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#29 "Evan's growing up way too fast!"
Evan is back again with another terrifying Monster Blood adventure. This time he's babysitting his little cousin Kermit who happens to love experimenting with chemicals. He's also a very bratty child and likes to play jokes on Evan and his friend Andy. But Andy wants to get back at Kermit. She happened to find a container of monster blood that she plans on slipping into one of his mixtures. Everything's all fun and games until somebody swallows the Monster Blood! ( )

I don't think people give [a: R.L. Stine|13730|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1194380070p2/13730.jpg] enough credit for his ability to write truly obnoxious, horrendous, unforgivable children. No other author, except perhaps for [a: V.C. Andrews|1353301|V.C. Andrews|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1413410493p2/1353301.jpg] or whoever wrote Babadook has made me want to punch a kid as much as [a: R.L. Stine|13730|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1194380070p2/13730.jpg]. No Goosebump book, apart from [b: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom|125589|The Cuckoo Clock of Doom (Goosebumps, #28)|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328867782s/125589.jpg|3089417] and possibly [b: Bad Hare Day|125590|Bad Hare Day (Goosebumps, #41)|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328868162s/125590.jpg|1964290] created a despicable, obnoxious, horrifyingly irredeemable child as [b: Monster Blood III|125617|Monster Blood III (Goosebumps, #29)|R.L. Stine|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1328866049s/125617.jpg|120982]. Kermit, yes his name is Kermit, is quite possibly the worst child ever put to a page.

Why. The true monster isn't the monster blood, it isn't the way it makes people grow, and grow, and grow. It isn't Evan's utter stupidity and his disbelief that anyone would think he is lying when he says it exists. No, the monster is Kermit. The kid obsessed with chemistry, given access to chemicals, and thinking the world owes him everything.

I hope you blow yourself up, Kermit, because you're terrible. Bad things should happen to you, you sniveling, conniving bastard.

I hated every second of this book. Ugh. ( )

## Evan's growing up way too fast!

Even though Monster Blood(TM) is one of the defining monsters from the Goosebumps series, the stories built around them have never felt particularly strong. Monster Blood is just too nebulously powerful. It makes things grow; hungers for whoever gets in its way; makes things bad while toeing the line of contradicting itself. It doesn't help that Evan, the hero in the early Monster Blood books, is just not very interesting.

[N.B. This review includes images, and was formatted for my site, dendrobibliography -- located here.]

His defining characteristic seems to be complaining about everything. Boooooring. And he's back to lead this third adventure around the impossible Monster Blood goopy goop, even though he once again spends the entire story fighting to stay out of the adventure. It would have been better to focus the story around one of Evan's more interesting cousins, either Andy or Kermit.

His cousin Kermit is awful -- awful -- and consistently gets away with blaming his own mischief on Evan. He's a brat. But he's a very smart brat, spending his freetime on chemistry experiments. Evan and his happy-go-lucky better cousin, Andy, hatch a plot to scare Kermit by injecting Monster Blood into his experiments. The intent is to give him something he can't be in control of, and, unfortunately, no one's able to control the joke. Evan eats some of the Monster Blood by accident, and quickly finds himself a giant around town: He gets even -- nonviolently -- with the local bully; he helps unhook kids' kite from a tree; he shows off his giant (accidental) basketball skills; and he runs from cops and firemen who are absolutely convinced he's a space alien.

It was OK. Easily the weakest of the first three Monster Blood tales. The main conflict was Evan's relationship with his cousin Kermit, and the story rarely leaves that conflict or Evan's boring observations. Because of that, it felt a bit more narrow than the preceding stories.

## "You were looking at my yard. That's trespassing," Conan accused. He leaped down from the high fence. He was big and very athletic. His hobby was leaping over kids he had just pounded into the ground.

R.L. Stine's Goosebumps (1992–1997):
#28 The Cuckoo Clock of Doom | #30 It Came from Beneath the Sink! ( )

Goosebumps. This is the series that kept me reading through my childhood. More than any other series, Goosebumps kept me interested in reading, and R.L. Stein is a wonderful children's writer. I applaud his efforts, and can't express enough my gratitude for the series. ( )