Gooseblog: Goosebumps #18: Monster Blood II

And now we reach the bane of Goosebumps. The one thing that I felt really hurts it in the long run. The sequel books. More often than now, sequels for books that really never needed sequels to begin with. That was the case especially with Monster Blood, which was a weak book that wrapped itself up well enough by the end. So I hope you enjoy sitting through a book where kids who went through mortal peril come out of it not learning a damn thing. It's Monster Blood II AKA The Quest For More Money.

COVER STORY

I have a love/hate with this one. Again, it's a well done piece of art by Jacobus which doesn't waste any space. And I guess he manages to do the unenviable task of trying to make a hamster look scary with it's menacing face and its massive frame that tears through the cage, not to mention the oozing monster blood off the desk. But that's just kind of it. It's trying to make a hamster look scary.

This little guy. Trying to make this look scary. I dunno, I just laugh more than get any dark thoughts. Add in some unnecessary warping and a checkerboard pattern ceiling that annoys me for some unknown reason and you have a cover that, while iconic and well drawn, doesn't make me super ready to check this one out. But, onward we ride.

STORY

Oh, hey. Look who it is. It's Evan Ross again. And we're reintroduced to Evan with him dreaming about Trigger growing into a giant again. As if to remind the audience "this happened last book, remember?" He wakes up in science class, and is punished by his teacher Mr. Murphy, to stay after school to clean the hamster cage that belongs to the class hamster Cuddles. Evan instead grabs Cuddles and chucks him out the window. Because it wouldn't be Jovial Bob without some animal abuse. But it turns out that was just a dream too. Yep, we're opening with a double whammy of dream sequences, which isn't even original because they had Evan do a double nightmare in the middle of the first Monster Blood.

Evan and his family have moved to Atlanta for a while now and has been trying to get adjusted, but he's still not making any friends. He is however the favorite victim of the school bully named Conan Barber. That's kind of a bitchin' name. He tells Evan to punch him, which of course gets Evan in trouble. So, at least he's a clever bully. Doesn't hurt that Evan's a wimp and his punches suck. Evan's ineptness has no bounds as when he actually does have to take care of Cuddles, he loses the hamster and has a hard time trying to get it back. And I mean it gets to the point that Cuddles leaps out the science class window and Evan has to chase it all over the schoolyard. I mean wow, he was dumb in the first book, but wowsers.

Eventually it's Conan that gets a hold of Cuddles. Since he's still the book's main antagonist, he forces Evan to embarrass himself by singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. I mean, I guess that's humiliating, but hey, if you put some actual effort into it, it doesn't sound that bad a situation. But before Evan is forced into show tunes mode, Mr. Murphy arrives. Conan again gets Evan in trouble (which is actually the truth this time). Evan doesn't have a friend in the world to help him out. But that changes for the sake of plot convenience as Andy shows up. It turns out that her family were sent overseas for some unexplained reason, so she's moved to Atlanta with her aunt and uncle for the year. Sadly, she still isn't going around calling everything stupid. Well, except for Evan. She's not wrong, I'll say that much.


They reminisce about the whole incident over the summer involving the monster blood, and how horrible the situation was. I mean, it was pretty traumatic so I could understand why these kids would never want to mess with that stuff ever ag-Andy brought some monster blood with her, didn't she?

*Sigh* Dammit.

So yeah, despite the fact that these two kids know the dangers of monster blood. How it grew and overflowed, how it turned Trigger into a giant, how it became sentient and tried to eat them, and oh yeah, HOW IT VANISHED AT THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK, Andy still has some with her, and is just happy to show it to Evan, as if this was all no big thing. Do you see yet why I don't like the idea of sequel books yet? Okay, so technically Andy only brought the can, but shocker of shockers! There's actually monster blood inside. It's almost like this was a bad idea. They think that maybe if they show the monster blood to everyone at school, they'll believe them. Or, you could just have tried to ignore the whole thing and moved on, but again, sequel logic. But then Andy thinks "hey, how about we feed it to Conan and he'll grow like a hippo!"

