Monster Blood IV

Goosebumps #62

by R.L. Stine

IT'S FOUR TIMES AS EVIL!

Evan Ross can't forget about Monster Blood—the evil green slime that never stops growing. It can turn ordinary pets into ferocious animals and twelve-year-old kids into freakish giants.

But now there's a new kind of Monster Blood in town. It comes in a can just like the others. Only difference is this slime is blue instead of green. And instead of just growing, it's multiplying—into terrifying blue creatures with razor-sharp teeth...

Genres: Horror, Childrens, Fiction, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Fantasy, Mystery

118 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Ken]

The 62nd and last Goosebumps book (and my reviews) from the original series.

If I’m being honest I was continuing to buy these more out of loyalty than enjoyment, the earlier titles in the series definitely made such an impact on me as a kid and is the main reason why I still love reading to this day.

The series does feel as if it ended on a wimper, the Monster Blood books do get progressively worse - but I can recall most youngsters having a slime obsession in the 90’s and it makes sense that Stine would want to end with one of the memorable titles.
With a December release, there’s an element of churning them out so that they could launch Goosebumps 2000 the following year.

The main story has the same characters as the previous books, but this time the can of Monster Blood is blue!
Once the substance gets in contact with water, it starts to multiply.
Stealing heavily from Gremlins, it’s a shame the original series ended on a whimper.

I wonder if I would have continued purchasing these if this series had continued??

[✨Bean's Books✨]

#62 "This blood is bad to the bone!"
Evan is back with yet another Monster Blood adventure. But this time the Monster Blood isn't green but blue. And this time it doesn't grow, it multiplies! And it's multiplying into little blue monsters. What do you think these little blue monsters eat?

[Tyler Baphomet]

No...why...what...what...why

[Gavin Hetherington]

I spent a month re-reading all 62 original Goosebumps books to see if they still hold up today, you can check out my 3.5 hour vlog here: https://youtu.be/2C73xc1FS5o

You can also check out my entire ranking of the original Goosebumps books where I review them from worst to best here: https://youtu.be/lBfaxCOwAnA

[Zoey De Leon]

The last instalment on the original Goosebumps book run happens to be the 4th instalment of the Monster Blood series anr I gotta say, the 4th entry is the best out of all four for me, mainly because of a different variant of the sinister, unstoppable and repetitive slime.

So this blue slime variant is in the form of slug that can multiply by drinking water, they're small but a plague as they're strength is in their numbers and it was fun how our main characters deal with these monsters, speaking of the characters, I say they definetly improved on how entertaining they are to follow than the 2nd and 3rd Monster Blood books, reminds me of the actual depth in their first appearance and Kermit atleast became likable here than he is in the 3rd book but not by much but it's definetly a good noticable improvement to make the story more entertaining for the sake of it
Then there's some obvious illogical plot points just to give convienience to the story, but at the least it's very laughable on how very illogical they are.

Of all the Monster Blood books, this is definetly the best one, followed by the first Monster Blood book.
The two definetly is more of a comfort entertaining story but of course, not the greatest books.

The 2nd and 3rd can go into the trash, imo.

[David Santos]

The final book in the original Goosebumps series. I enjoyed this one...finally. Read it in about an hour and a half. I loved the first 3. This one is a little different because it's not actually Monsters Blood. Their little creepy creatures. Although their not described as they appear on the cover. Speaking of which, did you notice how well the colors match? Really most Goosebumps books are creatively colored.

Anyho same characters return for this book. Evan as usual annoys me. Andy I just love. Kermit (I keep picturing the frog) is back and annoying as ever. A pretty good way to end the series. I enjoyed it a lot. This one was not scary, well, maybe a little depending on age, but definitely an enjoyable read.

Well that would do it for my Goosebumps reviews. My goal was to read all of them, since I couldn't as a child in school and I read most. Shows you how much science fiction books have changed in only 14 years. We went from Goosebumps to Harry Potter. Anyways I hope you enjoyed my reviews for this series. Some reviews were done with some serious ADD, but I never claimed to be a professional. Now on to other books.

