The Beast, middle grade scares that build up perfectly

The Darkdeep was one of our favorite books of 2018. Imagine a world where a sequel to Back to the Future or The Matrix isn’t known yet. Doc Brown or Neo are about to fly off into the sky that’s either a great ending or a great jumping off point for the next movie. The Darkdeep ended like that for us. And just like Back to the Future 2 (which we consider to be an excellent movie, there, we said it) and The Matrix 2 (not so much….), The Beast takes the setup from The Darkdeep and extends it into a world in which monsters live among us.

Recap: The Darkdeep is an ancient whirlpool that turns dreams, good or bad, into real things in this sleepy coastal town. The lead characters are teens who are all ones that middle or high school kids can relate to. Think The Breakfast Club meets Stranger Things, with a dash of YouTube annoyances.

YouTube can be horrible can’t it? Before telling our eight year-old that he couldn’t watch YouTube anymore, we explained to him that any prank shows, kids reviewing toys or other such fodder did nothing to assist him and were otherwise a stain on society. The Beast has one such reality show vlogger join the fray. Bridger is the host of a fictional show called Freakshow that explores the unknown, albeit in a way that’s over reaching or too dramatic. In our mind we thought of Zak Bagans.

Timbers, the town where this is set, is still reeling from the events of The Darkdeep. Monsters had wrecked one of the city’s festivals and some in the public aren’t buying the fake stories that were concocted to cover them. To make things more complicated, Halloween is just around the corner and a fresh batch of Figments have started appearing.

Much like their counterparts at EPCOT in the late 90s, Figments are everywhere. They’re also terrorizing the Torchbearers; the group of friends who have since realized that they come from a lineage of slayers.   These monsters are running around town while our group is trying to defeat them quickly, lest the town will realize the hot mess that they’re all in.  Bridger brings is YouTube circus to town at just the wrong (or right?) time to explore the urban legend that’s been making waves on the internet.

The Beast does a good job in re-establishing the main characters. Each one has elements of their personality that will echo The Breakfast Club or Stranger Things. There is something in each person that a middle or high school student will relate to, empathize with or dislike. It’s a social Petri dish and the audience will eagerly follow along.

The book also jumps into the action immediately. From the get go our friends are fighting Figments who they thought they had banished back to the Darkdeep, but for some reason they’re sticking around. The timing of this newfound physical presence couldn’t be worse either. The urban legend of the monsters that wrecked the city’s festival in the first book, has taken root in the internet. Conspiracy theorists aren’t buying it and even some townspeople think that the damage is too extensive as to have been caused by what they’re saying. Halloween is just around the corner and that YouTube pariah is in town trying to muddy the waters with baited stories of monsters.

Much like the first book in this series, The Beast runs from the first page. This is a page turner that goes very quickly and will have you at the middle of it before you realize it’s way past your bedtime. It’s not mandatory to read the first book in the series first, but you’ll want to read it after reading The Beast. The reading level is such that upper elementary aged kids will be able to read it, but they might find some of the content too scary.

That was the case for our 9 year-old. He saw how much I and his mom enjoyed the book and wanted to read what grown-ups were reading. After a couple nights he still had the book in his room, but kept another light on-and kept The Beast on the other side of the room. “It’s a little too scary for me”, he said. It might be too scary now, but next year you’re going to love this book kid, I thought in my inner Marty McFly voice.