The story isn’t boring, but the writing and main character are. At the same time, when I managed to find my way through the truly overwritten, overdone prose, the story itself is very interesting. So, you could say this book was boring, because it was. I assume The Monstrumologist is supposed to be a fast-paced monster story, but it isn’t, because we’re often stuck with Will Henry’s overlong philosophizing (because, again, he’s 12 years old and doesn’t really do anything important). It doesn’t ring true at all, and just bogs down the entire story. Yancey writes in a very purple faux-Victorian style that’s cloying and oppressive. On top of a protagonist who doesn’t do anything, we have a book that doesn’t seem to go anywhere until well past the halfway point. The star of The Monstrumologist is most certainly the monstrumologist himself, so having Will Henry as the protagonist at all was mystifying. Mostly, Will Henry just sits around and does whatever this scientist dude tells him to do, so I didn’t personally find him to be interesting at all. Our protagonist is William James Henry, orphaned at 12 years old and now living with a possibly sociopathic scientist whose specialty is monsters. More mystifying, this very open-and-shut book has three (count them, three) sequels. It’s slow, overwritten, and doesn’t have the most proactive protagonist. The problem is that for all the gore, The Monstrumologist isn’t all that exciting, really. The Monstrumologist is the first stunning gothic adventure in a series that combines the spirit of HP Lovecraft with the storytelling ability of Rick Riorden.In this Printz Honor book, Rick Yancey delivers a gory teen monster-hunter novel that’s, well…gory’s about all I can say, because it’s really gory. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatenning to overtake and consume our world before it is too late. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus-a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest-and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will's world is about to change forever.

In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. But he is dead now and has been for nearly ninety years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets.

Rick yancey the monstrumologist series