SWEDISH REVIEW

Jag är totalt hänförd och väldigt överraskad! Jag hoppas att Monstrumologen skulle vara angenäm att läsa, men då det är en bok som riktar sig till tonåringar och yngre vuxna så förväntade jag mig inte att den skulle vara så mörk. Jag hade fel. Totalt fel! Den är underbart härlig mörk, med kusliga varelser och absolut inget romantiskt triangeldrama så långt ögat kan nå. Det är faktiskt knappt några tjejer med i denna boken. Om man nu inte räknar de som blir uppätna eller nära på.

Jag gillar stilen på boken, med att berättelsen är en hopsättning av dagböcker som en man skriver samman efter att en äldre Will Henry har gått bort i en ovanligt hög ålder. Will Henry berättar en fantasifull berättelse om hur han tillsammans med doktorn Pellinore Warthrop som han är assistent för för jagade en huvudlös varelse med en mun i bröstkorgen i slutet av 1800-talet. Dessa anthropophager är så rysligt välbeskrivna att jag tackar min lyckliga stjärna att jag inte är lättskrämd. Faktum är att många scener är väldigt, väldigt spännande att läsa tack vare dessa rysliga monster som tycker om att äta människor.

Monstrumologen var mycket bra och jag kommer utan tvekan att läsa fortsättningen. Jag önskar verkligen att jag hade den till hands nu så jag kunde läsa den på direkten men tålamod är en dygd, har jag hört...

Tack till Modernista för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

I'm totally mesmerized and also a bit surprised! I had hoped that The Monstrumologist would be nice to read, but since this is a book that is labeled young adult did I not think it would be dark enough for me. I was wrong. Totally wrong! The story in this book was deliciously dark with creepy creatures and absolutely no love triangles. Actually, there are hardly any girls in this book, unless one counts the ones getting eaten or almost eaten.

The book style is also a thing with the book that I like very much with a story being put together from notebooks that a man put together after an old Will Henry has passed away. Will Henry got to be very, very old, amazingly so and his notebooks tell a fantastic tale of him together with Pellinore Warthrop the doctor he is working for chasing headless creatures with a mouth in the chest in the late 1900-century. The creatures; anthropophagi are so deliciously well described that I thank my lucky star that I'm not easily terrified. One of the reasons why this book is so great is for all the scenes with the monsters that likes to eat people.

The Monstrumologis is a marvelous book and I will, without a doubt, continue reading the series. I do wish I had the next book right now so that I could read it right now. But, alas, I do not. However, I have heard that patient is a virtue.

Thanks to Modernista for the review copy! ( )

SWEDISH REVIEW

Jag är totalt hänförd och väldigt överraskad! Jag hoppas att Monstrumologen skulle vara angenäm att läsa, men då det är en bok som riktar sig till tonåringar och yngre vuxna så förväntade jag mig inte att den skulle vara så mörk. Jag hade fel. Totalt fel! Den är underbart härlig mörk, med kusliga varelser och absolut inget romantiskt triangeldrama så långt ögat kan nå. Det är faktiskt knappt några tjejer med i denna boken. Om man nu inte räknar de som blir uppätna eller nära på.

Jag gillar stilen på boken, med att berättelsen är en hopsättning av dagböcker som en man skriver samman efter att en äldre Will Henry har gått bort i en ovanligt hög ålder. Will Henry berättar en fantasifull berättelse om hur han tillsammans med doktorn Pellinore Warthrop som han är assistent för för jagade en huvudlös varelse med en mun i bröstkorgen i slutet av 1800-talet. Dessa anthropophager är så rysligt välbeskrivna att jag tackar min lyckliga stjärna att jag inte är lättskrämd. Faktum är att många scener är väldigt, väldigt spännande att läsa tack vare dessa rysliga monster som tycker om att äta människor.

Monstrumologen var mycket bra och jag kommer utan tvekan att läsa fortsättningen. Jag önskar verkligen att jag hade den till hands nu så jag kunde läsa den på direkten men tålamod är en dygd, har jag hört...

Tack till Modernista för recensionsexemplaret!

ENGLISH REVIEW

I'm totally mesmerized and also a bit surprised! I had hoped that The Monstrumologist would be nice to read, but since this is a book that is labeled young adult did I not think it would be dark enough for me. I was wrong. Totally wrong! The story in this book was deliciously dark with creepy creatures and absolutely no love triangles. Actually, there are hardly any girls in this book, unless one counts the ones getting eaten or almost eaten.

The book style is also a thing with the book that I like very much with a story being put together from notebooks that a man put together after an old Will Henry has passed away. Will Henry got to be very, very old, amazingly so and his notebooks tell a fantastic tale of him together with Pellinore Warthrop the doctor he is working for chasing headless creatures with a mouth in the chest in the late 1900-century. The creatures; anthropophagi are so deliciously well described that I thank my lucky star that I'm not easily terrified. One of the reasons why this book is so great is for all the scenes with the monsters that likes to eat people.

