Lucy Dark loves to tell stories about monsters. She especially loves to frighten her little brother, Randy, with them. When she sees the librarian, Mr. Mortman, change into a real monster, no one believes her. Worst of all, Mr. Mortman might know that Lucy saw him. Will she convince her parents that she's telling the truth, before it's too late?

The Girl Who Cried Monster is the eighth book in R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series. Stine's take on The Boy Who Cried Wolf, its protagonist, Lucy, will have a hard time convincing her parents that the librarian is a monster, before he can eat her up to silence her.

This book stands out as the first book where the protagonist's parents actually have a reason not to believe her. Of course, they're still useless, but at least they have an excuse.

Lucy's task isn't easy: when she convinces her friend, Aaron, to come along with her so he can corroborate her story, he ends up having an appointment with an orthodontist, so he can't come; when she tries to take a picture of Mr. Mortman in his monstrous form, the photo comes out very clear--but without Mr. Mortman in it; when she goes to his house to spy on him, he actually catches her at it.

The twist at the end of this one is actually very unexpected--I only noted one passage that could have been foreshadowing it, and even that may be just my imagination. Usually, the 'twist' in a Goosebumps book is basically just "and it turns out that the problem wasn't solved, after all!" Yeah, that's a great twist. Never could have seen that coming. In The Girl Who Cried Monster the twist is not only unexpected, it actually fits into the story. A rare treat, in these books.

The Girl Who Cried Monster is a good entry in the Goosebumps series. It doesn't appear to be available for the Kindle, so this is another one you'll have to pick up a paper copy of. With the abundance of used Goosebumps books available, though, that's no great hardship.