R. L. Stine

Evan Ross can't stop thinking about Monster Blood and what happened last summer. It was so horrible. So terrifying. Too bad Evan's science teacher doesn't believe him. Now he's stuck cleaning out the hamster's cage as punishment for making up stories. Then Evan's friend Andy comes to town, and things go from bad to worse. Because Andy's got a present for Evan. It's green and slimy and its starting to grow...

Monster Blood II (Goosebumps #18)

When a shiny blue wet creature slithers out of a can of Monster Blood, Evan, realizing that it is slime time again, is up to his sneakers in a creepy mess. Original.

Monster Blood IV

Colton Ray

Just a bore. I try to read through even the Goosebumps books I'm not all that interested in; however, I just found myself skimming this book after the first ten pages. The characters are annoying and the story takes pages to describe the most pointless things, which drags out what should have been a pretty straightforward plot. Honestly, I couldn't believe how little happened over the 28 chapters. The plot isn't quite as recycled as the previous Monster Bloods, but it still failed to engage. This is the last book in the series and Goosebumps should have gone out with something higher quality than this snore-fest. I'd heard bad things about this book, but I still gave it a fair shot. It's one of the four books that didn't get a reprint, so it's a little more rare. That said, I can't recommend this. Just... nah.

When Evan and Andy find a dusty can labeled "Monster Blood" in weird Aunt Kathryn's house, they make the mistake of opening it.

Monster Blood

Really didn't care for this one. 

As a rule, the early Goosebumps books were the best, but this is the exception to that rule. I never read the Monster Blood books as a kid because they just looked boring as hell. My kid self was right. 

This is a book about a boy finding some green goo and playing with it until it starts to grow. This takes up about 90% of the book. The last 10% is an ending so illogical, so out of left field, so ridiculous, that it's just kind of funny. It's completely out of line with the rest of the book, and raises more questions than it answers. How this book spawned three more sequels is beyond me. 

While I don't expect these books to hold up particularly well as an adult, there are still plenty that I legitimately enjoyed reading and that are just plain good kid's books. This is a poor excuse for a Goosebumps book and is highly overrated. Unless you're aiming to read all of them (like me) skip!

In the sequel to "Monster Blood," Evan Ross has another terrifying experience when the scary green glob he discovered the previous summer turns a classroom hamster into a huge rodent with teeth.

Monster Blood II

Monster Blood II is another slog with whiny protagonist Evan. I found the first Monster Blood book to be a boring, unevenly-paced mess, but it did have a bit of atmosphere, with Evan moving in with his creepy deaf aunt in her old house. 

The sequel loses all of that atmosphere in favor of the cheap gimmick of having a hamster grow extremely large and not really do much. Once again, the first half of the book is made up of useless scenes that don't matter, which are then wrapped up with an unsatisfying conclusion and a total cop-out of an ending. 

While not an abomination deserving of one star, this is the kind of Goosebumps book (distinctly below average, yet never reaching the depths of memorably-bad) that is so forgettable I think R.L. Stine forgot about before he finished writing it.

Briar's Reviews

Another spooky book by the king of spooks himself! I love the nostalgia of going back to the Goosebumps books. Honestly, it's such a nice change up to disappear into my childhood classics and see what I remember and what ones I actually paid attention to when reading.

This book is a delightful sequel to Monster Blood. We follow Evan yet again as he has to deal with the pesky monster blood, and it almost ruins his reputation at his brand new school. As pictured on the cover, the class hamster may end up getting too close to the Monster Blood...

I found this book to be a delightfully fun read! It had great jump scares, twists and turns I didn't see coming, and it was super engaging. Sure, it is a wee bit childish but this book is made for middle graders, not adults like myself. I can see why I loved it so much back in the day.

Four out of five stars!

Soon after he purchases a dusty can of monster blood at the funky old toy store near his great-aunt's house, Evan begins to notice some strange things happening to the people around him.

Wynter

When you are a prolific author some of the stuff you churn out on schedule just comes out half undone. Maybe Stine had a deadline and a wicked case of writer’s block. He probably pulled an all-nighter to just put something on paper and to appease the hungry editors (hey, that’s not a bad Goosebumps concept), and Monster Blood was born. Just okay, if forgettable tale with very little spookiness. Kids like gross, oozing blobs of goo, I guess, so it might just fly by a certain audience.

Evan visits an eerie old toy store and buys a dusty can of Monster Blood. But then he notices something weird about the slimy green ooze. It keeps growing. And growing. And growing. And all that growing has given the Monster Blood a monstrous appetite...

Maggie Gordon

Monster Blood is one of the most well-known and popular Goosebumps story lines, and it has several sequels that follow this book. However, it is certainly not one of my favourite stories of the series. This particular novel introduces readers to Evan and Andy. Evan’s parents are off looking for a house in a new city, so he is left to stay with his strange, deaf aunt Kathryn. When wandering about town trying to waste time, he meets Andy, a local who takes him to her favourite toy store. The shop is an eclectic mess of strange, old items, and Evan finds a can of monster blood in a backroom. Both the shopkeeper and his aunt give him understated warnings about the product, but Evans just thinks it’s a fun pile of goop to bounce around. However, the monster blood starts growing out of control, and Evans discovers that his new toy was cursed by a witch that was controlling Aunt Kathryn. Using the monster blood against her, the witch is defeated. 

So, where to start with this one? Sometimes the plots of Goosebumps novels are pretty scarce, but this one is basically non-existent. First, we have a mysterious substance that an old toy keeper doesn’t want to sell, making readers think that the monster blood is ominous on its own. However, then we have the introduction of the witch near the end of the book who is supposedly responsible for all of this trouble because she is evil for the sake of being evil. The monster blood mythos would have been far more interesting had it just stuck with the strange, but magical toy explanation as the witch conflict was weak and unconnected to the rest of the plot. The book is also very repetitive, and many of the conflicts showcased are not particularly interesting or scary. Despite it being one of the central stories of the Goosebumps series, I am not a fan of Monster Blood.

