The Monstrumologist - by Rick Yancey

Shop Indie BookstoresThe Lowdown:
Will Henry is an orphan in New England during the late nineteenth century.  He has nothing save his little hat and his "caretaker," if you can call him that, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop.  Will's life is like nothing you could ever imagine because Dr. Warthrop isn't your regular kind of doctor...he's a monstrumologist - one who studies and hunts monsters.  Don't go thinking about Monsters, Inc...or anything sweet right now, though...the kinds of things that the doctor studies are creatures you've never imagined.  Will's seen his fare share of oddities and gruesome creatures, but nothing could even begin to prepare Will for what he sees one night when a gravedigger arrives in the middle of the night.  What the gravedigger brings Dr. Warthrop is disgusting, sickening, sad, "a crime." 

I daresay your average adult would have fled the room in horror, run screaming up that stairs and out of the house, for what lay withing that burlap cocoon laid shame to all the platitudes and promises from a  thousand pulpits upon the nature of a just and loving God, of a balanced and kind universe, and the dignity of man.  A crime, the old grave-digger had called it.  Indeed there seemed no better word for it, though a crime requires a criminal...and who or what was the criminal in this case? (14)

Once Will and the doctor unwrap this "package," and view its contents, and answer this question, their worlds are not the same, for inside of the burlap covering is a creature that will reek havoc on everyone until it (or they...should I say) is stopped.  Will and Dr. Warthrop have to figure out not only how to stop these creatures but also why and how they came to be in New England to begin with.  This night takes Will and the reader on a journey they will never forget.

What I Liked:
This book made me almost run and hide, throw up, scream out loud...you get the picture.  This is one of the sickest (I mean that in all senses of that word) books I've read in a long time.  I loved the writing and the style.  It reminded me of Octavian Nothing in that I really felt that I was taken back right to a particular time and place in history.  The setting was perfect, and these characters are amazaing.  Will, Pellinore, and the wonderful fabulous and insane Jack Kearns were so fun to read about.  I wanted to run away from them and their monster-hunting tasks but also be a part of their strange monster-hunting team.  More than anything the extremely graphic and gory descriptions written by Yancey made me "ick" and "oh my lord" and "ugggghhh" aloud the entire time I read the book.  I was more into and freaked out by this book than I was by watching Paranormal Activity.  This creepy book was a wonderfully scary horror tale.  I loved every moment. 

Read this if...
You want to be grossed out.
You love horror stories and scary movies.
You want to be bad and hunt monsters.
You want to take a journey back in time.
You want a thrilling read.
You want to go on an adventure into graveyards and undergound scary places.
You want to see creatures that you've never even been able to imagine.