All right, I'm ready to tap out of this stupid book already! So, let me get this straight? We have a bully problem, so let's try to solve that by making the bully bigger, and to do so, using the very substance that you two were frightened of in the last book? I can't be the only one who thinks this is absolutely the stupidest thing I've heard yet in these books. Also, why is Andy suddenly this massive pusher for using Monster Blood, especially when she knows that Evan's still traumatized? Oh right, because she's less of a character in this one and more of a plot convenience machine. Despite Andy's insipid idea, Evan tells her that they should just leave the monster blood alone. So they opt to bury it in Evan's backyard.

After Evan talks to his artist dad for a bit (who created a wheel sculpture that I'm sure in no way will play into the plot), Evan later goes to basketball practice, only to again get murked by Conan and Mr. Murphy. Evan, finally sick of being everyone's whipping boy is desperate. So Andy says that we should get back at Mr. Murphy by, of course, feeding Cuddles some monster blood. And Evan, as out of damns as I am at this point is like "yeah, fine, whatever. Let's just get this over with." But "Oh no! Conan stole the monster blood!" so we spend a few chapters with Evan and Andy trying to sneak into his house to get it back. After a harrowing rescue of the monster blood, Evan tells Andy to just take it and bury it. But Andy, being an asshole beyond comprehension, just goes and feeds it to Cuddles anyway. And this book is only like 60% done.

So Cuddles starts to grow at a rapid rate. First as big as a rabbit, then to the size of a small dog. Then ten feet tall. Again, this is a giant hamster, so for as scary as Jovial Bob is trying to make it sound, it's still a frigging hamster. Even Andy freaks out about how terrible this has gone. YOU SAW THIS HAPPEN TO TRIGGER IN THE LAST BOOK! WHAT MADE YOU THINK THIS WAS GOING TO BE ANY DIFFERENT?? Evan has an idea and takes his dad's wheel sculpture from earlier. He hopes that maybe they can get Cuddles to go inside it. Of course, the hamster just wrecks it instead. So, Evan's last plan is maybe he can stop the hamster if he eats some monster blood. I hate this book.

Evan goes to get the monster blood, but just like last time, it's so massive that it overtakes him. But Andy keeps him from being swallowed up, and Evan chokes down a good amount of the green goo. He grows giant and wrestles with the hamster until they suddenly just pop back to normal size. Turns out the monster blood was expired or something.

TWIST ENDING

So, everything goes back to normal. Nobody seems to bring up the giant boy and hamster, but I'm not that shocked. Evan even gets to bring Cuddles home with him. But that night, Evan sees Cuddles eating something green and slimy. Here we go again!

CONCLUSION

Monster Blood II is terrible. A horrendous sequel that manages to bring down the first book entirely. Kids aren't this stupid Stine. They know that if they're exposed to something as traumatic and deadly like the monster blood that they don't want to have to experience it again. And that's what the biggest problem with most of the Goosebumps sequels are. They're the same kids choosing to keep using the thing that put them in danger again because somewhere between books they completely lost any remaining logic that was swimming in their peanut brains. Evan is bad enough, but Andy loses any sense of rationality, just like "lol, lets use this stuff that nearly killed us for fun!" It's infuriating. You know what I was hoping? With Andy so Gung Ho about using the monster blood, that the big end twist would be that she was really Sarabeth all along getting revenge. Sure it would make no sense, but neither does the monster blood returning after vanishing at the end, so cut me some slack. I'm trying to find some way to clean this mess.

Taking that aside, the book is paced all right, but you're still dealing with idiot kids throughout the story. Hell, the book makes you side with Conan by the end. Evan deserves an eternity of ass kickings for everything in this book. I mean, they establish Conan as a bully and a liar, but Evan spends the book as a whining mope, even worse than his last appearance. Also the fact that this whole ending will serve no consequences to the rest of the series. And speaking of that, I don't know what compelled Stine to think these characters were memorable and likable enough to make a series of sorts with them. Because unfortunately there's still two more books about monster blood. Two books that still feature Evan and Andy messing with monster blood for inept reasons. And if you think I'm getting pissed about this book, wait until we get to Monster Blood III. I'm hot now, but that will get me thermonuclear. Monster Blood II gets an F.