For more review, check out my blog: Craft-Cycle

A few years ago I read the third book in this series (not realizing it was a series, just so captivated by that cover). I recently saw my library had the audiobooks of the previous books so I thought I'd listen to them for some quick entertainment while driving.

Overall, this was a good book. It was interesting to get the backstory on the world I was introduced to in the third book. The world-building was well-done and made the book intriguing and mysterious. The plot was a bit slow in the beginning with all of the introduction, some of which could have been sped through a bit. You know there is going to be some weird stuff going on at the school so it gets a little tedious leading up to that. But overall the book was well-written and interesting.

While the book is not necessarily very scary, there is a bit of animal cruelty, which may not be a good fit for sensitive readers. While it is not outright gory, it's pretty gross with enough details to be upsetting and is referenced multiple times. I dislike when authors fall back on cruelty to animals in order to show how evil a character is.

A good read although I could have done without the animal stuff. Interesting set up and a nice lead in to the next book.

Thanks to the wonderfull people of Quirkbook I got to read the book I've missed in my own childhood. I am currently 22 years old and I still very much enjoyed this book. I also very much wish this book was around when I was 10. 

 

In Lovecraft middle school #1 the school in introduced and you will meet Robbie, a very shy and sweet boy, who has been redistricted to Lovecraft Middle school. Soon he finds out that the school is not what it looks like and has to face all kinds of monsters.

 

Very enjoyable and easy to read (ofcourse this is my opinion as a 22 year old bookworm so maybe for kids, for whom this is meant, it's not so easy at all with words as Yog-sothtot and such.) 

I finished this book in less than an hour though it is admittedly not for my grade level. But I thought that it was a ton of fun, and I would recommend it for the appropriate age of middle school readers. It reminds me of the old Bailey School kids books, like Vampires Don't Wear Polka Dots and whatnot, and seems to be holding up a consistency of continuity while not getting too bogged down in previous books. Very accessible - somewhat lacking in suspense, but still fun in kind of a goofy way. It doesn't really seem to have much in connection to Lovecraft himself, other than a few shoutouts (people from Miskatonic U. and such), which I appreciate considering how over-the-top racist the guy could be and not in a super subtle way. Though I can't account for the other books I did like the somewhat adult moral choice presented in it which might set it apart from the others - at the very least I wanted to know how they would progress from this point.

Would be a book I'd recommend to people who like Roald Dahl's grossness but with goofy humor.

You can check out my full review here.

I can honestly say that if I hadn't received this book for review (unsolicited), I probably would have never picked it up. Similarly, if Bout of Books 8.0 hadn't happened, Professor Gargoyle would have been sitting on my TBR bookshelf for many more months to come. One reason for this is that it's a very short book, and I tend to leave short books alone. The second reason is that the cover is holographic, and when I first saw the cute looking teacher change to what looked like something from The Demon Headmaster, I yelped in surprise/fear, jumped back, and hit my head on the wall. I've been holding a grudge for months now.Full review on Books of Amber