[Skylar]

62 books, about 7k pages, and almost a year later, I have read every original goosebumps book.
I will say ending a series on a lackluster sequel like this was a choice, but it wasn't the worst of all of them 🤷‍♀️

[Γιώτα Παπαδημακοπούλου]

Επιτέλους, τέλος! Δεν λέω... Το να διαβάζεις τα βιβλία του Stine, ειδικά ως παιδί, είναι εμπειρία και μια εμμονή στην οποία εθίζεσαι, αλλά και 62 τεύχη είναι πολλά. Όπως και να 'χει, ο αγαπημένος, κατά τ' άλλα, συγγραφέας, αποφάσισε να κλείσει τον κύκλο των "Ανατριχίλων" με ένα ακόμα sequel, της αγαπημένης του πιθανότατα ιστορίας, αν κρίνω ότι τόσες συνέχειες καμία άλλη δεν είχε. Βέβαια, και παρά την ωδή που προσπαθεί ν' αφήσει, η ιστορία είναι αδιάφορη, πανομοιότυπη με τις προηγούμενες, ενώ ο ήρωάς μας εξακολουθεί να κάνει τα ίδια λάθη ξανά και ξανά, αδυνατώντας να μάθει από αυτά.

[Carmine R.]

I mostri blu si muovono

Il libricino che chiude la prima, storica, collana di Piccoli Brividi è abbastanza dimenticabile. Se l'idea del Sangue di Mostro era tutto fuorché originale nel primo volume, al terzo seguito si sconfina nei territori del pedestre: inseguimenti alla girotondo, con cani in fuga e vicini bulli.
Serve, però, la spiegazione para-scientifica sul finale per far precipitare il lettore in una voragine d'imbarazzo. Bruttarello, ma sugli 8-10 anni ci si fa andare bene un po' di tutto: se sono cresciuto leggendo - e apprezzando discretamente - il primo Eragon, chi posso giudicare?

[Daniel Stalter]

Monster Blood IV surpassed my expectations. I thought it was going to be terrible, but it turned out to be something slightly better. In fact, I will argue that it was the best Monster Blood book of the series, if only because the other three were the absolute worst. The blue slime creatures were fun, and I enjoyed the way that they behaved and evolved. I also liked how Kermit’s mom put hot sauce on everything. The previous Monster Blood entries revolved around the ideas that slime is scary and so are things that grow big. This one thankfully divorced itself of those ideas, so much so that I think it would have been better off being a standalone book. This is especially true when you factor in that Evan, Andy, Conan, and Kermit were not especially compelling characters. Their repeated run-ins with the substance known as “Monster Blood” made them come across as stupid, annoying, and incapable of learning from their mistakes. The first forty pages of this book were tedious as a result. It made me wish that the Monster Blood books had gone the way of the Night of the Living Dummy sequels and featured a different set of characters in each book. I think we all would have benefitted from it, but it’s difficult to say by how much. The green slime may have led to some iconic book covers and strong sales, but I am not sure that any Monster Blood book could have overcome its threadbare premise.

Score: 2

For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog:
Blog Review I Instagram I BlueSky

[Cassandra Doon]

Read the series when I was a kid.
Loved them so much! They are the perfect type of scary to read when your young.
Then I ReRead the whole series to my son.
And he loved them as much as I did.

[Heather]

Not another Monster Blood. This book was all over the place. Started to get a Gremlins feel. And the scenes were extremely drawn out. Disappointed that this was the last book in the series.

[Leslye (Grim)]

Rating: 2.5

I'm honestly pretty over the Monster Blood series. It's the same kids having the same problems, only the problems are SLIGHTLY different. This time the Monster Blood is blue and does something completely different than the green Monster Blood. Still, it's a can of the stuff and the kids STILL haven't learned their lesson after the last three books. I choked this one down. The different types of Monster Blood is a fascinating premise, but I just can't get over the fact the same exact thing keeps happening to these kids because the kids don't learn. It also dragged out too much for more with its over-the-top twists just to pad the story and make the ending drag.

My recommendation is choosing only one of the four Monster Blood books to read, which ever one sounds the most interesting. Leave the others alone.

