This was such a nostalgic read. Wood’s writing evokes Rick Riordan to me, so it felt like I was a kid again and was fully enthralled in the story. 

This is marketed as YA and is certainly written that way but it definitely has some darker moments, with multiple explicit murders as well as kidnappings happening in the story. 

I did find it a little silly every once in a while to see that the writing was clearly from a British author when they chose to set it in California. For example they say mobile and he’s “in hospital” rather than “in the hospital.” Normally wouldn’t bother me at all but because of the California setting it pulled me out of the story a bit. 

Last, I do think it was easy to predict who the ghoul was, but that didn’t leave me upset; it left me questioning why this person would want to do this