This is one of my earlier reviews, so I can say right now that I have absolutely no recollection of what this is about. This is the first of a few Dan Poblocki books that I read in my youth. Many schools nowadays have them added to the curriculum, I don't know why, along with Mary Downing Hahn books. This book wasn't memorable enough for me to even remember about it in my high school age, much less currently while I am an adult. But enough about the current day and age, let's go back in time to when my 13-year-old self read this particular story!
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September 21, 2011
What if the monsters from your favorite horror books were real?
Eddie Fennicks has always been a loner, content to lose himself in a mystery novel by his favorite author, Nathaniel Olmstead. That’s why moving to the small town of Gatesweed becomes a dream come true when Eddie discovers that Olmstead lived there before mysteriously disappearing thirteen years ago. Even better, Eddie finds a handwritten, never-before-seen Nathaniel Olmstead book printed in code and befriends Harris, who’s as much an Olmsteady as he is. But then the frightening creatures of Olmstead’s books begin to show up in real life, and Eddie’s dream turns into a nightmare. Eddie, Harris, and their new friend, Maggie, must break Olmstead’s code, banish all gremlins and monster lake-dogs from the town of Gatesweed, and solve the mystery of the missing author, all before Eddie’s mom finishes writing her own tale of terror and brings to life the scariest creature of all.
Eddie Fennicks has always been a loner, content to lose himself in a mystery novel by his favorite author, Nathaniel Olmstead. That’s why moving to the small town of Gatesweed becomes a dream come true when Eddie discovers that Olmstead lived there before mysteriously disappearing thirteen years ago. Even better, Eddie finds a handwritten, never-before-seen Nathaniel Olmstead book printed in code and befriends Harris, who’s as much an Olmsteady as he is. But then the frightening creatures of Olmstead’s books begin to show up in real life, and Eddie’s dream turns into a nightmare. Eddie, Harris, and their new friend, Maggie, must break Olmstead’s code, banish all gremlins and monster lake-dogs from the town of Gatesweed, and solve the mystery of the missing author, all before Eddie’s mom finishes writing her own tale of terror and brings to life the scariest creature of all.
Anyway... this book is about-- yeah you heard like a guy named Freddie, I mean Eddie... whoops... Anyway! He goes to Gatesweed... where his favourite author... Nathaniel Olmstead used to live until he disappeared like thirteen years ago. They find this book... all the monsters from Olmstead's-- Nathaniel Olmstead's books actually come to life in the... in their world. They find out about the stone child, there are two of them, this is a female. And there's another one cal-- that's... male.
Anyway, there's this pendant thing. A pendant that they-- that Olmstead used to write his books. By using that pendant, he opened the gate between Eden, or whatever I forgot... it ha-- stone child opened the gate and... it made the monsters come into the real world. Eddie, Maggie and Harris find this book of Nathaniel Olmstead... when he wrote... an autobiography in... with the pendant. The pendant apparently can like, write out ink and stuff... And... the biggest monster of all... the... the woman in black... right, the woman in black is... from this like, myth.
Lilith, at first it wasn't Adam and Eve, it was Adam and Lilith. Lilith was a woman but she wasn't made by Adam's ribs or whatever, like Eve was, but then God thought Lilith became evil so he banished her from Eden. Then Eve became born! Lilith is now the mother of all monsters. I thin-- They think that she's the woman in black, not sure. Like this... to me, I think it's kinda like a cliffhanger-y ending. 'Cause like... they don't tell us what happens to the other stone child, like where it is or like what happens if people keep writing with the pendant, what if somebody else found the pendant and all that stuff. Anyway, I'm going to leave off that for now. If Lilith, the woman in black, whatever... Nathaniel almost was done writing her story but like thirtee-- but he stopped so that she wouldn't be able to get through the gate... and stuff.
Like when the monsters came through, a lot of bad things happened, like people died, there were disappearances and all that stuff. And they think it was all because of Nathaniel Olmstead. Okay, then like thirteen years later, Eddie's mom and dad found a book and the pendant in an antique store, 'cause like... Nathaniel Olmstead like... hid it at the bottom of a lake, where when you touch the lake, momster lake-dogs come out. So, he though it was the perfect... security, so he put it down there. The pendant and his autobiography. But then like, they dug it up and... before the dogs could get them and now it was at an antique store, so it "mysteriously disappeared." We don't know what happened to it.
But now Eddie is in possession of it. When his mom, like, starts writing, she got inspiration to go to Gatesweed 'cause he-- she wants to go to Gatesweed, I don't know why, 'cause like she had the pendant. She used the pendant to write this story, okay, hold on... the story that... the story that... with the woman in black was called... The book that Nathaniel almost...
Anyway, the book was called, the one that he never finished, was called "The Wish of the Woman in Black." But then like, inspiration of the pendant, like, the woman in black wanted to come out and go through the gate. So, she took control of the pendant and like when Eddie's mom was writing with it, 'cause she found inspiration, like boom! It was 'cause of the woman in black and she wrote like an exact copy of "The Wish of the Woman in Black" that Nathaniel Olmstead never published. The book was called "The Dark Mistress' Desire." She almost finished but Eddie, Maggie and Harris like, saved the day by destroying the s-- by taking the pendant, destroying the stone child with it and... Nathaniel, sorry-- Nathaniel Olmstead like came back from the gate! So, he was able to escape and that's about it.
7.5/10
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Wow, I was all over the place trying to explain this book. And I pronounced Lilith really weird. I also kept saying "Gatsweed" instead of "Gatesweed," the things you don't notice until, literally, years later. I am so sorry for those of you who will most probably go and watch the video. I find these really cringey to watch and I can't imagine what others must think of them. Originally, I made these videos for myself, because I wanted to connect with other book nerds such as myself, but looking back on these have made me realize that I wasn't at all good at explaining the stories.
Thank you guys for reading and possibly watching this review! More will be coming soon I hope. I cannot wait to finish transcribing all of my videos to this blog so I can start rereading all of these books. See ya Sunday for my upcoming manga review!
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