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Book Review: You’d Better Watch Out by Frank Cadaver

 

Cover art for You'd Better Watch Out by Frank Cadaver

You’d Better Watch Out  (The Blood Texts #1) by Frank Cadaver

UClan Publishing, 2025

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1916747227

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

Nothing says the holidays like a young adult novella about a vengeful elf that indiscriminately flays anyone who misbehaves. You’d Better Watch Out is a gripping tale from the Blood Texts series that will have you turning the pages hoping for more. The author listed is Frank Cadaver, the pen name of Colm Field when he writes YA horror. This book would be a great stocking stuffer for that wacky teen that would prefer chilling horror over another rendition of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

 

Evangeline and her friends are part of the mean girls clique at school, and after she gets in trouble for bullying the new girl, her mother and father choose different strategies to change Evangeline’s ways. Her mother tries empathy and compassion, while her dad uses a vindictive elf, the Watchful Elf, to guilt her into being a better person. There are so many parenting strategies, who’s to say which is best?

 

The plot seems very simple, but the author imbues it with many questions of morality. It is not as simple as goodness being good and evilness being bad. The elf punishes everyone. It is his perception that makes him act: it doesn’t matter if it was a malicious lie or a white lie to avoid hurting another person’s feelings, the actor will be punished. Everyone around the elf will be attacked; there is no way around it. Wherever Evangeline goes, the elf will follow and inflict injury on everyone around her. Should Evangeline leave her family to save them? The elf has broken many of its previous owners. Will Evangeline fall into the same fate? How long can Evangeline pretend to be good when it is against her nature? The ending is captivating- it is not just black and white, like most morality tales for young people. I like it because it suggests that in a messed-up world, the only way to deal with it is to be a little messed up, too.

 

The Watchful Elf is a play off the ubiquitous Elf on the Shelf that’s pulled out every December. It is poorly constructed, with felt, cardboard, and a saccharine smile on its plastic head. Kids cannot touch the elf or it loses its magic. It is so flimsy that if you were to hand it to a kid, it would be torn apart by the end of the day. Whew! Now we can keep producing this product as cheaply as possible.

 

The Elf on the Shelf watches kids’ every move and reports it to Santa every night. This is why it is found in a different place every morning. Every night, parents place the elf in elaborate and hilarious situations for the kids to find each morning. There is ambiguity in this ritual because the elf acts as a surveillance tool for Santa, reporting the children’s misdeeds, yet the parents are encouraged to put the elf in mischievous situations, because it’s fun to be bad. It’s very counterintuitive and promotes extrinsic motivation instead of intrinsic motivation to be good. Such are the joys of consumerism and living in a police state.

 

It appears the elf did not spark joy in the author’s house and has probably been lazily positioned in a guitar sound hole for multiple days, with his children complaining about the lack of magic in their household. Is this why the author has written about a murderous elf, so his children will never request it taken out of its box again? I don’t know, but in some households, putting away the Elf on The Shelf and reading this spooky novella could be the new holiday tradition.

 

 

Reviewed by Lucy Nguyen

Posted on February 12, 2026 by , Reply

Book Review: Lie or Die by A. J. Clack

cover art for Lie or Die by A.J. Clack

Lie or Die by A.J. Clack

Firefly Press, 2024

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1915444417

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition (pre-order)

Buy:  Amazon.com

 

 

 

Kass broke the friend code by kissing her BFF Thea’s ex. To prove she’s trustworthy, Thea insists they audition together for a new, livestreaming reality show based on their favorite game, Mafia, called Lie or Die.

 

Lie or Die’s version of Mafia lasts for four nights and consists of ten players. Among them are two Agents, who work together to kill of the other players, a Detective, who has the opportunity to learn the status of a player of their choosing, and a Judge, who moderates play. There’s a Kill Window each night, when the Agents can kill a player, and an Accusation Window, in which the players can accuse up to two players of being agents. Only one player can be eliminated per round. The accused must defend themselves in the Courtroom and hope they can get enough votes to stay alive, or face “execution” by electric chair Survival in Mafia is based on players’ ability to identify deception and lie effectively, and Kass is very good at both of those. If she teamed up with Thea, they would have a good chance of winning. Kass lacks the necessary charisma in her audition, but goes with their friend Lewis to take Thea to the studio. Shortly before the show starts, one of the players has a serious allergy attack, though, and the director asks Kass to step in and Lewis to join the studio crew. Kass is intimidated by the other contestants, also young adults, who all seem flawless and confident to her, but agrees.

