One of my pet peeves is when the books blurb compares the book to other books that people really like and are popular. Once you see that comparison, it is stuck in your mind the whole time you are reading the book. That is what this book does. Although, I have never read John Dies at the End or Welcome to Night Vale, a lot of my fellow GoodReads friends have and most of them enjoyed these books. So maybe that has set my expectations a little high. The premise of the book looked interesting: childhood friends solve local mysteries not unlike Scooby Doo and come together as dysfunctional adults to go back and solve a mystery from their childhood. The blurb says “With raucous humor and brilliantly orchestrated mayhem” but I think the humor was lost on me. The orchestrated mayhem wasn’t much different than any other book of this type. I did more ‘eye rolling’ than anything. I was a little disappointed. I wasn’t sure if the author was going for meta or campy. Whatever Cantero was going for, didn’t work for me.

Meddling Kids is a book totally outside of my comfort zone, and a completely unexpected new love. It took me some time to get into, but once I did I was so hooked that I didn't want to stop.

The book centres on a disbanded group of once-teenage-detectives, now messed-up twenty-somethings, who reunite in order to reopen an old case. The case was the last time the kids saw each other, and although they seemingly caught the culprit, the events that occurred on that night in 1977 left them damaged.

The reunited Blyton Summer Detective Club consists of five members. There is Andy, the badass leader of the group with military training, who is now on the run. She is utterly in love with Kerri, the lively red-haired biologist who now has a major drinking problem. They're joined by her cousin Nate, who has an interest in the fantastical and has spent the last year in a mental health institution. He's the only one who still sees Peter, who was once the popular-kid-turned-movie-star, and is now dead. And of course, there is their mascot, Tim, the great grandson of the dog that was part of the team 13 years prior. Like with many aspects of the book, the characters are difficult to connect to at first, but about a quarter of the way in I became obsessed with them and their mystery.

When I was approved of my request for Meddling Kids by Netgalley, my first thought was that I'd made a huge mistake. I can't deal with horror. At all. But with the description claiming it was great for fans of Welcome to Nightvale (which is a podcast that dips into horror at a level I can tolerate), and the knowledge that this book was essentially an adaptation of Scooby-Doo, I was too curious not to read it.

Thankfully the blend of horror and mystery ended up working really well for me. I don't know if my tolerance for the dark aspects of Meddling Kids makes it a good horror novel or not, because I can't deal with things that get too creepy. But I can say that I seriously enjoyed the story and it's balance between scary and funny so much more than I expected, and loved every second of it.

Something that I also surprisingly enjoyed was the author's unconventional writing. There were parts of the story that dipped into screenplay format, and others italicised like they were separate from the story in order to introduce the main characters. Cantero even made up some words like 'tragichuckled', 'ruinscape' and 'microwindow' which sound weird but just made sense to me in the context. Plus some of the fight scenes had a couple of lines thrown in that made them sound like characters in video games. I imagine the unconventional writing won't work for everyone, but I found it a lot of fun.

Sadly there were a couple of aspects of the book that really bothered me. At around the 10% mark there was a scene that read as incredibly non-consensual. It ended up being part of a nightmare, but still it was very uncomfortable to read. There was also a couple of instances around that 10% marker where the language felt very othering towards people with mental illness and those who are gender nonconforming. I know the book is set 1990, but I think a sensitivity reader was needed. I did have an advanced readers copy and so it's possible those scenes are not in the final version of the book, but they did lower my overall opinion of the book.

I never thought I'd pick up a horror novel, let alone thoroughly enjoy myself whilst reading it. The nods to Scooby-Doo were wonderful (my favourites being Zonix River and the mine cart ride), and all in all I was sad to see this hilarious from-mushing monster-filled mystery come to an end.



Diversity note: Lesbian Latina protagonist

Warnings: therapy, drug overdose, death, non-consensual touching/rape (but within a nightmare and consent is ambiguous), transphobia, negative language towards people with mental illnesses, alcoholism, mental health institutions, hospitals, gore, violence, guns.

