#anyway if you want to read an authentic gen 1 novel series i recommend the Monster High Diaries books

[freaky-flawless]

Well...I just finished the final Ghoulfriends book (not counting the Ghoul it Yourself book) Not really sure what to take away from it?

Its the case where the story builds up to this big reveal, where all the pieces are supposed to come together only for it to be underwhelming and obvious. Like...none of this would have happened if they'd just gotten rid of the dragon lady after the first book.

I've been under the impression for years that this story had its own version of how Hexiciah Steam is found, only to find out just this moment that this isn't the case. It's revealed in the story that Ramses De Nile had something to do with his disappearance, and in the epilogue Cleo finds a clue as to his whereabouts and hands it off to Robecca. And thats where it ends. There's apparently a continuance in the Ghoul-It-Yourself book of the ghoulfriends trying to track him down and I guess they just don't??? He's fully normie in this series, and his life goal was to find a way to mechanically extend the life span of normies, so they just kinda blindly hope that he managed to do that for himself and has secretly been alive for 100+ years. So the only version of Hexiciah's reemergence is in his SDCC doll diary, which doesn't tie into this at all.

Wydowna was another major disappointment. She only appeared at the very beginning of the book and the very end, and her role in the story is left weirdly vague. (She also got arrested in the third book which was wild #ACAB) I think she was supposed to be a spy for the villain but its not really spelled out exactly what she did. The only people she seemed to be spying on were high schoolers who had no idea what was going on. A LOT of weird shit happened around the school in the second book that must have been her, but no one in the story makes that connection? And its not mentioned at all. Like at one point Rochelle literally wakes up in a cocoon of webs for no reason, and no ones ever like "Wydowna what the fuck??" (Unless I'm wrong and it wasn't her, in which case its just never explained) And on top of that, despite the cover of the book showing her hanging out with the mains, they don't even end up as friends. In fact it seems Wydowna grew way closer to Cleo and Toralei at the end of the book who had previously taken any chance they could have to bully her lol. Such a wasted use of her character, and its such a shame considering she rarely features in the main canon, and she's so cool!

Oh Skelita and Jinafire were real useless too. They just showed up randomly following the villain around and that was it. Jinafire gave them a kung fu (or kung boo I guess) lesson out of nowhere which was weird and uncomfortable.

To give the book some credit though, I did like how the parents were included in the story. It was really refreshing, though I think Ghoulia's mom was mentioned more times than Ghoulia herself (who would have solved the entire mystery in less than an hour, but like I mentioned in a previous post, everyone but the main 3 are stupid)

I also like Sue Nami quite a bit, I was so worried that she'd end up being some kinda cheap twist villain, but nope! She has a fun pun name unlike a lot of the other characters (like...Fred Onarrival...c'mon man...) Definitely stealing her character for fics.

Sooo. Yeah. I have mixed feelings about this series as a whole. The first book was just plainly bad for sure, and the over arching story was disjointed and predictable (and actually follows a similar theme with monster supremacy as Frights Camera Action, just a lot worse) but once I accepted the fact that they were bad I could enjoy them a lot more. There were cute moments here and there, and starting each chapter with a Darko Dark illustration was delightful.