Chuck Wendig has been on my reading list many times with novels such as Black River Orchard, but this time he found his way onto the list with a middle grade horror novel, Monster Movie!, and man was I pleasantly surprised.
Ethan Pitowski is afraid of everything. Luckily, his best friends don’t mind, and when their entire class gets invited to watch a long-buried horror movie at the most popular boy in school’s house, Ethan’s friends encourage him to join in the fun. But when the “scariest movie ever made” reveals itself to be not just a movie about a monster, but a movie that is a monster, only a terrified Ethan escapes its clutches. Now he must find a way to stop the monster and save his friends (and also, um, get their heads back).
Chuck Wendig is a New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller. His novels have given people chills, thrillers and horrible nightmares for many years. Additionally, us Star Wars fans have been graced with a number of novels based in a galaxy far, far away. When we stumbled across his latest middle grade horror novel I was confused and surprised, but also excited. I was unaware of his other similar level novels (Dust & Grim), so a middle grade horror was something that seemed off to me, but I am so glad I took the opportunity to read it.
Wendig was able to balance kid-friendly horror, humor and a chilling story to craft a spooky tale with heart just in time for the Halloween season. Monster Movie! has so much going for it and the fact that any middle grade student to senior citizen can get something from this novel is a thing of beauty. Monster Movie! features a tale about anxiety, friendship, and finding you voice in and inner strength while keeping us on edge with some clean spooky horror.
Balancing horror in the middle grade level can be difficult. Not all authors can do what R.L. Stine was able to make his name doing with Goosebumps, but every once in a while a talent writer comes along and gives it a go and man did Wendig do just that. The things that scare us the most are those horrors underlying in everyday life. Younger readers have far less years to pull from, but one thing they can relate to is a television or something on this tv scaring us. But what if the tv itself was the horror. Wendig does a wonderful job using these fears to push middle grade horror right to the edge without going over.
I had the pleasure to listen to the Monster Movie! audiobook. The narration by Dan Bittner is casual, wonderfully paced, and gave me chills as moments. Bittner voices the story being told by Wendig nearly perfect. When cracking open a book is not something easily done, like when doing the dishes or driving your car, listening to an audiobook can give you the ability to keep reading when a book is too good to put down. Bittner gave a voice to Ethan Pitowski and his classmates in such a wonderful way.
While Monster Movie! will not be for all readers, it is a perfect story for anyone looking for some good clean horror that won’t make you want to sleep with the lights on. Chuck Wendig blends horror, comedy, and everyday life of a middle grade student perfectly to give us a unique tale of suspense. Monster Movie! was the horror novel I needed to break myself from some of the other truly spine-chilling novels on the market today.
Monster Movie! hits bookstores everywhere on September 24, 2024 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Pre-order the audiobook on Libro.fm!