There's a really great story here, with interesting characters and fascinating relationships, not to mention dogs, horrible leviathans from beyond our world, immortal sorcerers, and quarter-life-crises. My only complaint is that the story is somewhat buried under cute mechanical flourishes that I found really distracting: a tendency to use cobbled-together, Tom-Swifty-style verbs instead of "said" and its ilk, switching at random from a normal prose structure to screenplay/stage directions, a really odd amount of modern internet slang for a book set in the 1990s, etc. There was already so much going on in this book—a lot of characters, a lot of references, a lot of fast-paced events—and I felt that these things took away more than they added.

I was really surprised how much I liked this book. Fresh take on a redone area. Enjoyed the characters flaws.

Edgar Cantero is quickly becoming one of the most interesting writers I've read. I was unsure the first time I read The Supernatural Enhancements, but it has stuck with me as an intriguing book and has, therefore, grown into something I love. Meddling Kids gives me that same feeling of being off-balance in a good way.

I love the teen-detective Cthulian romp, and the humor, both whimsical and dark, is fantastic. But I also appreciate that the dramatic and terrifying moments have weight. Nothing feels like an last-minute thought or addition. Great novel, great read, fantastic author, can't wait for more.

In a simpler time, there was a group of kids who solved mysteries. Two guys, two girls, and a dog who spent their summers investigating spooky mansions and haunted houses. Usually, they found that it was just an adult in a costume behind all the "ghost" sightings, and the kids became famous for uncovering the nefarious deeds and the reasons behind them. 

But during that last case, something happened. Something they couldn't understand. Or explain. Or even talk about. 

Now it's 13 years later, and the kid detectives are no longer kids. But they're not quite adults either. Each struggling in their individual lives, they decide that the only way to move forward in their lives is to go back. To go back to the last mystery of the Blyton Summer Detective Club of Blyton Hills, Oregon. Keri, the biologist with the flowing red hair, and her weimaraner. Andy, the tomboy who now has to give a court-ordered speech about the danger of her kick to the crotch before getting into a bar fight. Nate, the nerdy sci-fi reader who occasionally checks himself into a mental institute to try to straighten out his head. And Peter, the all-American who became an actor and got hooked on drugs, even Peter is there in his own way. It will take all of their courage, strength, determination, and combined intelligence to solve this final mystery.

Edar Cantero took a familiar theme and turned it into a comedic horror novel of epic proportions. The result is Meddling Kids, a laugh-out-loud take on the cartoons of Scooby Doo, with a hearty helping of other pop culture references as well. 

I don't exactly know how to talk about this book. Because I loved this book. I LOVED this book. It is not enough merely to say this. If I had the means, I would buy palettes of this book and hand it out at malls, at grocery stores, at food kitchens, bookstores, libraries, schools, or anywhere I might find people who know how to read a book. Because I FREAKIN' LOVED THIS BOOK. I have already told my friends to buy this book and read it. I tell everyone I pass in hallways to read this book. And now I am telling you: 

READ! THIS! BOOK! 

We all know the Scooby-Doo legend. We all watched the cartoons growing up. This is your chance to go back and relive those moments again, but in the most perfectly amazing way possible. 

Have I mentioned that I love this book and want everyone to read it? Actually, why are you still reading this? Go buy the book, Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero, and read it now. Right now! And then tell everyone you know to read it too. You will thank me for this, I promise. 


Galleys for Meddling Kids provided by Doubleday Books through NetGalley.com, with all of the thanks I could possibly hold. 

**Scheduled to run on July 11.

I bailed on this book at the 29% mark at the word "tragichuckle" It's a miss for me. Great premise, it just didn't pan out.