[Isabel Orama]

This book that I read today was about a boy named Evan. Last year he has found a very strange substance called monster blood. He thought he got rid of it, but he didn't. This year, he found a can of monster blood in his garage. He calls his friend Alexis. Alexis has seen monster blood too. When Alexis come over, she accidentally drops the monster blood can. When she dropped it, blue slime started coming out of it. The slime then turned into a slimy animal like creature. The creatures kept on multiplying. They then mimicked What Evan looked like. It started to grow and grow and grow. It turned into a giant skimpy person. It started rocking the neighbor hood, until Alexis remembered how to get rid of the monster blood. She took the hose out of Evans back yard and started spraying the water. The creature started to shrink and shrink and shrink, until it vanished. Evan and Alexis were happy at the moment until they looked at the mess they made. They had to spend their whole summer helping to fix up their neighborhood. THE END

I hope you liked my book review

[Chris]

4.5⭐

The fourth time was definitely the charm! This one is right up there with the first book in the series and it is probably my favorite one so far. The stakes were raised considerably this time around believe it or not. Instead of the green and slimy monster blood just affecting those who come into contact with it this new blue version transforms into a monster all by itself so Evan, Andy and Kermit have one heck of a fight on their hands.

​The plot immediately took on a next level tone once this new monster blood consumed massive amounts of water which caused it to multiply. That sets off a crazy race against the clock for the trio to figure out exactly how to defeat these new forms of monster blood before the creatures take over the entire town. It was honestly such a fun twist on the basic formula in this series so far.

​This entry was incredibly funny and surprisingly suspenseful for a middle grade book and it was overall just highly entertaining. The book also left off on a massive cliffhanger which will likely set up even more high stakes hijinks in book five. I absolutely cannot wait to see what happens next!

[Billie Pritchett]

Might seem silly to say but this was just plain ridiculous. Monster Blood IV has a cool premise, I guess, but it just gets totally shot. So we've got Evan and Andy book, our respective male and female heroes from the other books. And then there's the annoying mad scientist cousin(?) Kermit, who looks like a mess (WTF, but whatever). And finally we have Conan Barber, who is big and built like Conan the Barbarian (get it? Ugh).

All right, but here's the new twist with this book. Our gang has discovered a new kind of Monster Blood. It's blue and it creates blobs that look like little animals and they react to and feed off of water. The more water, the more they grow.

I really like that idea, but the book just doesn't get out of its old habits from the other books. Kermit still tries to get Evan in trouble. No character development, then. The same goes for Conan. Evan has saved Conan I think at least two times now, maybe three, but even by the end of this book is still a bully and still seems to hate Evan and the rest. So what the heck are we even doing here?

Also its just so weird and preposterous how the new Monster Blood comes about. It could have come about by Kermit making it, perhaps using some of the remaining green Monster Blood to make the blue more potent one. But that didn't happen here. No, there's a medical facility or government facility or something and they accidentally produced this comical. Oh Lord.

Avoid like the plague, unless you're diehard and can't help yourself.

[Tracey]

I'VE DONE IT!

After 5 years and many false stops, I've finally finished the original Goosebumps series. I'd like to thank my local library, who allowed me to place many holds for these books. I'd like to thank the out of state libraries for still carrying these books, most of them from the first round of publication. I'd also like to thank my friends who kept reminding me I was doing this damn challenge in the first place.

Now for the actual review of the book: It was okay. The monster blood books were always entertaining and easy to squeeze another story out of. For this last one, it makes little monsters that multiply instead of making the eater of the nasty slime huge. It wasn't as fun a read as the other 3 monster bloods but I still enjoyed it. The bully felt unnecessary but it's not a Goosebumps book without one child psychopath.

[Paige Ray]

I'm doing a full series reread and is it just me or was this idea originated from the movie Gremlins?? I love that movie but I didn't like this book lol.

Monster Blood IV follows Evan once again as he is staying with his cousin Kermit while his parents are away on vacation and of course Andy comes to visit them both because you know she has to make an appearance in this book too. Andy discovers a can behind the park that looks similar to monster blood but this time it's much different. The blobs inside transform into multiples and they start out friendly and nice but turn into mean creatures who bite! Water is what multiplies them.

