Review! Monster High

Author: Lisi Harrison

272 Pages--Ages 12-15 years

Published by: Poppy on September 1, 2010

Summary (from amazon.com):

From Lisi Harrison, the New York Times bestselling author of The Clique and Alphas, comes a new series with a fresh twist on high school, romance, and the "horrors" of trying to fit in.

The monster community has kept a low profile at the local high school, but when two new girls enroll, the town will never be the same. Created just fifteen days ago, Frankie Stein is psyched to trade her father's formaldehyde-smelling basement lab for parties and prom.

But with a student body totally freaked out by rumors of monsters stalking the halls, Frankie learns that high school can be rough for a chic freak like her. She thinks she finds a friend in fellow new student Melody Carver-but can a "normie" be trusted with her big secret?



 Pre-Thoughts:
To say I’m a fan of Monster High might be a bit of a stretch, but I do rather enjoy the movies and the webisodes even if I don’t think that they are the highest quality. I enjoyed the Ever After High novels by Shannon Hale so when I saw this book at my local thrift store I thought I might as well try it. After all, how bad can it be?
Post-Thoughts:
Going into this book I knew that it would be about Frankie Stein and a new character, Melody Carver. To be absolutely honest, I’m not the biggest fan of Frankie. Actually, out of all the characters in the movies and webisodes, Frankie is my least favorite so I was pretty discouraged that half of this book would be in her character point of view.


Didn’t really find Frankie that enduring in this book either. I know that she is new to the world, but she just seems too idealistic to me. She openly disregards her parent’s point of view and their opinions. She’s incredibly spoiled. I did feel bad for her and I could appreciate what she was trying to do, but I just think she went about it the wrong way. She took unnecessary risks and put a lot of other people in jeopardy with her actions without even thinking about it. And I certainly don’t like that Frankie manipulates her friends to go to that dance so that they can support her cause. Frankie just seems a little too self-centered and selfish for my liking. So I was really holding out to like Melody, but unfortunately she didn’t really strike my fancy either. She’s not idealistic but she is sort of…bland.


Melody Carver (left) and Frankie Stein (right)

There was a lot of product placement in this book. Everything had to be brand name. Could Candace be holding just a purse? No, she had to be holding a Tori Burch purse. Could Melody be wearing a regular old blazer? No, she has to be wearing a Chanel blazer. Pretty much any accessory/clothing had to have some sort of high end brand name on it. Fine, I get it, it makes the book more “authentic” to teenagers, but come on, after 15 pages I felt like I was reading an advertisement.
That being said, this book wasn’t as awful as I thought it would be. The first 50 pages or so I got bored enough that I put the book down for a while. Eventually after a few weeks I decided to pick up the book again and bulldoze through the rest of it. Thankfully, after the slow start the story does seem to pick up a little. I enjoyed the little romantic scenes between Jackson Jekyll and Melody and I liked when the other Monster High characters were introduced. In particular I liked Draculaura, Cleo de Nile, and Deuce Gorgon. Other characters like Clawdeen Wolf, Lagoona Blue, Heath Burns, Clawd Wolf, D.J. Hyde, and Billy Phaidin make an appearance as well. In this book Heath isn’t aware he’s a monster (or RAD as they call them in the book) yet and for most of the book Jackson isn’t aware of the fact he’s also a RAD. I was surprised that Ghoulia doesn’t make an appearance in this book considering that she is a pretty large character in the other Monster High incarnations.


This book ends on a cliffhanger of sorts. Toward the end a huge problem is introduced, but not really solved which irks me. You CANNOT end a book on the falling action. There has to be a resolution otherwise the story is incomplete. Even with the cliffhanger I’m not exactly eager to pick up the sequel anytime soon. To me, the story just isn’t worth reading another whole book (or really three more books). I’m not dying to see what happens to the characters because honestly, I just don’t care.
Draculaura, by far my favorite Monster High girl, is the main focus of the fourth book Monster High: Back and Deader than Ever so I may pick that one up in the future, but for now I’ve had enough of the Monster High book universe. This book wasn’t bad and for a tween girl I bet they would love it, I just didn’t. The characters aren’t exactly faithful to their animated counterparts so if you’re a stickler for those kinds of things it might be best to stay away.