As a lifelong fan of Scooby Doo (who had VERY STRONG OPINIONS of such things as the creators changing the theme song when I was 4), I thought this sounded like a fun romp of a book. It might have been, but it contains some really troubling language that was both unnecessary and extrememly disappointing.

For example: Pretty early on, as we're getting introduced to all the main players in the story, we're taken to an asylum. The opening scene there is one of the main trouble spots. The author is setting the scene, talking about other patients there before we even meet Nate. On one page he describes a character named Kimrean - so the character has a name. But in two different instances, the character is referred to as "the hermaphrodite." At first, the term took me aback, because we have much better language to talk about trans/intersex life these days. I wondered if I was being "overly sensitive" because it IS supposed to be 1990. But then when I went back to reread it, it's not just the term hermaphrodite that is troubling. It's the fact that he refers to a named character as both "the schizophrenic hermaphrodite" and again as "the hermaphrodite." Why?! It's such incredibly othering language, and it's just lazy. That is what makes it offensive. Despite it being set in 1990, it was written long after that -and I am CERTAIN that the author could have handled this scene with more care. Instead, he went for the cheap laugh (of the "look at all the freaky people!" variety), and it really failed.

So, if I could excise that scene from the book and my memory, how would I feel about the book? It was okay. I didn't love it, but it was definitely a unique story. There is a sense of snarky, overly clever humor (the kind where you can imagine the author being so entertained by his own wit) threaded through that might work really well for you, or it might make you cringe - it was about 30/70 worked/didn't work for me. Words like "tragichuckled" don't exist FOR A REASON.

The pacing was odd. And there are no chapters, just Parts (I think 1-5). I kind of missed the endpoint of chapters for pacing's sake. It was the kind of book where if I was reading it, I found it compelling enough, but I was NOT rushing to get back to it between readings. I should say that I have never read Lovecraft, so I can't speak to that aspect of the book.

If it was cleaned up a LOT, and sensitivity readers/writers were brought in, it could make a fun summer movie - that's what I kept thinking as I read it.

But as it stands, it needs a rewrite. I could not in good conscience recommend this book to anyone as it is now.

Almost fifty years ago, teenage detectives, Fred, Daphne, Velma, Shaggy, and their Great Dane, Scooby-Doo began taking on mystery cases involving ghosts, mummies, werewolves, or other monsters. The formula was simple. Their van breaks down near a haunted mine or amusement park and the gang volunteers to investigate. After splitting up to “cover more ground” and search for clues, getting chased around for a while, the team devises a trap to catch the bad guy. Inevitably, the the monster turns out to be a dude in mask, whose plan to scare people away from his real estate development was just foiled by this group of meddling kids. And their dog.

The Scooby Gang taught Saturday-morning-cartoon-obsessed-kids that there’s a rational explanation for everything and reason triumphs over superstition. Monsters are not real.

But what if they are?

In Edgar Cantero’s new book Meddling Kids, Andrea, Peter, Kerri, Nate, and their weimaraner Sean spent their 1970s summer vacationing in Blyton Hills, going on adventures, and solving mysteries as the Blyton Summer Detective Club. Together, they made their adopted hometown a better place by foiling the plots of sheep smugglers and the like. It was a lot of fun too. But then The Case of the Sleepy Lake Monster scared the life out of the kids, signaling the end of the Detective Club and sending its members on a downward spiral of nightmares, aimlessness, drug and alcohol addiction, prison sentences, and suicide.

Thirteen years later, “Andy” now 26, re-opens their last case, bringing back together Kerri, Nate, Sean’s grandpuppy Tim, and the ghost of Peter to face their fears, retrace the clues, find out what really happened that night, and hopefully, get their lives back on track.

With loads of humor and pop culture references, Meddling Kids achieves a perfect tone, both celebrating and satirizing the nostalgia for childhood favorites. There are direct call outs to kid detective stories like Scooby Doo, The Hardy Boys, and The Famous Five alongside scarier references to the weird horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. But it is Edgar Cantero’s observations about coming of age difficulties, facing our fears, and accepting the reality of becoming an adult that make Meddling Kids special.

