Published: September 22, 2009 by Simon Schuster
Page Count: 434
Format: Book 1 of 4, Complete
Genre: Thriller, Young Adult, Historical, Horror
My Rating: ★★★★★
Link to Buy

Picture this: Mary Shelley, Stephen King, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle become free from the bounds of time and get together to write an epic series. The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey is, I believe, the result.

“‘Yes, my dear child, he would undoubtedly tell a terrified toddler tremulously seeking succor, monsters are real. I happen to have one hanging in my basement.”

Will Henry is a young orphaned boy taken in as an assistant by the infamous Dr. Pellinore Warthrop. Generally disliked by everyone, Warthrop is not your normal doctor, but a scholar of the tales your parents scare you with as a child, the things that go bump in the night. I’m not talking Dracula, Gremlins, or Frankenstein, but gruesome, murderous creatures that chill you to your bones through Yancey’s masterful, gothic tales.

This unnerving series is told by an elderly Will Henry reflecting on his service of the great doctor in the form of diaries presented as truth the world is ignorant of. In the first installment, Dr. Warthrop and his trusty assistant face a terrifying colony of Anthropophagi that I cannot begin to describe in a way that does justice to the horror of picturing this creature merely through Yancey’s frequent, masterful, appalling descriptions. “Though it lacked a head, the Anthropophagus was not missing a mouth. Or teeth. The orifice was shaped like a shark’s, and the teeth were equally sharklike: triangular, serrated, and milky white, arranged in rows that marched toward the front of the mouth from the inner, unseen cavity of its throat. The mouth itself lay just below the enormous muscular chest, in the region between the pectorals and the groin.” And that’s only the mouth, not even the rest of the 7-foot tall creature.

Now that I’ve hopefully caught your attention, I need to mention the wonderfully complex characters. At only twelve, Will Henry has seen more than his fair share of the gruesome side of this world. He is young, but not naive, fearful, but strong, and violently loyal to a man who doesn’t deserve it. The reader sympathizes with Will and struggles with the dilemma of wanting him to live a normal, safe life and wanting him to stay with the doctor and go on the adventures he loves. Dr. Pellinore Warthrop is a very Sherlock Holmes-esque character: a brilliant man, but severely lacking in people skills and dependent on Will Henry to function. Sometimes working for days on end, eating nothing, it’s safe to say Warthrop has a self-destructive side. He hardly every shows it, but Warthrop does in fact have a heart, and he cares deeply for the boy.

There is also a beautiful, dark depth to these tales as moral issues are often pondered, and you as the reader are invited to make your own decision. Just how far can a man go before he himself becomes a monster? This book will draw you in with its captivatingly gothic ambiance and it will keep you with Yancey’s powerful wordchoice and thought-provoking characters.

“‘We are slaves, all of us… Some are slaves to fear. Others are slaves to reason– or base desire. It is our lot to be slaves… and the question must be to what shall we owe our indenture? Will it be to truth or to falsehood, hope or despair, light or darkness? I choose to serve the light, even though that bondage often lies in darkness.'”

Keep reading,

Elizabeth