window one night and threatens him, he isn’t even scared. Because no monster is equal to the rage and sorrow he has locked away inside. But when the monster tells Conor that the reason it’s there is because Conor called it, he doesn’t understand. How could he have brought the monster without knowing? And is the monster there to help or to hurt him? As the monster continues to make its nightly visits and Conor’s mother gets sicker, Conor becomes desperate to put an end to the mystery of the monster’s presence. When the truth is finally revealed, it is both wonderful and terrible. This intriguing modern day fable about the lies we tell ourselves in order to survive tragedy was actually thought up by British author and activist Siobhan Dowd, who died before she could complete it. It was then passed into the hands of her colleague Patrick Ness, who in his own words, “took it and ran with it.†The result is a lyrical, melancholy tale, lushly illustrated with haunting images by debut illustrator Jim Kay, that provides no easy answer to the question of human suffering, but is full of hope nevertheless.
This Dark Endeavor by Kenneth Oppel
Literary Fun Fact: Victor Frankenstein had a twin! Well, at least Kenneth Oppel imagines so in this brilliant, twisted prequel to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
It’s very appropriate that this debut novel was inspired in part by a Sufjan Stevens song, as this story has the same melancholy and bittersweet tone of that indie bard’s music. Cullen Witter is a suspicious, sarcastic seventeen-year-old who works at a gas station, fills his journal with the titles of books he might write (“Book Title #73: You May Feel a Slight Sting”) and hopes to someday leave his hometown of Lily, which “was like Arkansas’ version of a black hole; nothing could escape it.” He’s also suffering from unrequited love for a girl who’s already taken, and a deep-seated annoyance with the fact that all his neighbors have become bird crazy over a woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, that was sighted near the town river. One of the only people Cullen really likes is his younger brother Gabriel, who disappears without a trace one summer day. Once Cullen loses the compass of his brother, the only things that keep him from a quick downward spiral into anger and depression are his best friend Lucas’s bad jokes and a brief affair with a married woman. He tries to have hope that Gabriel will be returned safely while resenting the fact that everyone seems to be more interested in finding the woodpecker than in finding his beloved brother. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, an eighteen-year-old missionary named Benton Sage decides that spreading the Good Word is no longer for him, and returns home to his father’s great disappointment and rage. Benton trades his Bible for a textbook and enrolls in college, but his father still can’t forgive him. Unable to deal with his father’s disappointment, Benton commits a shocking act, setting into motion a series of events that eventually lead to Gabriel’s disappearance and Cullen’s unexpected redemption. This strange, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink story shouldn’t necessarily work, but it does, bringing to mind aspects from one of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies. The connections between Cullen and Benton, which seem tenuous at first, end up coalescing in a way that illustrates just how much of our lives are dependent on chance and the kindness of strangers. Weird, wonderful and rare, this unusual book is just as unique as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker mentioned in its pages.
The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt
In a violent, post-Civil War Old West, natty but naughty gunslinger Drake Sinclair is on the hunt for a mythical weapon that shows the future to it’s owner. It’s part of a scary set of six revolvers that some say were forged by the Devil himself, and belonged to a bloodthirsty Confederate general named Hume, now long in his grave. Each gun never has to be reloaded and each one has a sinister power: to strike with the force of a cannon, throw flames, spread disease, raise the dead and provide eternal youth. Sinclair knows that in order to stop Hume’s still living cronies, he will need to overpower them with Hume’s personal weapon, the sixth gun. But when he finally discovers the whereabouts of the prophecy gun, complications arise in the form of a beautiful young farm girl and the frightening fact that Hume is not exactly dead (not quite alive, either) and he will recover his property even if it means releasing hell on Earth to do it. Hume also knows a nasty little secret about Sinclair that could be the gunslinger’s undoing if it comes to light, so it’s even more important that Sinclair gets to the gun before Hume does. It’s a race to the bloody finish, and I was absolutely riveted to each and every full color page of this inventive GN. I’m particularly fond of westerns, and I’m really liking this trend of tucking a little fantasy and horror in between the saloons and gunfights (see also: Cowboys and Aliens and American Vampire). The Sixth Gun has all that and more, including a masterful sequence of panels that pits a zombie army against an army of golems. Brilliant! Brian Hurtt’s full color art is ripe and rich, with blood, bile and steel bursting off every page. A little gory and a lot exciting, The Sixth Gun serves up some hardcore graphic novel gun play.