So.....what if the members of a certain famous teenage sleuthing group (and their dog) grew up into (seriously damaged) adults and realized they had been totally wrong about their most famous case? Throw in a bit of Lovecraftian creepiness and serious homage to that-Saturday-morning-cartoon-that-shall-not-be-named (Cough...Scooby....Cough), and you've got Meddling Kids.

Back in 1977 the meddling kids and their dog solved the Sleepy Lake Mystery. Well, actually, they thought they did. It's now 1990, and the former members of the Blyton Summer Detective Club discover the old man they sent to prison wasn't really the culprit behind their famous case. The monster that was creeping through the woods wasn't an old man in a costume.....it was....a real monster.

[Insert familiar music stab here] Dah-da-dah-dah-dah!

I love this book! Not only is it sprinkled with a lot of references from my youth, but it's just a cool story based on what might have happened if certain meddling kids and their stupid dog actually ran up against a case that wasn't as easily solved as the others. The book is a fun read! I loved how the author chose unusual words and turns of phrase within the story. It just fit the quirkiness of the plot, and gave the story a fun(ny) edge.

As soon as I finished reading my digital review copy I put in a preorder for the actual book that comes out in July. This is definitely a fun, quirky read that is going on my keeper shelf. :)

This book is not for kids -- it's an adult book. There are some colorful metaphors and adult situations. The gang has grown up....so use parental guidance when allowing your meddling kids to read this one. PG13 at least in my opinion.

Edgar Cantero is also the author of The Supernatural Enhancements. To find out more about the author, please check out his website: http://punkahoy.blogspot.com/

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from Doubleday Books via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.**

To start with…yes…this is exactly what it looks like. Meddling Kids is a satire/spoof/what-if of the original Scooby Doo cartoon from the 1970s . The kids who caught that ‘naughty guy in a mask’ back in the ’77 have now grown up, each with their own problems, each battling their horrific memories of that night that they keep trying to ignore.

Being a huge Scooby-Doo fan, I liked the idea behind this novel. Some of the more recent movies have kind of dealt with this possibility, but none of them were ultra-realistic about how these types of events would affect the kids (and adults) involved. Yes, there was a lot of cursing and drinking…but honestly, if you were trying to stop the apocalypse while coming to terms with your adolescent trauma, wouldn’t you be cursing and drinking too?

The action, especially towards the end, was practically Lovecraftian, while still not coming across as over-the-top. I actually really love horror novels where you aren’t sure if your characters are going to make it out alive and this one definitely managed that.

I know a lot of people will think the hidden (and not so hidden) nods to old kids’ mysteries are a bit much, but I got a kick out of finding them all. The Zoinx River…the girl with red hair having to be rescued…heck, the author even threw in a reporter named Nancy Hardy (gold stars if you get that one). It was like the movie Jurassic World where around each corner you found a little inside joke for the fans. I loved it.

The only thing I didn’t really like about this book was the writing style. Not that the plot didn’t flow well or the characters weren’t likable, they totally were! But the author plays quite a lot with the format of the book, jumping from regular novel format to script format and back again for no apparent reason. I’m not sure if this was because I had an ARC of the novel or if this is the final format, but it threw me off while reading. Some people might really enjoy it, though, as it breaks the fourth wall in a way. Maybe that was the point.

Overall, I’d recommend this one to people who like horror novels, especially if they are also Scooby-Doo fans.

Holy spooks, Scooby-Doo! Those meddling kids are the Blyton Summer Detective Club, returned to Blyton Hills OR, to the scene of their most famous case, when they unmasked a thief. As with the Scooby Gang, there's a dog and four chums. However, this gang is flawed: one became a famous actor and killed himself; one is in a mental institution; one is woman who never lived up to her potential and the last is a lost soul, searching for a home. They are all victims of their last case in Blyton Hills, and so the remaining three return, along with Tim, the Weimaraner (a direct descendant of Sean, the dog who figured prominently in 1977). Who is the mysterious figure standing in the window at the old Deboen manor on the island in the middle of Sleepy Lake? Who is the primeval entity the local Native Americans refer to as Thtaggoa? A send-up of every children's adventure book ever written...don't read this with the lights out!

