The Ghoul Next Door – Monster High 2

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Author: Lisi Harrison
ISBN: 978-190-741-0642
RRP: $16.99

The motley crew from Merston High are back, with new acronyms and bigger adventures.

The Ghoul Next Door picks up where Monster High left off without missing a beat which is fantastic. There is also just the right touch of back story so that if you’re starting here you won’t be lost.

The major storyline running through The Ghoul Next Door – and the entire series, is my prediction – is a quest for acceptance, a yearning for the RAD’s to be able to walk in the sun and be themselves. The Merston High kids and their families all dream of a day when that may be possible but it’s a pipe dream, their memories are too long (some of them WAY too long) to believe it could ever happen.

monster high

They have been ostracised and persecuted too many times when their true natures have been discovered and the fear of discovery is too deeply ingrained.

Enter Frankie Stein, the newly built daughter of Frankenstein. Frankie has had lots of information and knowledge downloaded into her brain but no experience of her own, no memories of any of this which has given her a new perspective. A greater desire for equality and appreciation of the beauty all around her. Frankie has made it her mission to work towards ‘normie’ acceptance. But that went rather badly in Monster High, is it destined to be any more successful in The Ghoul Next Door?

The group of ‘normie’ sympathisers in the know about the RADs begins to grow in the 2nd book of the series and we see the formation of NUDI – Normies Uncol with Discriminating Idiots. There are a lot of trust issues that come along with this, parallel to what we see in our everyday lives with people being judged by their circumstances – quite often out of their control – because they are different and having to work extremely hard to build trust, which only takes a split second to be broken.

Interestingly we seem to be discovering new RAD’s that had always hidden their special qualities, in fear of embarrassment, which has kept them below the radar of the RADs and they have had to do it all in isolation. Had there been a little less stigma involved they would have been able to get in touch with the support they needed through the hard time of adjusting to qualities that sometimes didn’t begin manifesting until puberty which is already a time of such major upheaval.

Come along with Frankie, Melody, Jackson and the gang as they work towards a future freedom to express themselves. As new ‘normies’ discover their RADness and all together they try to navigate the usual teenage traumas.

I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen in not-so-sleepy Salem in book 3.

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