Review: Meddling Kids

Meddling Kids
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher!

1990. The teen detectives once known as the Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in the Zoinx River Valley in Oregon) are all grown up and haven't seen each other since their fateful, final case in 1977. Andy, the tomboy, is twenty-five and on the run, wanted in at least two states. Kerri, one-time kid genius and budding biologist, is bartending in New York, working on a serious drinking problem. At least she's got Tim, an excitable Weimaraner descended from the original canine member of the team. Nate, the horror nerd, has spent the last thirteen years in and out of mental health institutions, and currently resides in an asylum in Arhkam, Massachusetts. The only friend he still sees is Peter, the handsome jock turned movie star. The problem is, Peter's been dead for years.

The time has come to uncover the source of their nightmares and return to where it all began in 1977. This time, it better not be a man in a mask. The real monsters are waiting. 

As a huge fan of Scooby Doo as a kid, I had to read this, I just had to! The title made me all nostalgic and brought a load of memories back and I eagerly dove in. I have to say this took some twists and turns I wasn't expecting and the narrative style was a bit jarring at points! 

We have second person, third person, and then at points we shift to what at first seemed like a police interview format, but upon closer inspection was a screenplay format. To be honest, I wasn't entirely a fan of this because I ended up with a bit of a question mark face as I was reading and it switched, and then kept switching. It kept jarring me and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it. Some of the descriptions and writing style was also a bit of a struggle for me, some of the sentences where so long, and then he kept making up words and it kept pulling me out of the story. To be honest, I just don't think I got on with his writing style at points, it kind of made me roll my eyes at points too, when it was yet another made up word, it started out being unique and fun but then I got bored of it pretty fast.  

On the plus side, I loved Andy, she was such a badass. The plot itself was twisty and turny and quite creepy, but I was intrigued the whole way through. I loved all of the pop culture references, I thought it was funny and entertaining. The book was full of horror, and adventure and it's very tongue in cheek. Plus the cast is diverse too, which made for a nice surprise! Interestingly this is like a mash up of Scooby Doo and Cthulhu and it was quite a blast to read, and it was interesting to see the teen detective club all grown up which is something that's not usually done (except that one Scooby Doo live action movie), but like I said, there where a couple of things that made me kind of side eye it.