The Isle of Blood

“There is no monster. There are only men.”Forgive me for having Avengers on the brain (because when do I not) but Will Henry would make a really good SHIELD agent. Devoted, familiarity with the bizarre, calm under pressure, and the ability to get shit done.The Isle of Blood follows the vein of [b:The Curse of the Wendigo 7775755 The Curse of the Wendigo (The Monstrumologist, #2) Rick Yancey http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1319724787s/7775755.jpg 10682443] by keeping its focuses on people rather than aberrant biology. In fact, there are no monsters in this book except for the very beginning and the last hundred and fifty pages, and considering that this book is nearly 600 pages long, that's a lot space without things going bump. Instead there's a bit of espionage and intrigue. There's globetrotting through London, Italy, Egypt, honestly its astounding how much of the traveling in this book is documented, and yet it somehow manages to never be dull. It was also extremely funny at points. Most of what we get though is Will Henry, and most significantly Will Henry without Pellinore Warthrop.Warthrop and Will's relationship has formally moved from touching, to angst-ridden to straight up codependent. Will does not take being left behind very well. In what is, I don't know, some sort of beautiful deconstruction of young adult romance, all of the trappings of the YA heroine abandoned by her love interest are there. The difference is here is the appropriate place to use it. A teenage girl falling into a ridiculous melancholy state is often met with many an eye-roll even if it is rather in character (teenage girls are, if anything, ridiculous), because ultimately a teenage romance is trivial. Boyfriend and girlfriend are modern concepts, after fiancé and spouse. Family, however, is ancient. So when Will Henry grieves the loss of Pellinore Warthrop it aches in a way that is far more powerful, in that he is separated from the sole father figure in his life and also....something else that hasn't quite been defined yet. Or perhaps it has just not for relationships between grown men and prepubescent boys. Unless you're in ancient Greece.When Warthrop abandons him at the von Helrung estate, Will doesn't eat or sleep for over a week. He mopes, he flies into a rage. He reads his master's old writing even when it's overwhelming dull just so he can imagine he's speaking to him. He refers to the months they spend separated as his “exile.” When he attempts to describe the relationship between them, why he can't let go of him, – “it's too tight, it's too tight” – he nearly faints. He doesn't say he loves him. In fact, he says he hates him. He has every right, even if he is kidding himself. What Warthrop has done to him is borderline abusive. He's chained a young, vulnerable boy, who has lost his parents and his home, to his own unruly heart and leaves him no means of escape, even when he leaves him behind. And in turn he is chained as well, a point that is literalized when Warthrop, unwilling to tie Will down when he's at risk of turning into a zombiefied monster, instead ties them together, wrist to wrist.There are no bones made about the fact their relationship utterly unhealthy. Warthrop relies totally on Will, a 13-year-old boy, to maintain his humanity, to keep his ego in check, not to mention shouldering the weight of his dangerous profession. That's a horrible burden for someone as young and as traumatized as Will Henry. But Will hardens, much to Warthrop's horror. Up until this point, Will's defining trait has been his devotion to Pellinore Warthrop, that come hell or high water, he was determined to remain by his master's side. This hasn't changed, in fact it's been further emphasized. What this book involves is what that means for Will as a person. It determines how far he's willing to go to stay with his master, and he will go there with the resounding conviction of someone who knows that he has willingly put himself at the mercy of a potentially insane man who is probably unworthy of such love. The two of them become reversed - Will embraces the more cutthroat and brutal side of him in order to protect the man he loves, and in turn Warthrop has to embrace his more compassionate, perhaps even fatherly side in order to save Will from himself. Being me, I'm not sure that I want him to.I'm kind of regretting getting this from the library because there are so many quotable lines and beautiful prose that I wanted to highlight. As always the writing is sophisticated and enticing. The mystery of the magnificum, the mother of monsters that Warthrop seeks, is a good one with a satisfying resolution, and I really liked Yancey's take on zombies. And yes, there is gore and nastiness, but you won't find the same kind of rising action and climax as there was in the previous books. This book delights in its meanderings and red herrings. It's meant to be more tragic than pulse-pounding. I think the Curse of the Wendigo was better, but this was still excellent. However, as much as I enjoy the emphasis on character and internal struggle, if Yancey takes this trend any further with [b:The Final Descent 13260751 The Final Descent (The Monstrumologist #4) Rick Yancey http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png 18462260] he seriously risks overdoing it. So, I loved this, I am very much looking forward to the next installment, but I'm hoping it'll have more monsters.

