A review by dtaylorbooks
Krazyland by Maria Romasco-Moore

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

KRAZYLAND was a fun, silly middle grade horror book that I quite enjoyed. I got a little turned around when the doubles came into play, but it evened out pretty quickly and I settled back into the madness.

To say that, as a kid, I never imagined the ball pit being a gateway to somewhere else would be me lying. I love that it’s being done here, and in a ‘Are Your Afraid of the Dark’ sort of way that turns reality into something warped and creepy and literally ready to eat you. I loved the spiders that tried to stop Nathan (mirrored on a game in Krazyland where you basically do Whac-A-Mole with spiders and use your feet instead of a mallet) in their little colored sneakers. Big Bertha was kind of terrifying, and I liked how Nathan pointed out how messed up it was that Bertha is treated as a villain simply because she’s bigger. I support that message in there.

I think this book could have been even darker, but that’s my own demented horror brain going places that it probably shouldn’t go for a middle grade novel. The fake people that could be pulled into the real world added a somewhat sinister edge to everything, even though they really weren’t used that way. I picked up on it, anyway.

The book isn’t particularly earth-shattering or groundbreaking, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s fun and creepy and will make you look at ball pits differently. And I can say, as an insurance underwriter, an activity center like this that DOESN’T regularly clean their ball pits is horrifying enough. I was really amused by the bizarro world that Nathan ended up in (multiple times), especially with the man-eating chicken wing sharks and evil mozzarella sticks.

There’s not a ton of character development, at least from Nathan. Mercy has a bigger arc than he does. And I don’t quite understand her “allergies.” I think it would have been fine if she just had narcolepsy, but it kept going back to being allergic to the world. While I am empathize with the sentiment, here it just played out kind of odd and unnecessary. Despite that, KRAZYLAND is fun and promises a good time.

4

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.