I wasn’t a fan of the first Monster Blood, and this second addition to the plot didn’t change my opinion. Monster Blood II starts by showing how Evan is struggling socially after moving to Atlanta. He’s been labelled that crazy new kid after trying to tell everyone about monster blood, and he’s even caught the attention of the local bully. However, then Andy shows up with the surprising announcement that there is still some monster blood left! Though the two try to responsibly get rid of it, shenanigans occur, and eventually Andy feeds some to the class hamster who grows to an enormous size and causes havoc in the school. Evan eats some monster blood to order to stop the building sized rodent, but the fight only ends when the expiry date on the monster blood passes, and the two return to normal.

This story bugs me for a few reasons. First of all, we have the bully who is a bully because our story needs one. These are never interesting characters, and the conflicts they bring are super boring. Secondly, there are several plot holes about monster blood that make me twitch. In the first story, when the witch died, her spells died with her, so why exactly is the monster blood still growing? Readers were told that it was her who put a spell on the gunk, so why is the book assuming that monster blood is magical on its own now? And why is the monster blood that Andy receives in the last few pages from Europe also magical? Plus, why is it that no one seemed all that concerned that the hamster and Evans blew up in size, and then mysteriously shrank again. Shouldn’t someone be questioning that? Strange things happen in Goosebumps all the time, but generally adults don’t really believe that paranormal occurrences are real. This idea that strange and spooky occurrences aren’t normal is what makes these novels scary and suspenseful, so having everyone shrug off a giant hamster seems misplaced. Overall, Monster Blood II was definitely not a favourite of mine, and I’m not looking forward to having to read two more of them!

When Evan swallows Monster Blood and turns into a hulking giant, he must find an antidote or spend the rest of his life trying not to step on his friends.

Monster Blood III

Monster Blood is one of the central Goosebumps mythos, which is unfortunate because I hate these stories. Monster Blood 1 was incoherent, Monster Blood 2 was implausible beyond even the normally large levels of suspension of disbelief one must apply when reading these books, and Monster Blood 3 makes me twitch at how unlikeable and stupid the characters are. 

Evan is babysitting his younger cousin Kermit, who not only has a dreadful name, but is completing with the little sister from Cuckoo Clock of Doom for worst tiny sociopath ever. Kermit likes to mix up chemical concoctions in his basement and test them on his cousin or dog. When things inevitably go wrong, he blamed everything on Evan who is seemingly incapable of telling adults what really happened. (Also, the kid tests chemicals on people UNKNOWINGLY. This child has serious issues). Evan and Andy decide to get back at Kermit by using, what else, Monster Blood! Because that worked so well in the first two books.

Unsurprisingly, the monster blood prank results in disaster when Evan accidentally eats some and grows super huge. But hey, Kermit will just make up some new chemical potions to shrink him! 

I hated this story because Evan and Andy just can't seem to get it through their heads that they shouldn't touch the weird evil goo anymore, even though they both have nightmares about what it's done in their lives. Also, Kermit, despite being a loathsome child, is never actually in trouble for the extremely inappropriate things he does. Tara is erased from time, but Kermit just gets to keep on being terrible? Well, Evan and Andy never learn anything so I guess that's fitting with this story line... 

Long review short, the characters in Monster Blood 3 are irritating, the action is bizarre and doesn't make sense, and the suspense that was present in the first story has been watered down substantially. I have one more of these to go? Delightful...

I did it! I read all 62 of the original Goosebumps! I still have a huge chunk of reviews to get through, but I wanted to touch on this last book and some final thoughts about the series as a whole while it is still all fresh in my mind.

Goosebumps were never meant to be literary masterpieces. They are grocery store novels with often questionable prose, but they did get kids reading when I was little. On the other hand, Stine produced some rather terrible novels, and Goosebumps featured a lot of frustrating tropes. So how better to celebrate the end of the series then by trying to fit as many of the terrible aspects of the series into the very last novel!

I haven't liked a single one of the Monster Blood books, and this last addition did not break this pattern. Evan's parents have to go to a place for reasons, so they leave him with his aunt who doesn't notice that her son Kermit is a blossoming sociopath (absent AND neglectful parents!). Kermit is his usual annoying self, getting his neighbour to beat up Evan and other such innocent childlike activities (tiny sociopath that is not tolerable to read about at all). At some point, Andy shows up with a NEW tube of Monster Blood that she thinks would be great to use to get revenge on Kermit (reused plots that didn't work the first time). Of course things go wrong, the new Monster Blood gets out, and the kids discover that this time it is blue and takes the form of a cute blood creature. Until it drinks water, explodes, and reforms into two slightly meaner creatures. Cue some chaos where the monsters multiply exponentially. Aunt character comes out and blames Evan for everything while Kermit goes off to hide the creatures... in a bathroom. By the morning of course the monsters are out of control. The kids try to tell Kermit's mom, but she ignores them because she's busy making hot sauce, and the kids then accidentally set the monsters lose (and yet no one seems overly concerned that there are blue monsters wandering about. Or track it back to the kids. WTF). Blahblah stuff happens, monsters destroyed, they were a military experiment, why is this even Monster Blood? Didn't this all start with a witch?

Evan and Andy continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results (yeah, learning!). This time the monster blood is less believable than previous, which I didn't think was possible. Kermit's mom is neglectful and willfully blind to the point that Children's Aid should be called. Conner exists to be a mindless bully. Overall, this was a terrible book and a horrible way to end the series. Oh well, on to books for adults again!