Bumping Geese 18: Monster Blood II

 You people sicken me.

Blog readers only want one thing and it's fucking disgusting.

Well it's not happening. The monkey isn't dancing for your entertainment today. You'll have to get your sick kicks somewhere else.

And you want to know why? Just look at this!

This is what you want, isn't it, you sick freak!

Do you see that? Do you know what that says? Right there?

It says 'Monster Blood II'.

And yeah, I read it. I read the whole thing. Cover to cover. And no, I'm not going to tell you about it. I'm not going through this again. Do you remember the last time I read a 'Monster Blood' book? The first really bad Goosebumps book. And now here we are again and you want to know, you're just chomping at the bit for me to say "Yes, Evan Ross returns as the protagonist in this book and yes, he's still the absolute worst."

But I'm not doing that. You'll just have to live in the knowledge that I resisted. I was too strong. And you'll say "Please please tell me the plot?" Hoping I'll say something like "Set some months after the first, Evan Ross is settled in his new home in Atlanta and is at a new school and he tried to tell everybody about Monster Blood and they all thought he was crazy and nobody likes him and the bully Conan Barber - nicknamed Conan the Barbarian - is very dull and trite bully stereotype ever invented hates Evan almost as much as his teacher Mr Murphy and about half as much as I do."

But that's not happening. That's not how this goes. I'm on strike. So you don't get details. You don't get to know about Andy making a sudden, barely justified return to the story, or that she brings Monster Blood with her under the most contrived and half-assed circumstances, or that she feeds it to Mr Murphy's pet hamster Cuddles, or that this - despite being the cover of the book - doesn't happen until literally half way through the book and that before that, for an entire half the novel NOT A SINGLE FUCKING INTERESTING THING OCCURS IN THE PAGES OF THIS SPOOPY CHILDREN'S NOVEL.

And sure, if I told you any of that, you might understand my frustration. You'd say "It's okay, you've said enough. You don't need to go through this again." But it'd be lies, wouldn't it? You're so duplicitous. But I'm onto you. You'll smile and pat me on the back and say "There, there. That's okay. Let's talk about something else," but really you expect the dam to have broken by this point. Deep down in the black pit you have for a heart, you're hoping I'll say "No! No! I've started now, I might as well get it out!" and I'll tell you all about how Cuddles gets bigger, and Mr Murphy is angry and then excited and Evan wants to stop it and Andy thinks its funny and then Cuddles breaks free, gets bigger than a person, and tries to eat people, and Evan eats some Monster Blood, too, so he'll grow giant and then he wrestles Cuddles but Cuddles, the hamster, somehow out wrestles Evan.

So, no, I'm not playing into your hand. If I start now, if I tell you even a single thing about this book, it won't be long before I tell you that this terrible book has a terrible ending in which, when all seems lost, all the Monster Blood dries up and Evan and Cuddles pop back to normal size because THE MONSTER BLOOD REACHES ITS EXPERIATION DATE.

And maybe I'd remark that this twist - the one I'm not going to share with you - is a little funny, but requires you do not think about continuity at all, and isn't that just a massive implied insult to the reader?

So, you see, you might as well go about your day. You don't get your sick kicks, today. I'm not going to tell you a single thing about this book. You want to know so badly? Go read it yourself. Go write your own blog. You can call it 'Gumping Beese' or something. You can suffer for the cheers of strangers. And then, maybe you can use it as an opportunity to teach a literary or philosophical concept like, fuck, I don't know.

Dramatic irony.

You know dramatic irony? The literary technique in which the audience is granted more information than a character in the text. For example, a character might insist that they will not do a thing and remain stubborn in their refusal, but you as the audience, have the knowledge that the character is unwittingly doing all those very things they have sworn not to do. This would be an example of dramatic irony used for comedy, but the same basic idea could be used for horror or suspense or tragedy.

But that's up to you. Because I'm not doing it. I'm not doing any of it. That's it. I'm done. Maybe I'll tell you about the next one, but I will take the details of 'Monster Blood II' with me to the grave.