I've finally finished the Monster Blood portion of the OG Goosebumps series and I'm so glad to put these away for good LOL.

[Alex | | findingmontauk1]

It's bittersweet to close the page on the last installment in the original Goosebumps series. But how cool it was to have ANOTHER Monster Blood sequel with Evan and all his shenanigans?! The only better ending would be with: another Dead House, another Haunted Mask, or another Night of the Living Dummy (but Stine has pretty much used Slappy all over the place elsewhere...)

There's not a whole lot NEW with this book, but it's just as good as you can expect for some new Monster Blood mania.

[Chris Greensmith]

"This blood is bad to the bone!"

[Cactus]

STOP. OPENING. THE. CAN.

[Alex]

I’m not entirely sure I ever read this one as a kid, but it was pretty fun. It’s definitely more “Gremlins” than “Monster Blood”, but it was cute.

[House of Goosebumps]

7/10

Just a really fun book, cool concept and plot.

[La Lettrice Raffinata]

62° classificato su 62 volumi della collana

[Sarah]

Herbology
Mimbulus mimbletonia: Title starts with M

[Rafa Sánchez]

Este era al camino que debería haber seguido esta minisaga desde el principio. Y aún así, sigue siendo penco

[Jordan]

I think this is a good book if you like thrillers. But I don't think its scary. because they where small blue creatures and that is not scary.

[Austin Smith]

Finally finished with my reread of the entire, original Goosebumps series - books 1 - 62.
I started it in the Spring of 2020 and am now finishing it December 1st of 2020.
Before I review this book, I just want to say it's actually been a lot of fun rereading all of these books as an adult. Although this time around I noticed a lot more of the flaws and plot holes, I also appreciated some of the books in ways I hadn't before, and noticed little things and details about some of the stories I don't ever remember. While the series as a whole is very UP and DOWN - with some books being amazing and others (only a few, thankfully) being truly terrible - this will forever remain my favorite book series of all time. Long live Goosebumps.

Now, on to the review.

I remember really enjoying this book as a kid, but then again, I was in love with the Monster Blood series when I was younger, and this time around, I thought Monster Blood II and III weren't very good - and so I didn't expect much from this book either - and it was a good thing I didn't.
This book, in all honesty, is not that great. I got a little sad and nostalgic feeling reading it, considering it being the last book in the series, but this book is among the top G.B. books for being illogical, senseless, and downright silly. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it - because I did. This book was a FUN read, but in the cheapest way possible. There's not really any depth here, nothing unique, just a familiar blend of old tropes, humor, predictable plot twists, and bratty kids.
There were too many times in the book where I was just like - HUH?!
Like, Andy just randomly came across another can of Monster Blood in a pile of trash? Why was she digging through the trash in the first place?
And then Kermit suddenly wakes up, leaps out of bed, (seriously, who wakes up that quickly?) and rips the can of Monster blood out of their hands and opens it up? *rolls eyes*
And you expect me to believe that Aunt Dee believed Evan ate an ENTIRE stew-pot of hot sauce by himself?! She's even dumber than the kids when they decide to put the blob creatures in the basement bathroom, in garbage bags that they can chew through, and have full access to a water supply where they can continue to grow and multiply. Oh boy.
Yes, this book is full of things that don't make sense just to drive the plot forward. I'm not really mad about them though, in fact, it just adds to the silliness of the story in a way that gets me feeling sentimental about it; because all Goosebumps books suffer from illogical situations and poor character decisions that might have made sense when reading them from a twelve-year old's perspective, but now don't when reading them as an adult.
Also, how can I be too harsh or judgmental on the last book in the series?
As I mentioned, this book offers nothing new or unique; it's all been done before. The same cliche moments, twist ending, tropes, the bully kid, the bratty younger kid, it's all here - but what better way to end it than with Evan and Andy - two of my favorite Goosebumps characters.
I also think that the recycled plot and the bringing back of old characters just adds on to the feeling of sentimentality.
This book is like reuniting with old friends for one last party, and reminiscing about the good ol' days. The reunion might not be nowhere near as fun as all the crazy things you and your friends did when you were younger - but they're your lifelong friends, and nothing will ever break that bond you guys share, even all these years later.
It's like being home again, even though things have changed and a lot of the good times are now in the past. Home sweet home.