Death Cloud by Andrew Lane
There have been so many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes lately, you knew it was just a matter of time before we met up with Sherlock Holmes, age fourteen. The year is 1868, and Young Master Holmes has just been informed that due to his army officer father’s deployment to India, his mother’s illness and his big brother Mylock’s busy lawyer schedule, he won’t be going home for the summer holidays from school. Instead, he’ll be staying with a little known aunt and uncle in the English countryside, far from civilization and anything remotely interesting. Fortunately, his boredom is quickly eased by his new acquaintances: brash and brilliant American Amyus Crowe, who will be his summer tutor, Amyus’s beautiful red-headed daughter Virginia, and scrappy river rat Matty Arnett, an orphan boy the same age as Sherlock who lives off his wits and what he can steal. The four of them form an unlikely detective team when a body is discovered on Sherlock’s uncles’s property. The corpse is lumpy and swollen, and rumors of plague soon blanket the countryside, throwing everyone into a state of panic. But by using the powers of deduction that Amyus Crowe is teaching him, Sherlock soon realizes that while the stranger’s death was caused by something carried on the air, it wasn’t germs or disease. Another body was discovered in the nearby village in the same condition, and Matty claimed to have seen a mysterious black cloud hovering over the house where it was found. Could the two deaths be linked? If so, what was the black cloud and how did it cause two different people to drop dead miles from each other? As he digs deeper into the mystery, Sherlock discovers from a series of mostly innocuous clues a diabolical plan created by an evil genius mastermind to strike at the very foundations of the British Empire. Sherlock’s first foray into investigation becomes a terrifying adventure that threatens to end his life on more than one occasion. But he must prevail, or his entire country could be lost. Great period detail, loads of interesting scientific facts from the time, and the methodical, logical plotting that we expect from a traditional Sherlock Holmes novel are all here, plus some pretty heart-pounding fight scenes. My only issue is the odd cover–since when does Sherlock Holmes have Justin Bieber hair? A fun read nevertheless, and who knows? Maybe they’ll tap the Biebs to play Sherlock in the teen movie version. Stay tuned for the sequel, Rebel Fire, coming out November 2011.
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
It’s been three years since the car accident that changed Mia and Adam’s lives forever. Mia lost her entire family and nearly died herself. Adam stayed devotedly by her side during her recovery. As soon as she was well enough, Mia went to Julliard in New York while Adam stayed in Oregon to finish school and play with his band, Shooting Star. They were committed to making their long distance relationship work. Then, without warning, Mia cut off all communication with Adam. Stunned, Adam sank into a deep depression that resulted in the creation of his band’s breakout record. Now Adam is a reluctant rock star and Mia is an accomplished professional cellist. But Adam still thinks about Mia everyday, and by chance, attends one of her concerts in New York on his way to a tour in London. What happens next brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Before Sunrise, as Adam and Mia finally meet again and spend a memorable night walking around New York, catching up and reminiscing. But does Adam have the courage to confront Mia about why she left him? And is he strong enough to handle her answer? “I’ve blamed her for all of this, for leaving, for ruining me. And maybe that was the seed of it, but from that one little seed grew this tumor of a flowering plant. And I’m the one who nurtures it. I water it. I care for it. I nibble from its poison berries. I let it wrap around my neck, choking the air right out of me. I’ve done that. All by myself. All to myself.” This incredibly satisfying sequel to If I Stay is written from Adam’s POV, and is just as full of longing, heartbreak and gorgeous writing as its predecessor. I flew through it in a single day, dying to see what Mia’s mysterious reasons were and hoping against hope that the two star crossed lovers would get back together. Do they? Well, you better race to your nearest library or bookstore, or grab your Kindle, iPad, or Nook to find out! (And dudes, please don’t mind the gorgeous girl on the cover, this book IS written from a guy’s POV, even if it doesn’t look like it.)
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
When world-weary ghost wrangler Frank Gallows accidentally zaps terminally ill Garth Hale into the in-between dimension of Ghostopolis, the boy finds himself with a new lease on life—or death, as the case may be. As a human being in this spirit world, Garth discovers he has incredible powers that are capable of overthrowing Master Vaugner, the evil Goth dictator of Ghostopolis. But Garth just wants to get back home. Aided by Skinny, his skeletal Nightmare and the friendly ghost of his dead grandfather, Garth almost gets his wish when Frank Gallows and the beautiful ghost mechanic Claire Voyant show up with a machine that can zoom him back into the land of the living. But Vaugner isn’t letting Garth leave until he finds out the secret of his strength and takes it for himself. Soon Garth, Frank and Claire find themselves caught up in the midst of an epic battle for the heart and soul of Ghostopolis. Folks, this is one of those “kitchen sink†books (as in, author and illustrator Doug TenNapel threw in everything but the kitchen sink) that shouldn’t work but it does. There’s action, giant lightning bugs, adventure, a mysterious Tuskegee Airman named Joe, romance, the ghost of Benedict Arnold, side-splitting humor, and a farting werewolf. Somehow, it all comes together and makes perfect sense. I enjoyed every manic moment of it. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself—it should be widely available at your local library as it was one of ALA’s 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens. You’ll also want to be in the know before the planned feature film hits theaters!
