Gustav Gloom is a strange and unusual boy. He lives at the darkest and creepiest house on the block. No one knows much about him or his house until the What family moves in across the street. Fernie What follows her cat onto the grounds of Gustav Gloom’s house and gets trapped in the house by the dark creatures and weird rooms that inhabit the Gloom household.

The cover and inside art is very eye-catching and are what intrigued me.

There are so many usual and imaginative characters and the rules that they seem to follow. I found an issue with those rules because Gustav would first tell the rules of a creature or room and then those rules always seem to get broken. It just did not make sense as to why there were rules in the first place.

My inner child was attracted to this series because of the art and theme. The actual story missed the mark for me. I don’t know if I will continue with the series. ( )

Quirky. No other word to describe this doom and gloom book with a comedic edge. First the good part. The prose.

Example 1
“Some conversations are like leaky motorboats, running out of fuel before you even leave the dock.”

Example 2
"Gustav took to being hugged about as well as a tree would, except that a tree would not have given the impression that it might have preferred to run away. Nor would a tree have made as many attempts to figure out what to do with its arms."

That’s just purely fun reading for me. I loved the setting and character building at the beginning. Gustav Gloom lives in a gloomy mansion in the middle of a perfect neighborhood. Everything on his property is black. The house. The trees. The lawn. The birds. Gustav looks out at the world with his sad face, black clothes, and black hair sticking straight up. According to the neighbors, something must be done about the Gloom property.

Now for the bad part. The plot. It’s a crazy, muddled mess. It begins when Fernie’s cat runs into the Gloom house. She gives chase and ends up in a nightmare. On the inside the house stretches on for miles. There’s a library with all the books never written. A hall with statues in embarrassing poses. A room with dinosaurs. And that just scratches the surface of all the bizarre things going on in this house. The two main pieces of the plot were the pieces that confused me. There is a People Taker and his sidekick Beast that lurks around the place ready to nab people and throw them in a pit for Lord Obsidian. Confusing. Then there is this thing with your shadow where it can separate from you. There are shadows running all over the place in this house. Confusing.

It’s a mess of a plot if you ask me. So much going on and no real satisfaction with the ending. Good writing. Bad plot. In fact, I can’t even begin to figure out where book 2 can go. Gustav can’t leave the house and I have no desire to go back in there. But. It has an amazingly cute cover, so kids might be enticed to give it a go.
( )

This ended up being a super cute story. It had a bit of a gothic and horror vibe to it, but for kids. I liked it and I'm interested to see where the rest of this series goes. I would recommend this book. The characters are good, the story line has a good pace, and the illustrations are amazing. 4 out of 5 stars. ( )

Thank you, Adam-Troy Castro, for writing a children's book that breaks rules, even rules I agree with, and still makes it work.

The Rules:

1. Oh, look! A book called "Gustav Gloom"! Boys will read it because the main character is named Gustav. Girls will read it because it looks great and, hey, they're used to being COMPLETELY LEFT OUT of all the really fun adventure stories.

(Think I'm exaggerating? Try being a female fan of Tolkien and not having anybody *fun* you can pretend to be unless you're willing to have, like, two scenes *late* in LOTR, or are willing to pretend to be male. Then go read the Harry Potter books and see how many scenes you can find where there are only male characters present, and how many scenes there are only female characters. [Hint on that last one: NONE.] Then go and double-check the statistics about how, yes, in countries that aren't actively killing off their female children, women make up *more* than half the population and like having adventures as much as anyone. Then go light some incense in Lemony Snicket's honor. Then tell me, please, how saying "It's really important that we have male main characters, because boys just won't read female main characters but girls don't mind reading male main characters" is ANY DIFFERENT from saying, "Hey, we *have* to have mostly white characters. We can have a cute black or Latina BFF, but white people just don't feel comfortable unless they're the center of the stage. Sorry, but I don't make the rules. I'm just trying to sell stuff." Tell me how that's any different. I dare you. And yes, I've read editors, writers, and agents saying that first one almost word-for-word.)

So, fine. Adam-Troy Castro calls his book "Gustav Gloom." He lets the reader think for the whole first chapter that Gustav is the main character. By the time said reader finishes chapter two, and then chapter three and chapter four, and realizes that -- wait a minute! The girl who just moved in *next door* to Gustav is the REAL main character! -- it's too late, because the reader is hooked. And if said reader is a guy, he won't lose any Manliness points by reading a book with a female main character, because Gustav is all over the cover and *does* play a perfectly important role.

I love that Castro apparently decided that if people are stupid enough to be sexist, he's going to sell them a book with a female main character anyway, AND HE'S GOING TO MAKE THEM LIKE IT. Because you can't *not* like this book. It's just too fun. Well played, Mr. Castro. Well played.

2. You start this book wondering who exactly Gustav Gloom is, where his parents are, and why he lives in that freaky house. You end it still wondering. If you're me, you've screamed in the past about children's books that start off with a huge teasing question like that but refuse to answer the question until at least book two. If you're me, you've stopped reading series' whose first book you otherwise enjoyed, because you find that particular tease so ubiquitous and annoying. And if you're me, somehow it doesn't bother you at all that even after reading the first book in his series, you still don't know who exactly Gustav Gloom is. That's how good this is.

3. This is a humorous book for middle-school-aged readers. Apparently someone forgot to tell Adam-Troy Castro that these books are supposed to have lots of disgusting bodily references, because *all* middle-school kids find that hilarious. Instead, Castro wrote some actual just plain really funny humor -- intelligent, non-condescending humor that will crack up readers of all ages and make them annoy their nearest and dearest by saying "Let me just read you this one funny part" until they've read the whole book out loud.

Yeah, I liked this book. Can't wait for the next one. ( )

A surprisingly sophisticated MG book (with terrible illustrations). ( )