The Monstrumologis is a marvelous book and I will, without a doubt, continue reading the series. I do wish I had the next book right now so that I could read it right now. But, alas, I do not. However, I have heard that patient is a virtue.

Thanks to Modernista for the review copy! ( )

My feelings towards this book are complex to say the least, from Will Henry's drastic change in attitude to the broken relationship between Will and Pellinore.

To start with Will Henry, the story gives us a sixteen-year-old Will Henry who's deeply jaded and already filled with resentment towards Pellinore. That Will is a far cry to the Will of the third book, who indeed did kill people, but ends the book uplifted by the message of hope that was the baby being rescued. There are certainly seeds planted hinting to Will becoming more unhappy with Pellinore, but he looks at Pellinore's choice to not fall into despair over his failed goal with admiration and clear affection. His final decision to kill John Kearns is a pivotal turning point in him becoming more jaded, but it's only the start of his descent.

In the earliest of chapters with a sixteen-year-old Will Henry, we see a version of him that murders without restraint and with nothing left of the affection he once felt for Pellinore remaining. The difference is jarring even though I could see the hints that point to Will Henry going down a darker path. There is a strong sense of having skipped a book, one that takes a closer look at Will Henry's changing feelings towards Pellinore and his outlook on murder. I spent my time reading curious to see the actual descent, but we never get it with the book skipping ahead several years.

The book's formatting also lets us see Will Henry as an adult, visiting Pellinore who's only a shadow of his former self. As the book jumps back and forth between a sixteen-year-old Will Henry and an adult Will Henry, we are given a look at a relationship that is fundamentally broken from the start. I became frustrated at how their relationship feels so drastically different from their past adventures with all signs that they care for each other, one of the things that I love most about their dynamic, almost completely gone.

Oddly enough, even with the book set up to wring emotional reactions from its readers from its series of tragic events, there's a sense of detachment. I don't quite recognize the characters as being who they are from the previous books. I find myself hoping that I will catch onto the line of events that leads Will Henry to developing into the teenager he is at sixteen but leave unsatisfied.

As we know in the previous books, Pellinore is dead by the time the journals are written. It's revealed that Will Henry mercifully kills him, the last action he takes as his master's apprentice. Even the pivotal scene of Pellinore being killed by Will Henry feels distant to me, as I'm the outsider looking into a relationship that I had once known but ends as it does due to events I'm shut out from being able to fully understand or care about.

When the moment of them giving up on each other comes, it's as impactful as a shrug of acceptance because they are so incredibly awful to each other in this book. Any reason for me to care about them staying together has been completely confined to the previous books, which are events that happened years ago for the characters. Why care about them going their separate ways when it seems like something that could have just as well happened at the very start of the action plot with little difference from both Will Henry or Pellinore?

I keep circling back to feeling that the characters were static, undergoing no notable change in how they felt about each other. Considering the central theme is of Will Henry and Pellinore's relationship being destroyed, an event that had every reason to be moving, that isn't a good impression to walk away with. The plot has things happen but the characters themselves, even with events such as Will Henry running away and Pellinore keeping him in the dark about his plan, never show enough emotion that isn't wholly negative to convince me that their relationship being torn apart is worth being upset over.

What makes tragedy between characters effective to begin with is the clashing of emotions both positive and negative. There must be a reason for wanting them to not become estranged with each other that makes the reader cry and want for them to change their fate. There are zero reminders that they once had a better relationship or had the slightest feeling of affection for each other, a contrast bitterly needed in order to for there to be a proper emotional arc.

Moving on, the snake being the monster that would immortalize Pellinore's career is almost silly. In the previous books the monsters are impressive in their own right and even in the third book, the monster has a strong presence as something terrifying. The book is more focused on showing humans as the real monster through Will Henry which didn't work for reasons I outlined above. I found myself missing the adventure of Will Henry and Pellinore trying to find the monster, something that I didn't realize I missed until this story had them acquire the snake right away.

There are several formatting and story structure changes that rubs me the wrong way. The book is noticeably shorter than the others with only three hundred pages, an important factor in making the story feel compressed to a ridiculous degree. Not only that, but we get quite a bit of Will Henry repeating things several times which cut into the main action story even more, leaving a rushed impression of events happening one after another with no pause.

I grew annoyed at the messy format jerking the reader back and forth. The heavy philosophizing from Will Henry about the nature of man is overdone in sections to the point of making me feel bored, something I never felt while reading the previous three books. The reveal of Will Henry as a man who steals the real Will Henry's name comes across being put in for the sole purpose of shocking the readers, the equivalent of pulling "and it was all a dream" on its own narrative.

