A monster created in the depths of a childish nightmare would seem as pleasant as a cool summer breeze in comparison to the consternations that 12-year-old Will Henry has witnessed ☺. The Monstrumologist is a gothic horror novel set in New England during the late 1800s and is the first in Rick Yancey’s young adult series. The majority of the novel is a diary written from the perspective of Will Henry, an orphan working as an apprentice to his late father’s employer, Doctor Pellinore Warthrop. The doctor is a vanguard of his chosen field of study. As a scientist researching Anthropophagi, a species of man-eating monsters commonly found in Africa, Doctor Warthrop is not a popular man in the town of New Jerusalem. However, when a disheveled grave
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This was blatantly obvious in the case of Doctor John Kearns – if that was even his true name. Doctor Kearns was a monstrumologist like Doctor Warthrop, however he had extensive experience hunting Anthropophagi. When Will Henry first met him, he was aware that Kearns seemed a bit odd, but he had no idea what was to come when the plot began to thicken. During the hunt for the Anthropophagi, Kearns chose to use human enticement in the form of a female wastrel from the slums. Only when he stabbed her in the gut to draw blood did everyone realize that Kearns was using live bait. Also, near the end of the monster hunt, Kearns willingly sacrificed Will Henry to the man-eaters, almost ending his life. Additionally, Kearns murdered a man named Doctor Starr after the hunt was over. Doctor Starr had operated an inhumane insane asylum where Captain Varner, a survivor of the shipment of the monsters to America, had lived for twenty years prior to his death earlier in the week. Lastly, months after the Anthropophagi hunt, a man matching Kearns’s description allegedly murdered four people in London. According to Will Henry, “He had hunted monsters when he wasn’t hunting human beings” (Yancey 432). Bored with his usual prey, Kearns had decided to hunt the predator instead: the virtually insuperable Anthropophagus. As illustrated through the progression of Doctor Kearns,
This was blatantly obvious in the case of Doctor John Kearns – if that was even his true name. Doctor Kearns was a monstrumologist like Doctor Warthrop, however he had extensive experience hunting Anthropophagi. When Will Henry first met him, he was aware that Kearns seemed a bit odd, but he had no idea what was to come when the plot began to thicken. During the hunt for the Anthropophagi, Kearns chose to use human enticement in the form of a female wastrel from the slums. Only when he stabbed her in the gut to draw blood did everyone realize that Kearns was using live bait. Also, near the end of the monster hunt, Kearns willingly sacrificed Will Henry to the man-eaters, almost ending his life. Additionally, Kearns murdered a man named Doctor Starr after the hunt was over. Doctor Starr had operated an inhumane insane asylum where Captain Varner, a survivor of the shipment of the monsters to America, had lived for twenty years prior to his death earlier in the week. Lastly, months after the Anthropophagi hunt, a man matching Kearns’s description allegedly murdered four people in London. According to Will Henry, “He had hunted monsters when he wasn’t hunting human beings” (Yancey 432). Bored with his usual prey, Kearns had decided to hunt the predator instead: the virtually insuperable Anthropophagus. As illustrated through the progression of Doctor Kearns,