Book Review: The Monstrumologist

I have a streak of the morbid in me. When I was little, I liked dead things: mummies (real ones), dinosaurs, and vampires, although maybe not in that order. For years I would go to the library and devour anything about the amazing child mummies of Sicily who, 100 years later, look only recently deceased, or a collection of legends about Russian vampires that made their victims dance until dawn.

Now that I am older, I still like things that are slightly gory or ghoulish, even though most of the time it only amounts to horror stories and gothic novels. My latest foray was a book I plucked off the shelf at the library: The Monstrumologist, by Rick Yancy. A brief synopsis: Will Henry, a 12 year-old orphan, is adopted by a noted scientist of monstrumology, the study of monsters. When a mysterious package is delivered late one night at the good doctor's doorstep, Will is plunged into a waking nightmare resulting in a mad chase across New England of the 1800's. Vague, I know, but part of the enjoyment of the book is the absolute shock factor of the gristly events that unfold. When I tell you that this book is a Lovecraftian bloodbath, I'm not joking. The violence isn't gratuitous, rather, it moves the story along and forces the reader to consider certain disconcerting truths about human nature. Simply put, this isn't a book about violence, but rather, a book about the reactions of people to violence.