Even with my criticism, I can't say that I hate the book as I enjoyed the concepts it was trying to show. Had this book kept the general format of the previous books and made it as long as necessary to explore Will Henry's shifting feelings with himself and his mentor, taking care to touch on their positive moments, it could have been a masterpiece. A compelling final story that shows descending into darkness with a complex view of a troubled relationship. If anything, I'm the most disappointed that this book presents the vague outline of ideas that had the potential to be thought-provoking and emotional even if extremely dark but the finished product is hollow of any impact involving the themes it failed to portray.

Due to my mixed feelings, I'm abstaining from giving a proper star rating. I'm happy to say that I have far less complicated emotions towards the previous three books and will gladly return to them many times. Will Henry and Pellinore's adventures have been wonderful to read with all the ups and downs of their relationship. As for this book, I'm not sure if I will ever feel the urge to reread this one. The Final Descent is ultimately unfinished, a rough sketch at best of what could've been a moving tragic end for their adventures but was never properly fleshed out.

I honestly have no idea how to talk about this book without spoilers, but here goes. This final book has the author Rick Yancey disgusted (we also get a foreward) due to him finding out the truth about Will Henry and the doctor. And at times we are told as readers to turn back, but if you don't, you have no one but yourself to blame.

We now find three Will Henry's in this book. We find Will Henry at the age of 16 still in service to the doctor, Will Henry I think at least 40 years old (due to the years we hear have passed since he last saw the doctor) and the aging Will Henry who is angry at what he remembers and what he wishes he could forget. I listened to this via Audible, and then switched over the kindle copy and finished this up around 3 am sometime. My brain ended up twisting and turning every which way at the reveals we are given. Frankly, I am not shocked at them, you had to know this end was coming due to everything we have seen Will Henry endure.

We are given a look into a 16 year old Will Henry we are not going to like much. A darker one who shows sad similarities with Jack Kearns. At times he even repeats thing that Kearns says and lashes out at people in his mind who are faking their humanity. I adored Will Henry in book #1, felt for him in book #2, and was really apprehensive about him in book #3 and ultimately fell to pity for him in this final book based on what I think occurred.

The monster in this one is not really important to the plot for once. Instead we see how this monster ends up being the catalyst that wipes things out for the monstrumologists as a science in the end. You get to see that the actions that have taken us on this long path end up influencing things. And we also get to see how those who refuse to acknowledge the things they did (Will Henry) are doomed to never get any real rest because I think Will Henry in his deepest of hearts knows that he can't blame the doctor as much as he would like.

We have reappearances by Lilian Bates, her mother, and her uncle once again. We also get some looks into new characters. But honestly, the main focus is on Will and even the doctor. Because the doctor is now afraid that he has not done enough to keep Will Henry safe from a fate who didn't want him to have to endure.

The shifting timelines get a bit confusing at times. It made it easier figuring out the timelines when I was listening because the older Will Henry (40 year old) sounded darker and nastier. We also get to see an older doctor who will break your heart. You also get to see the doctor come full circle in this one and sadly seemed to be doing exactly what his father was near his end.

Lilian and Will Henry's relationship was tragic. I think Will is under the assumption that Lilian can save him from himself, but instead she starts to realize that something is not quite right with Will, and him blaming the doctor is the easy way out of what he has become inside.

The ending was shocking to me. You read between the lines and you guess what happens. But you also have to recall what happens to the elderly Will Henry in this book. He is ultimately found dead in a ditch. When you finish this series, you may not be as pained about that as you were after reading book #1.

Now time for some spoilers.


I think that this was the only way this book could have ended. We have Will Henry ultimately becoming a human made monster just like Jack Kearns was. He tells himself he would not do the things he did if not for the doctor, but you start to see a part of him relishes killing and not having to own it at all.

Based on how things were left with Lilian I was shocked that they ended up marrying some day, especially since we know Will's infection could kill her. When we see what happens to a woman that Will was with I wondered at how Lilian and Will ended up married til her death.

And then the final reveal. The person known as Will Henry, is not Will Henry. Instead he stole the name of the man that Lilian married. He and our Will Henry share a middle name, but they are not one in the same. Since book #3 mentions a fire and how Will Henry disappeared my next shock was that our Will Henry was behind both. At this time knowing what we know about how he ended up killing/murdering the doctor through fire, I assumed that he did similar to Lilian as well.

Our Will Henry trying to blame the doctor for what he became is so tragic. Because though the doctor was cold at times, he held onto his humanity and tried to keep everyone safe. He was terrible at making impossible choices, but that was because Will would take the dark path and lie to him about it.

Our Will Henry being in a ditch in the end makes me think that he finally hit his final descent as well.
( )

A troubling and somewhat satisfying end to the Monstormologist series. ( )