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American Chillers #44
Arkansas Algae Monsters
Paperback
First published January 1, 2020
3 people are currently reading
64 people want to read
About the author
Johnathan Rand
119 books295 followersChristopher Wright is the author of dozens of horror fiction books for children and young adults. He writes under the pseudonyms Johnathan Rand and Christopher Knight. Almost all of Wright's books (save American Chillers) take place in his home state of Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 12, 2021
I want to begin by saying some positive things before I start this ran...ahem...*review*
I LOVED American and Michigan Chillers books as a kid. Alongside of Goosebumps, these were my introduction to middle grade horror and helped ignite my love for reading even more. I still have a small collection of older American Chillers books and have very fond memories of them. To this day, as an adult, I continue to read and enjoy Goosebumps books. So, I have no problem getting in that mindset of suspending disbelief a little bit and having a good time with children's horror.
It's been many, many years since I've read any of the American Chiller books, and I wanted to read this newest one to see what they are like now.
Oh boy...
The story itself is pretty simple. Not terrible, but pretty unoriginal: Some algae that was sent into space has leaked from a crashed truck. It was part of some science experiment conducted by NASA (I think...? or some part of the government), and now it's leaking and spreading across town, splitting into other blobs and growing into monstrous, jelly-like creatures, and our three twelve year old characters must fend for their lives against the algae-monsters.
Sounds like a pretty exhausted idea, right? Whatever... I was willing to go along with it anyway and see how the story played out... but I could not get interested in this book at ALL.
The biggest problem with this book, if not for the story itself, is the writing. The writing is awful. Like, God-awful. It had me so distracted that I literally did not care about anything that was happening in the book. Let me give some examples:
EVERY single chapter ended with one of the following:
"Little did I know, our luck was about to run out."
"Things were about to get a lot worse, way worse."
"You wouldn't believe what happened to us next."
During every moment of "suspense" in the book:
"Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, within seconds..."
"Without warning, I knew something bad was about to happen, and there was nothing I could do."
Every time a monster appeared:
"It was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen in my life. It was so crazy, ugly, huge, gigantic..."
"I couldn't believe my eyes, but here I am, in real life, witnessing this, in person..."
"The monster was huge. Gigantic. Bizarre. Like a giant green gorilla. Like a huge jelly-blob like creature."
"All I could do was stare in horror, I was completely terrified. I was shocked. I stared in surprise at the giant green creature."
No, I'm not kidding, either. Don't even get me started on some of the author's word choices. What also really ticked me off, was during moments of "suspense" in the story, our main character, Olivia (this book is written in the first person POV, by the way) would go off on random tangents, explaining things that literally had nothing to do with the situation and completely removed me from the story even further. How it was possible to be removed from the story more than I already was, I have no idea. Here's an example of this:
"The monster close behind us, I quickly ran into the office of our house. Okay, so it's not really an office, but it's a spare bedroom. It's a room that's just been sitting cluttered with junk, ever since our parents... (etc. etc. on and on and on...)"
Okay, so those examples I used aren't exact quotes from the book, but they're pretty darn close. I was so appalled by how badly written this book was that I simply could not enjoy it at all. And then the ending... don't even get me started on the ending of the book. I literally almost closed the book before I finished it. It took every ounce of willpower I had just to read the last 10-15 pages. Not that the story ended badly. Our characters had a happy ending... but the way things were abruptly resolved is beyond laughable.
*Sigh*
I have a lot of good memories with the American Chillers. I really do. I hope that maybe, just maybe, part of Rand's poor writing is due to fatigue. This is the 44th book in the series, after all. He's been doing this for several years, and I can't personally imagine writing a 150 page book for every single state over the course of my career. Although it's been a long time since I've read any of the other books in the series, I really don't remember them being like this. At least, I hope they aren't. I plan on revisiting some of my older ones but I'm now a little bit nervous I might ruin what nostalgia and love I have/had for these books. I don't know though. We'll see.
I'm really not here to attack the author or anything. I'm not trying to say anything about his writing in general, but with this book...
This is the most atrocious book I've read this year. Again, I can read books intended for kids and still enjoy them. I love Goosebumps, always have, and always will. But the writing here is just so...
I can literally write a rough draft of a middle-grade horror novel, right now, tonight, and I guarantee it would be better than this book.
Ok. I'm done. Ran-...review, over.
I LOVED American and Michigan Chillers books as a kid. Alongside of Goosebumps, these were my introduction to middle grade horror and helped ignite my love for reading even more. I still have a small collection of older American Chillers books and have very fond memories of them. To this day, as an adult, I continue to read and enjoy Goosebumps books. So, I have no problem getting in that mindset of suspending disbelief a little bit and having a good time with children's horror.
It's been many, many years since I've read any of the American Chiller books, and I wanted to read this newest one to see what they are like now.
