Reviews

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero

Only show reviews with written explanations

sydthebookw0rm's review against another edition

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Plot and the Oregon setting were interesting but the dialogue was just too much

aoifecm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

zgonzale's review against another edition

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5.0

Edgar Cantero’s Meddling Kids is a loving homage to Scooby-Doo... If the gang grew up with major issues and returned to a case to discover how they got it all wrong as kids. It’s a fantastic blend of cosmic horror, mystery, action, and romance with an intensely lovable main cast and a gripping mystery. Edgar Cantero’s writing is concise, referential, quippy, and modern; Meddling Kids is nothing short of astonishingly funny & refreshing.

blair_w's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

pau_pau23's review against another edition

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I couldn't get past the cringey dialogue. I'm still intrigued by the plot so maybe I will try again later

amaliachimera's review against another edition

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1.0

This is one of the worst books I have read in a while. Probably years. The first third was fine, and I *was* enjoying it, but it got worse and worse and more annoying. Did this start out as a screenplay, then got converted into a book? (where the author had to meet a page minimum, and did the equivalent of a middle school fiction piece by swapping in the longest words he could find? With lots of cringey metaphors to boot?)

-the author clearly had a thesaurus next to him either while writing and editing, and made sure to put it the longest synonyms at any chance he could get. They never “flowed” naturally. I also got this feeling the author was writing it and gleefully thinking, “just look how WITTY I am!!” and it was tiring.

-all the characters sucked. Even the dog became too twee. I was rooting for no one.

-growing annoyance: the weird shift between regular prose and stage directions! Ugh, WHY

-I didn’t mind some of the silly portmanteau word inventions, mainly because I do see people doing that in real life. It’s just so clunky when written on a page versus said out loud in a string of text. And why use “geometrical” when you could just say “geometric,” or “castrophony” instead of “cacophony,” when the original words already convey exactly what’s needed?!