Zoinks! The Blyton Summer Detective Agency- four teens and a dog- solved mysteries of a haunted mansion, abandoned gold mine, and the a Monster of Sleepy Lake. In their 20s now, they are adrift with night terrors, asylums, prison stays, and death of one of their members. They return to Blyton to uncover what really happened in 1977 when the bitter old man they caught is out on parole, and maybe innocent. Nostalgia, horror & comedy mix in an original book with a sweetness of childhood friends.

“I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”

If you grew up watching Scooby Doo, you’re familiar with that sentiment. The latest book by Edgar Cantero, Meddling Kids , certainly takes its inspiration from that classic animated series — it could also be comfortably at home alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer, It, or Stranger Things. With a healthy dash of H.P. Lovecraft thrown in for good measure.

It’s a familiar premise. Teen sleuths (and their dog) solving mysteries, fighting monsters, and saving the day. What happens when those teens grow up, though? Could they still be haunted their cases? Are there questions left unanswered or mysteries unresolved? How would that affect them going forward in their lives? Meddling Kids aims to address those questions, and does so in an entertaining and meaningful way.

The plot has its roots in the mid-70s, when best friends Kerri, Nate, Andy, Peter, and their dog Sean made up the Blyton Summer Detective Club. After the summer of 1977, the kids move on with their lives — but each remains haunted by their final case. Fast forward to 1990. Andy, the tomboy, has anger issues and is on the run after escaping prison. Nate, the horror/fantasy nerd, has been in and out of mental institutions. Kerri, budding scientist and the brains of the group, has a drinking problem. Peter, the golden boy, saw success as a movie star, only to have his life end in suicide. The doesn’t stop him from visiting his old friend, Nate, however.

Andy realizes the only way for them all to truly move on is confront their nightmares and re-open their last case. To do that, they must return to Blyton Hills. They soon realize that there are very real monsters waiting for them, and they are the only ones properly equipped to deal with them once and for all. They are joined in their efforts by Tim, a descendant of their canine companion, Sean.

Cantero has written fresh characters that pop off the page in an authentic way. Each one, with their myriad issues, is fully formed and relatable. We all know these people, to some degree. We’ve all had those deep childhood friendships that never really go away, no matter how the years pass or the miles separate. That’s what makes you root for these people. And Tim - He's the best!

The plot takes several surprising turns and keeps you guessing till its satisfying end. It’s filled with humor, intelligence, heart, and genuine scares and thrills as the detectives get closer to the truth. Cantero is also a very visual writer, so it’s not difficult to see the story unfold in your mind’s eye.

Meddling Kids is scheduled for release this July, and it would make a fine addition to your summer reading list!

Note: This book is geared toward adult readers.

(Thank you to Penguin Random House for providing a copy of this book for review purposes.)

Once I heard that Edgar Cantero was coming out with a new book, it went to the top of my TBR pile. His novel Supernatural Enhancements was a delight featuring a haunted house, a mute and a dog who possesses a rare intelligence. Many of the same elements are part of Meddling Kids, but in a way that comfortingly familiar of Cantero's whimsical style rather than formulaic. Meddling Kids is Scooby Doo meets the X Files complete with masked cons and ancient mythology. Pop culture references abound, but don't interfere with Cantero's story-telling ability as he navigates the former members of the Blyton Hills Summer Detective Club out of their damaged adult lives back into the summers of their childhood to confront an unsolved mystery.