When I was looking this up on bookdepository, the site said it's for ages 12-15. I find it extremely dark, with a lot of disgusting elements and surprising philosophical depth for a book for that age group and I am not really sure that the people putting on the stamp were right or that they even cared about being right in the first place.
It's lovely, though. The fact that something supposedly YA can have such quality. Very often I find the genre to be watered down and many people just going “oh, well, it's okay, I mean it's YA, you shouldn't have expected it to be world class writing”, which I find fundamentally wrong. Nobody considering themselves proper, real authors should give up on their art like that and go with the easier way.
Here... Mr. Yancey went all out. Every time I read a book of this series I am impressed by the prose not being the typical, borderline offensively simple one teenager get thrown at their faces nowadays, usually cleverly blamed on the protagonist talking in first person and being not so educated. This is first person and really powerful at that. Will Henry, the protagonist has plenty of passion and emotion in what he is saying, with great descriptions and just everything to make this a very enjoyable read in my opinion.

So now Dr. Warthrop got a package sent to him by the extremely dangerous and still almost playful Dr. Kearns, with a nest woven of woman body parts, covered in a strange, gelatinous substance, delivered by a panicked man claiming to have been poisoned and needing the antidote from Warthrop. Apparently just touching the substance causes you to become... well, kind of a zombie. Now they need to trace the route of the nest, find the creature that made it and take care of everything.

Zombies are one of the creatures I am not sure about. I'm not a zombie fan, I don't hate them, I just find that they are pretty hit or miss to me. In this case it was a hit, as pretty much everything done in this series. Mr. Yancey has a talent at touching all the creatures and topics with some very unique way, not just being one of the thousands of fairly similar and indistinguishable pieces, often blamed on the canon of the creatures.
They are all nasty. All of these books will turn my stomach every time and somehow I still don't feel it's just to be nasty. I think the whole scientific atmosphere is the perfect vessel of being extremely graphic and still not feeling like the author is just trying to gross us out for the lulz. This I can handle. I guess I just have issues with theatrics and melodrama, but I can pretty much handle all the nasty things if they are presented like this.

One thing, though. One thing that feels really unnecessary and kind of lame. We have great prose, a lovely main character with a great and very complex relationship with his mentor, crazy creatures, action....
And then there is Lilly I-would-kill-you-in-your-sleep Bates! She is a spoilt, aggressive, emotional abusive little weasel. I absolute HATE Lilly. Sure, there needs to be a love interest, because blah, but she is seriously an incredibly shitty one.
This is a PSA for men; if she gets so smug and satisfied about constantly belittling you, calling you names, bossing you around, daring you to do incredibly stupid and dangerous things for fun, etc. then you should drop her, because she is a bad person. I don't care if she has cutesy hair and wears pretty frilly clothes, she is shit.
Lilly even has a mother who always needs to get her way and loves micromanaging people, because charity is kindness are about that in spoilt New York rich girl world.

I would have loved to see more monstrumologists, though. They are such a delightfully messed up group of people.
Then again, the whole series is delightfully messed up and that is the reason why I would recommend it to people who are okay with dark and disturbing reads. I find it's not popular enough, even though it is a shining example of what YA literature can achieve. But we are stuck with love triangles, magical teen girls and apocalyptic worlds that only have the nebulous “global warming or nuclear war or some shit”explanation.

Have a nice day and see with eyes, not with your hands!