Monster Blood III by R. L. Stine is Goosebumps book 29 in the original series order. Evan and Andy are back as well as bully Conan Barber. Monster Blood is my least favorite of the recurring Goosebumps stories and number 3 is the worst of this series. The story is not very scary and pretty joke filled, with only a couple being funny. It has to really annoying characters with Kermit and Conan. The moral of the story is fear science. Monster Blood doesn’t enter into the story until after halfway. The back half was better than the front half but one of the worst front halves of a story so far. The cover of the book is good and we finally see that happen in the story towards the end. The climax to the story was good with a race against time to change them from being big. The story is half the Disney film Honey, I Blew Up The Kids! and Danny the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff( there is no dinosaur but they have almost the same adventure) one of the I Can Read Books. The twist at the very end was pretty good and fits the theme of nothing goes right with science.

Plot Summary: Evan and Andy are back for another adventure with Monster Blood, in the last book Andy parents coming home from Europe bring her a can of monster blood after the one they had was expired and losing it potency. Evan babysits Kermit his 8 year-old science obsessed cousin who spends his time preforming experiments while his mother gets home from work. Evan babysits Kermit even though he hates because he’s saving up for a Walkman (so 90’s). Kermit lives next door to Conan, Evan’s bully in school. Kermit is the worst he gets Evan beat up, gets him in trouble twice with his experiments gone wrong. After Andy come over and gets pranked by him suggest what if we put the Monster Blood in one of his experiments. What could go wrong?

What I Liked: The prank where one of the kids turns into a giant and they prank them that they crushed one of the fellow kids is pretty brutal. I loved the Police asking if the giant was an alien. The finale was pretty intense if the situation can get fixed in time. The final twist was good and fit really well with the story. I do like how it filled you in with some of what happened in the 2 Monster Blood’s before it.

What I Disliked: The heart of the Monster Blood series has always been Evan and Andy friendship and it just wasn’t there in this story. Kermit and Conan together are too annoying. No Monster Blood for the first 65 pages of the book. The story is paced so slow at the beginning and continues to the middle of the book.

Recommendation: Monster Blood is the worst, all it has going for it is the cool title. Skip this book it is pretty horrible, not scary, and really badly paced. I rated Monster Blood III by R. L. Stine 2 out of 5 stars. Here’s my full ranking of the 29 Goosebumps books that I have read in order to my favorite to least favorite: 1) A Night in Terror Tower, 2) Stay Out of the Basement, 3) Ghost Beach, 4) Piano Lessons Can Be Murder, 5) The Haunted Mask, 6) One Day At Horrorland, 7) Night of the Living Dummy, 8) Welcome to Camp Nightmare, 9) The Phantom of the Auditorium, 10) The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, 11) Say Cheese and Die, 12) Let’s Get Invisible, 13) The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight, 14) Welcome to Dead House, 15) Monster Blood II, 16) The Girl who Cried Monster, 17)Deep Trouble, 18) The Ghost Next Door, 19) My Hairiest Adventure, 20) Be Careful What You Wish For… , 21) Return of the Mummy, 22) Why I’m Afraid of Bees, 23)Attack of the Mutant, 24) Go Eat Worms!, 25) The Werewolf of Fever Swamp, 26) Cuckoo Clock of Doom, 27) Monster Blood, 28) You Can’t Scare Me! and 29) Monster Blood III.