[Maggie Gordon]

I did it! I read all 62 of the original Goosebumps! I still have a huge chunk of reviews to get through, but I wanted to touch on this last book and some final thoughts about the series as a whole while it is still all fresh in my mind.

Goosebumps were never meant to be literary masterpieces. They are grocery store novels with often questionable prose, but they did get kids reading when I was little. On the other hand, Stine produced some rather terrible novels, and Goosebumps featured a lot of frustrating tropes. So how better to celebrate the end of the series then by trying to fit as many of the terrible aspects of the series into the very last novel!

I haven't liked a single one of the Monster Blood books, and this last addition did not break this pattern. Evan's parents have to go to a place for reasons, so they leave him with his aunt who doesn't notice that her son Kermit is a blossoming sociopath (absent AND neglectful parents!). Kermit is his usual annoying self, getting his neighbour to beat up Evan and other such innocent childlike activities (tiny sociopath that is not tolerable to read about at all). At some point, Andy shows up with a NEW tube of Monster Blood that she thinks would be great to use to get revenge on Kermit (reused plots that didn't work the first time). Of course things go wrong, the new Monster Blood gets out, and the kids discover that this time it is blue and takes the form of a cute blood creature. Until it drinks water, explodes, and reforms into two slightly meaner creatures. Cue some chaos where the monsters multiply exponentially. Aunt character comes out and blames Evan for everything while Kermit goes off to hide the creatures... in a bathroom. By the morning of course the monsters are out of control. The kids try to tell Kermit's mom, but she ignores them because she's busy making hot sauce, and the kids then accidentally set the monsters lose (and yet no one seems overly concerned that there are blue monsters wandering about. Or track it back to the kids. WTF). Blahblah stuff happens, monsters destroyed, they were a military experiment, why is this even Monster Blood? Didn't this all start with a witch?

Evan and Andy continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results (yeah, learning!). This time the monster blood is less believable than previous, which I didn't think was possible. Kermit's mom is neglectful and willfully blind to the point that Children's Aid should be called. Conner exists to be a mindless bully. Overall, this was a terrible book and a horrible way to end the series. Oh well, on to books for adults again!

[Andrew]

From what I saw at the back of the book, this was the last book in the original Goosebumps series, before the Millenium and Stine introduced 'Goosebumps series 2000'. I haven't read all 62 of the original series yet, but it kinda seems, in a simple way for children, that he kind of exited the 90s with a bang.
#1 in this series got three stars from me. The changed version they put in an episode of the series left me feeling flat. I probably wouldn't have cared much for the dramatics as a child. The novella was much better than the episode inspired from it. #2 got four stars from me. There was no episode, to my knowledge, inspired by any more of this Monster Blood series though. The 'sequel' episode to the 'Monster Blood' episode was totally random. I don't know if R.L. Stine just okayed the episode or wrote it himself as an inside story from how Evan gets to Atlanta or what, but there has so far been no big where Monster Blood was on the plane. The second book involved a Hamster, not a plane. The third one involved Evan increasing in size till he was Gigantic. Which brings me to #3, which got two stars from me.
#4 was surprisingly not as bad as #3. It kind of felt like a children's book version of something evil attacking a city. Instead of the Monster Blood being a green liquid that moves and eventually tries to take over, the Monster Blood is blue; as in the creatures you see on the cover of this particular Novella. I won't say why, but despite the same characters, there was a revelation in this one that makes me wonder if it's technically in the same family as the green monster blood. Stine may have originally intended for it to sound that way, but to be honest, I didn't feel that vibe after reading the revelation of where the blue version of it came from. Still, #4 gets 4 stars from me. Even though I still think giving Evan's younger cousin the name Kermit makes me question the Mother's sanity. That poor kid already wears big glasses that would get a child picked on in school because bully's can be cruel. On top of that, he was named after a Frog Puppet? Poor kid. Smh.