The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman
Meet June and Wes. June’s eyes are a bit too far apart and Wes’s hair is always just this side of scruffy. They are not cheerleader and jock. They are not lead in the spring musical and band geek. Most importantly, they are not fallen angels or pretty vampires. They are just June and just Wes. Regular. And they fall into the kind of love that isn’t love at first sight or like the end of the world. But it’s a love that any of you who have ever been in serious ga-ga with someone will recognize immediately: first love. The love that causes June to feel like: “Wes was planted deep inside her, so deep that no amount of wishing or hoping or parental brainwashing could ever dislodge him.†And Wes to think: “Being in love is hard…—wanting to be perfect for her every second they were together, and trying not to think too much about the scary, murky future when they would be apart…He had never been happier in his life.†A love “like two trains heading toward each other on the same track. It wasn’t like you could swerve to avoid the collision. It wasn’t like you could stop.†A love like that could result in, well, a big crunch. But now that June and Wes have collided and fused together, what will they do when June’s parents decide to pick up and move again? Can the Big Crunch survive the Long Distance? This funny, heartfelt novel is like Harry Met Sally for you millennials, and proves that you don’t need angel wings, vampire fangs or werewolf fur to fall in love.
The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Once there was a town that made a deal. The deal was made when the town was just a village, a hamlet, a collection of hovels. Now the town is a middle class suburb called Gentry. But the deal still holds. In exchange for prosperity and health, the town agrees not to notice that every seven years, one of their children disappears and is replaced by a sickly thing that is not human and doesn’t live for long. “We take for granted that sometimes you lose a child. And sometimes everyone else gets hit by the recession. Everyone else’s unemployment skyrockets…but not ours. Never ours because if you feed the ground, the ground feeds you back.” Except one time, one of them lives to grow up. Mackie knows he’s different, but his friends and family love him anyway. The problem is, he can’t love himself, not when he knows what he is. Not when he knows who’s rightful place he took. A human boy who’s blood was spilled so he could live. Now Mackie has the chance to save another small soul that will be sacrificed so the town can prosper. But with friends and family in both worlds, is he strong enough to make the ultimate choice that will decide the future of Gentry? Haunting and melancholy, this debut horror novel is full of small, perfect moments of exquisite foreboding that almost made me hum with pleasure (you know if you read this blog regularly how much I love me some scaretasticness) I wish I could tell you more, but I’m afraid of giving away the sick little secrets at the rotten heart of this darkly gorgeous gem. I did feel like newbie author Brenna Yovanoff pulled a few punches at the end when it came to a gruesome character called The Cutter, but other than that, I was wholly satisfied. And while I saw interesting elements of books like The Last Days
Four Eyes, vol. 1: Forged in Flame by Joe Kelly and Max Fiumara
It’s 1934 in New York City. The country is in the grips of the worst economic depression anyone has ever seen, and everyone is out of work. Enrico’s family is lucky. His father has a steady job providing the city’s thriving illegal underground dragon fighting operation with eggs that trainers grow into dueling monsters for men to bet and lose their hard earned wages on. But when his father comes to a fiery end plying his dangerous trade, Enrico knows he must step up and become the head of his household. That means convincing organized crime boss Christoforo Boccioni that he can take his parent’s place as a stealth dragon egg stealer. Reluctantly, Boccioni lets Enrico take part in a hunt, which is both the most exhilarating and terrifying experience of his short life. He begins to understand his late father’s calling to the brutal business, and what he finds deep in the dragon’s lair has four eyes, two wings and will decide his destiny. This stunningly original GN had me mesmerized from the very first fiery page. I couldn’t have been more tickled by the idea of an alternative Depression-Era New York where instead of cock fights there were wyrm battles. Poor immigrants try to make a buck diving into caves looking for eggs, while rich men take their prizes and let them lose their lives to angry dragon mamas? I’m in! The inky black artwork, richly framed in flame red and deep methane blue, is lush, with several double page spreads that give a bloody panoramic view of the dragon fights and the nightmare descents into the caves. My only complaint is that this collection of issues 1-4 of Four Eyes is only the beginning of Enrico’s dark adventure. I can’t wait to see where the dragon fighting biz takes him next!
Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel
It’s 1973 and Ben Tomlin is thirteen-years-old when his parents bring home his new baby brother, Zan. Like most babies, Zan needs baby food and diapers, and can throw a serious tantrum when things don’t go his way. But unlike most babies, Zan’s tantrums can be epic and may involve biting that requires stitches. Because Ben’s new little brother isn’t a human baby but a baby chimpanzee. Ben’s parents are behavioral scientists trying to discover if human/chimp communication is possible through the use of American Sign Language. To test their hypothesis, they will cross-foster a chimp in their human family, raising him as their own and teaching him sign language. There’s only one problem. No one asked Ben if he wanted a half-chimp brother. At first he’s just creeped out by the whole idea, but then Zan begins to win him over with his ridiculous antics, sweet personality and voracious ability to learn. Soon it really IS like Zan is just another member of the family, albeit a messy, loud, needy one. So when the experiment takes a unexpected turn and Zan’s continued placement in his home is questioned, Ben isn’t able to turn off his feelings for the chimp like his rational, science-minded dad. He’ll do whatever it takes to protect his little brother—even if it means breaking the law or tearing his family apart.