Forget It Jake, This Is Cantero-Town

There are lots of very earnest reviews of this book that highlight it's take on Scooby-Doo and similar kid detective classics. (The book has shout outs to Enid Blyton and Nancy Drew and so on, and about a million sly references to the whole Scooby-Doo canon, right down to who has red hair. And of course there are lots of Lovecraft references.) There is also a lot of discussion by readers about whether the book works as a horror/humor/Lovecraft/detective mashup. All of that, of course, is legit, interesting and helpful.

But, it should be noted and emphasized that this is a book by Edgar Cantero, and that guarantees it will be both more and less than just a straight up entertainment. Cantero's "The Supernatural Enhancements" delighted some and frustrated, annoyed and outraged others, and this book is a milder chip off that block. So, be warned that this book is a lot more than just a fond trip down Scooby-Doo memory lane.

At the risk of introducing the dreaded "meta-fiction" word, that's in part what we have here. Cantero comments on his book as a book within the text of the book. (Along the lines of "...two lines later, they were still stunned".) He occasionally throws in a script format. He makes up words. He uses ridiculously obscure words. ("Borborygmic thunder", where borborygmic means the rumbling sounds made by movement of gas through the intestines.) He addresses the reader. He uses inapt similes and metaphors. He peppers the characters' dialogue with non sequiturs and random thoughts. Verbs become nouns and anything can be an adjective or adverb. People don't see things when they can laser them. Sometimes his intentionally awkward sentence structure makes Cantero feel like English is his second language, after Venusian. Some readers, like me, think this is a hoot; some just get fed up. (BTW, actually and truthfully, he usually writes in Catalan or Spanish. "The Supernatural Enhancements" was his first novel in English.)

What is sometimes off-putting with Cantero is that he occasionally seems willing to mock the characters, the genre and his readers. One sometimes gets the feeling that he is above the whole writing-a-book thing and exists on some higher plane than mere book-reading mortals. But then, he tosses in some heart-breaking or lovely bit of prose, or some ridiculously funny throw away line, and you love him all over again.

So, you can read this and enjoy it as a Scooby homage/lark. Or, you can read it as an idiosyncratic, experimental, anything-for-a-laugh, meta project by an interesting and sometimes maddening one of a kind author with a taste for disguised bizarro. Whichever way you go this is certainly a lot more interesting, entertaining and rewarding than any other Scooby-Doo based novel you're likely to find. I always enjoy checking out what Cantero is up to. Consider yourself warned, or is it invited?

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence, (which I would in any event ignore), regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Meddling Kids is the love child of Scooby Doo and H.P. Lovecraft. Cantero created a wild and crazy ride with a little surprise at the end. Highly recommended if you're looking for something fun to read.

Did you love Scooby Doo? Do you love kooky mysteries? Do you love other worldly, terrifying things?

Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero opens thirteen years after the Blyton Summer Detective Club’s final case. The final case that changed their lives. One became a Hollywood star and fell into the Hollywood trap and has died of an overdose, one is a fugitive, one is an alcoholic, and one has committed himself to an asylum. Andy (our fugitive) rounds up the surviving crew (and Tim, the grandson of the original excitable Weimeraner), to return Blyton Hills, and solve the final mystery, once and for all.

Cantero has created an entire new genre of books. Is this a mystery? A thriller? A nostalgia romp for children of the 70′? Whatever it is, I loved it. With elements of sci-fi, mystery, humor and the tiniest bit of romance, Meddling Kids is a enjoyable read that is, in the end, the story about those lasting childhood friendships that will never end.

Thanks to NetGalley, Edgar Cantero and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for this review.

What would the Mystery Inc gang be like if they grew up? This is an excellent tale that lets that possibility unfold.

I was really excited for this one but could not get into it. It jumps around a lot and needs much more editing (and e-book format tweaking) before it's readable. It has a great premise - one that caught my attention from the beginning and made me look forward to reading it - but the story itself needs more work. Once it's been polished, it may just be a gem.