Reviews with content warning for Gore - Meddling Kids

I loved this. It jumped out at me on the shelves. I loved the Scooby Doo pastiche, with strong additional vibes of Stranger Things, Buffy, The Goonies, and especially It. I've read or loved all of those stories at one point, so why not one more?

The most notable thing to me about Meddling Kids was the wild, animate prose. It was an adjustment at first, but I came to love the ride. Cantero made almost every inanimate object, including one character's hair, a house, trees, weather, and a car, seem alive and moody. That's not even touching on the 'Scooby' of the story, who I think has just the right amount of cleverness. This was quite cinematic, and I liked imagining the big action set pieces or how charismatic actors would dig into performing these characters.

All in all, this was a fun summer read that felt like something between a car chase and a road comedy.

Content Warnings

sn8man's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

thelittleone's review against another edition

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adventurous dark lighthearted mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Very talented writer, and a great riff on Scooby Doo and Lovecraft with a few unique spins. I probably would have rated this higher if it weren’t for one thing: I cannot stand Andy.

As a take on Scooby Doo, most of the cast stays true to character as darker, more realistic versions of themselves haunted by a harrowing investigation in their teen years. However, the author combines Daphne and Velma into one character, named Kerri, and introduce Andy in Velma’s place.

Andy is introduced in a scene

fighting off multiple grown men twice her size in a bar fight with ease.

She’s capable of about doing anything to save the day,

as she “learned to fight” when training in the military for a year (which she ran away from). Also, she broke out of prison.

Look, I get the book is about Lovecraftian horrors and that requires me to suspend my disbelief a bit, but this gets into the territory of “look at my super cool original character” aka Mary Sue.

Also, there’s a coming of age story here about Andy, who is a non-binary lesbian, falling in love

with her childhood best friend, Kerri.

I am absolutely here for it, and at a high level I love it. There’s moments where it feels like a really candid take on the confusion about navigating the unknown between two young women who care immensely about each other. But, other times it absolutely gives “man writes lesbians” vibes.

When Andy confesses her feelings to Kerri, she tells her that she’s been “fantasizing” about her since she was 13 years old. If a man confessed his feelings to his childhood best friend and said he’s been “fantasizing” about her since he was 13 years old, she would probably be terrified and grossed out. But a woman says it and it’s okay? There’s also a scene where Andy forces a celebratory kiss onto Kerri when Kerri has already told Andy that she doesn’t like women and it just feels like a violation of Kerri’s autonomy.

Also, there’s a graphic scene early on in the book

where Kerri has a nightmare about being violently molested.

It feels really out of place from the rest of the book, and I just can’t help but think that a woman author would never include a scene like that in a book so why does a male author feel the need to do it?

Content Warnings

ryanandrew23's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

Content Warnings

tarsharks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Scooby Doo x Lovecraft was an interesting premise that I have not seen before. The first part of the book was a little slow and hard to get into but once all the action started I couldn't put the book down! A big complaint I have is the random format switching. Even in the middle of a conversation it will go from script style to tradtional novel and I found it to be very jarring. Overall I thought the book was ok and felt like he could have done more.

Content Warnings

madladhatter's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

tak_everlasting's review against another edition

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funny mysterious tense slow-paced

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

2.25

I liked the ambition with the mixed writing styles, but it didn't ulimately serve a purpose or add to the story. Also, this author clearly thinks that he is not writing women in a way that objectifies them- he totally is. The way they described themselves was iffy, but the way they described each other was worse. Especially the

romance between Kerri and Andy.

The story itself was fun, although it was very much a play through of action movie tropes, which was then pointed out in numerous 4th wall breaks. The plot carried the characters, rather than the other way around.

The characters were functional, but their dynamic didn't feel complex enough to have been actual childhood friends. Also Peter, the dead guy, tends to be really slimey toward his supposed friends.

This is somewhat weakly explained because we learn later that he isn't the real Peter. A twist dampened by the fact that Nate suspected that from the beginning, and never tells the rest of the team that he is seeing their dead 5th member.

Overall the writing felt underedited. The conclusion felt unfinished, especially with a lot of the stuff around Peter remaining unclear

when did he start betraying them? was the "ghost" even part of him, or was it all manifested by the villain?

The strongest scene in the book is when they have to explain to their mentor figure that Peter died.

which is unfortunate, because the mentor also dies and we feel nothing from them- either in the moment, or processing it after. the same goes for learning that their dead childhood friend had his corpse stolen and reanimated, with the express purpose of luring them to the lake and murdering them. is it just me? or should your characters have some complex and messy feelings about that?

Content Warnings

scrambledark's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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