What’s so gor-ge-oso about this book is how Kenneth Oppel parallels Zan’s physical and mental development with the growth of Ben’s emotional maturity. As Zan is taught to be human, Ben begins to see how adolescence and high school are very much like a wild jungle, where he will have to learn how to be a dominant male (making many hilarious mistakes along the way) if he wants to survive. And as Zan begins to act out against his human family, making his chimp side known, Ben begins to chafe against the absolute rules of his strict father, making his emerging young manhood known. Everyone in the novel is a fully realized character, from Ben and Zan, to Peter, the hippie grad student who Zan loves best and Ben’s mom, a scientist with a soft heart who provides the book’s emotional and moral center. You guys, I just cried through the whole second half of this book, it was so moving. (That may want to make you read it more or less, depending on whether or not you are as big of a mush as me:) I couldn’t believe how attached I grew to these fictional characters. I didn’t want the story to end, and wanted to understand where Oppel’s inspiration came from. So I did a little digging and think that Oppel probably based Zan’s story on this true story of a chimp named Washoe who was cross fostered and taught ASL in the late 1960’s. If given even half a chance, this fantastically crafted tale of what it means to be human will swing into your heart to stay.
Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson
Fifteen-year-old Curzon Smith, freed slave and former traveling companion of the stubborn Miss Isabel Finch, gets himself in quite a fix when he saves the life of a Patriot boy soldier during the fall of 1777. The result of that one selfless act causes him to become a member of the 16th Massachusetts regiment of the Continental Army on the eve of what is to be one of the most grueling experiences of the Revolutionary War: Valley Forge. But what his stalwart companions don’t know is that the terms of Curzon’s freedom aren’t as cut and dried as they seem. And when his former master turns up at Valley Forge, Curzon will need his lost angel Isabel to give him the courage to take back his freedom and once again make it his own. (If I sound a bit cagey, I don’t want to give too much away, as this wonderfully twisty-turny tale is full of juicy surprises of both the good and bad variety.) This stand-alone sequel to Chains can be read either before or after Isabel’s story, but I strongly suggest reading both. Teen peeps, let me be clear: I really like Chains. But I LOVE Forge. I don’t know if it’s Curzon’s perfectly executed teen voice, or Anderson’s easy prose that makes the history go down like buttah, or a magical combination of both, but Curzon has my heart as much as Isabel has his.
The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier
Ahoy, maties! If you’re looking for a top notch adventure with despicable pirates, clever girls, courageous dudes, brave dogs, horrifying sea monsters and cursed skulls, well, you’ve come to the right place. Aaron Renier of Spiral-Bound
The Monstrumologist: The Curse of the Wendigo by Rick Yancey
In this decadently disturbing second act, young Will Henry accompanies his guardian Dr. Pellinore Warthrop to the wilds of Canada to perform an emergency rescue. The casualty is Dr. Warthop’s close friend and colleague John Chanler, a fellow monstrumologist who was always a bit more adventurous and lighthearted than Warthrop. But that reputation has come back to haunt him, as he set out determined to trap a soul sucking creature called the Wendigo that most monstrumologists, including Warthrop, believe is a complete and total myth, and instead became its victim. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence (namely John Chanler’s emaciated frame and drooling stare) Warthrop refuses to believe that John has become possessed by the Wendigo, a creature that defies definition: “There is no name for it; it has no human symbol. It is old and its memory is long. It knew the world before we named it. It knows everything. It knows me and it knows you.” After a nightmare journey where the doctor manages to get himself, John and Will Henry out of the wilderness and back to John’s hometown of New York, Warthrop tries to persuade his esteemed colleagues at their annual Monstrumologist convention that the Wendigo is not real. But his arguments fall on deaf ears when John disappears–and the killing begins. Squee! Once again I was gripped with terror as Yancey wove his gruesome magic and drew me deeper into the dark world of Will Henry and his tormented mentor Warthrop. This series not only satisfies my cheap morbid love of gore, but is also full of psychological and ethical turmoil that causes me to pause and reflect even as the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up and start to boogie. The rich characterizations and fabulously realized historical setting (at one point, famous muckraker Jacob Riis shows up to lend a hand to the monstrumologists) make this oh so much more than a quick scary read. I know some of you will come for the gore, but I encourage you to stay for the story, which this time around contains even more food for thought about the nature of love, obsession and jealousy.