 

The set for Lie or Die is a closed set. Once the contestants are in, they aren’t coming out until they are eliminated. Their cell phones are confiscated and the  judge, Cohin, is an AI, so while the contestants are constantly being recorded, they don’t have any direct contact with the outside world while the game is going on. The game also has a secret agenda to accomplish, and it’s there that things start to go very wrong. Is Kass being gaslighted, or has the game become murderously real? Clack had me turning in circles trying to figure out what the motivations were for the story’s events. I am going to be honest, I did not see the ending coming..

 

While the motive behind the show was not believable, and I couldn’t bring myself to care about Thea and Kass, who were terrible to each other, this is a whirlwind of a book, and I was impressed at how well Clack did at differentiating the characters, given the short time span so many of them had on the show.

 

As a side note, I have to give Taylor Swift props: she is everywhere now. Kass and Lewis have a game where they share messages using Taylor Swift lyrics, and when all else fails, they’re able to use it as a code to plan their escape.

 

Lie or Die is a dark, fast, and twisty read with a dash of humor and a little romance, that will keep readers on their toes. Start it on the weekend, as you won’t want to put it down until you’re done. Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

Posted on March 4, 2024 by , Reply

Book Review: Monster Club by Darren Arnofsky and Ari Handel

Monster  Club by Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel

HarperCollins, 2022

ISBN: 9780063136632

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition

Buy:  Bookshop.org  |  Amazon.com

 

If you’ve seen The Wrestler, Black Swan, or The Whale, you know Darren Aronofsky is a serious director who directs serious films.  Who knew that he and Ari Handel could write such a seriously fun kid’s book?  A loving tribute to the nerdy, role-playing gamers who still hide amongst the ‘cool’ students in junior high schools across the country, it’s impossible to dislike Monster Club.  It has it all: cool, comic-book styled monsters, light, frothy action that’s its easy to enjoy and laugh along with, and of course, the nerdy kid gets the girl!

 

Set against the backdrop of the famed Coney Island boardwalk, Eric “Doodles” King and his junior high pals, who go by the nicknames of Yoo-hoo, Smash, Hollywood, and Beanie, spend their time outside of school playing Monster Club, an RPG game they designed themselves, a cross between Dungeons and Dragons and pro wrestling. Their characters consist of monster drawings created by the players, each with hit points and attack skills, using some dice and a spinner from the old boardgame LIFE to determine their actions as the characters battle it out for superiority. 

 

Fortune strikes in the form of a Sharpie with magic ink, which allows Eric to draw characters that come to life off the page.  Can he use this gift to help save his dad’s carnival, which is threatened by land developers?  

 

The story sells itself with the characters and breezy, happy nature of the writing. It’s easy to root and relate to the Monster Clubbers since we all knew kids like them when we were kids, charming in their goofiness. Brainy Beanie is a member of a club that designs drones and Smash tends to crash her skateboard, often into lockers.  Of course, they get picked on by the big kids, and can’t play sports worth a damn.  The story picks up the pace and shifts into the crazy fun section when the Sharpie falls into the wrong hands, allowing for creatures such as Noodle Monsters and Crumple Noodle.  The last quarter of the book is insane fun,  reminiscent of the movie Gremlins.  You knew that the gremlins were bad and were wrecking the town, yet you had to laugh at how they did it, thanks to the presentation.  It’s the same with the Noodle Monsters as they go wild on Coney Island.

 

However, the Monster Club creations of Brickman, BellyBeast, Robokillz and their ilk stand ready to do battle and save Coney Island.  The fights themselves are some of the best parts.  They aren’t bloody, they are fun, Gremlins-style.  BellyBeast picks his nose and sticks it in Brickman’s ear, while Brickman himself dishes out some pretty mean ball-shots with his cannonball on a chain to neighborhood bullies.  Readers will be enthusiastically cheering on the good guys in their quest to smash those evil Noodle Monsters and save the carnival.

 

Bottom line here: this is lighthearted fun with a lot of bounce to it, and it’s one all readers of this site would enjoy.  It’s oriented towards the middle grade/early teen crowd, but it’s plenty of fun for adults too, especially those who grew up like the main characters, they will see themselves in the story.  Recommended.

 

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson

Posted on September 13, 2023 by , Reply
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