Oh boy...
The story itself is pretty simple. Not terrible, but pretty unoriginal: Some algae that was sent into space has leaked from a crashed truck. It was part of some science experiment conducted by NASA (I think...? or some part of the government), and now it's leaking and spreading across town, splitting into other blobs and growing into monstrous, jelly-like creatures, and our three twelve year old characters must fend for their lives against the algae-monsters.
Sounds like a pretty exhausted idea, right? Whatever... I was willing to go along with it anyway and see how the story played out... but I could not get interested in this book at ALL.
The biggest problem with this book, if not for the story itself, is the writing. The writing is awful. Like, God-awful. It had me so distracted that I literally did not care about anything that was happening in the book. Let me give some examples:
EVERY single chapter ended with one of the following:
"Little did I know, our luck was about to run out."
"Things were about to get a lot worse, way worse."
"You wouldn't believe what happened to us next."
During every moment of "suspense" in the book:
"Suddenly, without any warning whatsoever, within seconds..."
"Without warning, I knew something bad was about to happen, and there was nothing I could do."
Every time a monster appeared:
"It was the most bizarre thing I had ever seen in my life. It was so crazy, ugly, huge, gigantic..."
"I couldn't believe my eyes, but here I am, in real life, witnessing this, in person..."
"The monster was huge. Gigantic. Bizarre. Like a giant green gorilla. Like a huge jelly-blob like creature."
"All I could do was stare in horror, I was completely terrified. I was shocked. I stared in surprise at the giant green creature."
No, I'm not kidding, either. Don't even get me started on some of the author's word choices. What also really ticked me off, was during moments of "suspense" in the story, our main character, Olivia (this book is written in the first person POV, by the way) would go off on random tangents, explaining things that literally had nothing to do with the situation and completely removed me from the story even further. How it was possible to be removed from the story more than I already was, I have no idea. Here's an example of this:
"The monster close behind us, I quickly ran into the office of our house. Okay, so it's not really an office, but it's a spare bedroom. It's a room that's just been sitting cluttered with junk, ever since our parents... (etc. etc. on and on and on...)"
Okay, so those examples I used aren't exact quotes from the book, but they're pretty darn close. I was so appalled by how badly written this book was that I simply could not enjoy it at all. And then the ending... don't even get me started on the ending of the book. I literally almost closed the book before I finished it. It took every ounce of willpower I had just to read the last 10-15 pages. Not that the story ended badly. Our characters had a happy ending... but the way things were abruptly resolved is beyond laughable.
*Sigh*
I have a lot of good memories with the American Chillers. I really do. I hope that maybe, just maybe, part of Rand's poor writing is due to fatigue. This is the 44th book in the series, after all. He's been doing this for several years, and I can't personally imagine writing a 150 page book for every single state over the course of my career. Although it's been a long time since I've read any of the other books in the series, I really don't remember them being like this. At least, I hope they aren't. I plan on revisiting some of my older ones but I'm now a little bit nervous I might ruin what nostalgia and love I have/had for these books. I don't know though. We'll see.
I'm really not here to attack the author or anything. I'm not trying to say anything about his writing in general, but with this book...
This is the most atrocious book I've read this year. Again, I can read books intended for kids and still enjoy them. I love Goosebumps, always have, and always will. But the writing here is just so...
I can literally write a rough draft of a middle-grade horror novel, right now, tonight, and I guarantee it would be better than this book.
Ok. I'm done. Ran-...review, over.
September 5, 2021
Once you've read enough of these books, you'll find out that they're all written the exact same way and reuse the exact same sentences (for example: "little did I know, things were about to get worse"). The main character and their friend will find a monster, hide from it the whole book, then realize it was a science experiment gone wrong, and then they meet a kid that tells them another horrifying story. The SAME thing happens. IN EVERY BOOK. It's really more of a product being manufactured than anything else. At the beginning of each book, there are blurbs supposedly written by other ten year olds on how the author's books are so scary they shit their pants. I wouldn't be surprised if these fake reviews are written by the author himself!
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April 9, 2023Once there was a guy named Johnathan Rand. He was poor.
He worked at like, 20 jobs. Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, etc.
And PS. He lived in a crappy apartment with a few pieces of shit on the roof.
Then, he read a Goosebumps book and thought, “ I’ll make a new book”! And that’s how American Chillers became books.
Ps. Max: this is a version of yours
He worked at like, 20 jobs. Taco Bell, McDonald’s, Burger King, etc.
And PS. He lived in a crappy apartment with a few pieces of shit on the roof.
Then, he read a Goosebumps book and thought, “ I’ll make a new book”! And that’s how American Chillers became books.
Ps. Max: this is a version of yours
October 24, 2022
I like the concept of the chili and the overall feel of the book but I do not give it even four stars because they stay in the bedroom for the entire final 3/4 of the story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews