Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Giant Monster

Please Don't Tell My Parents #8

by Richard Roberts

When an evil artifact offers you the power to turn into a monster, agreeing would be stupid. Mirabelle isn't stupid. She also doesn't have much choice. Her friends all have super powers that let them go on exciting adventures. Mirabelle's super power is to be made of glass, and walking across a room is dangerous enough.

But the shiny rock won't shut up, and to get rid of it, she has to use its powers against it. She does that carefully, because Mirabelle isn't stupid.

Until Mirabelle falls in love, and love makes everyone stupid.

Now supervillains and superheroes are fighting over four pieces of the Heart of Vermiel, and a girl who breaks if she runs has to collect them all, or be broken. She has to turn into a monster on the outside without turning into a monster on the inside. Somewhere in this mess there has to be an ending that lets her stay alive, stay a good person, and maybe get a chance to run, and be angry, and break things just once.

Besides, how many girls can say their boyfriend is a dragon?

Genres: Superheroes

295 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 4, 2023

About the author

I've been writing for a long, long time. A long, long, long time. Do you remember when dirt was invented? I was using it to scratch out stories. Getting published was harder, but now I'm hooked up with Curiosity Quills and I have real books in paper, and you should buy some!

As a writer my fascination has always been children's literature, especially children's lit that is also adult lit. For some reason, this means that instead I write gothic light romance for fun, and very dark and tragic young adult books for passion. I love seeing the world through the eyes of strange people, and I believe that happy endings must be earned the hard way. There's a reason my friends started calling me Frankensteinbeck.

I could talk about how great my writing is until I turn blue, but I should let an expert do that for me. Check out the Kirkus Review for Sweet Dreams Are Made Of Teeth!

http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-rev...

Reviews

[C.T. Phipps]

As always, there's much to be enjoyed in Richard Roberts world of YA superheroes and villains. The middle schoolers in Los Angeles are always building new monsters, gaining new powers, and being more naughty than bad let alone evil. This particular installment has a giant monster and that's always entertaining.

[Sean Duggan]

Another perspective, still quite good

As per the last few books, we follow yet another protagonist for this book, Mirabelle, although we get a lot of other familiar faces cameoing, from Goodnight to Penny to Avery to Magenta. The narrative arc of this one was less interesting to me, having less of a central opponent, and more of a general path of growth. I was tempted to take a star off for that, but I want to see more of this setting.

[Dorothy Winsor]

Since this is a superhero story, it's very much of the moment. But it also offers a unique twist that gives us insight into what it means to be powerful.

Mirabelle is made of glass and can't even walk across the room without risking damage. Thus, she's learned to be friendly, unthreatening, helpful. Then she finds a magic object that offers her the chance to be giant and strong. It offers her an outlet for anger she's necessarily repressed out of self-preservation. At that point, she has to make choices about the person she wants to be.

This is the eighth book in the series, and there's a large cast, many of them from previous books. A reader could read this one on its own, but would probably enjoy it more if they'd read previous ones first.

[Seth Dwyer-frazier]

The Supervillain series continues to be excellent

Giant Monster can absolutely be read on its own and be just as enjoyable. However Roberts continues to tell a story about a whole cast of characters I look forward to reading about.

This series remains one of the primary motivations for me to read ebooks and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes the genre.

[D.A. Kelly]

YA shapeshifter in a superhero Los Angeles. Young voices pitch-perfect with all the drama and comedy, plus magic and mad science and truly weird friends. Fun, fast, thought-provoking, and highly addictive.

[C Laurie]

Another hit in one of my favorite series

I’m not good at book reviews but I really loved this story.
I highly recommend reading the entire “Please Don’t Tell My Parents” series.

[Ray A]

Very nicely done

Another excellent tale in the Penny-verse! Thank you, Richard Roberts.
Now another ten words for fill. Now another ten words for fill.

[CatSidhe]

This is a book about a glass catgirl in love with a cursed rock, which is certainly an original premise. I rather liked Mirabelle, who was constantly trying to balance protecting herself from what is essentially an incurable life-threatening illness and disability (being made of glass, she regularly breaks and has to keep using her healing powers on herself) while still trying to live a normal life and have fun adventures despite her overprotective family and friends and controlling brother.