Book: Killer Pizza (Killer Pizza book #1) by Greg Taylor
Edition: Hardcover
Description:
Pizza You'll Die For.
Toby McGill dreams of becoming a world-famous chef, but up until now, his only experience has been watching the Food Network. When Toby lands a summer job at Killer Pizza, where pies like THE MONSTROSITY and THE FRANKENSAUSAGE are on the menu, things seem perfect. His coworkers, Annabel and Strobe, are cool, and Toby loves being part of a team. But none of them are prepared for what's really going on at Killer Pizza: It's a front for a monster-hunting organization!
Learning to cook pizza is one thing, but killing hideously terrifying monsters? That's a whole other story. Still, if Toby quits Killer Pizza, will monsters take over his town?
Rating: 4 stars
Review:
When 14 years old Toby McGill applied for a job at Killer Pizza he was only looking to avoid summer boredom and maybe make some new friends. He also harbored dreams of one day becoming a chef. And things were going really well at his job, he was getting along with is co-workers: 14 years old Annabel Oshiro and 15 years old Strobe while getting to make the restaurant's specialty pizzas.
The trio were unaware that their small town Hidden Hills was plagued with monsters. However, they soon learned the truth when the owner of Killer Pizza, Harvey P. Major III revealed not only that but also that the restaurant was a front to a secret monster hunting organization and even the store manager Steve Rogers was a part of the organization.
Even after touring the underground facilities and seeing the body of a Guttata, a vicious gargoyle like monster, the kids still thought it was a joke. But eventually they realized the truth. The reason Harvey was revealing this information was he wanted the trio to also work for the secret organization. He wanted them to become Monster Combat Officers.
Toby didn't think he had any skills for the job but after some careful consideration he eventually took up the offer to start training to become a monster hunter alongside Annabel and Strobe. They were truly going to need the training because the Guttatas were quickly becoming a problem. They were adding to their pack by biting people and transforming them into monsters but it can be difficult finding the Guttatas because they can go back to their human form making it easy for them to hide in plain sight.
Can Toby, Annabel and Strobe save their town or will it be to late to stop the monsters?
This was a fast-paced, action packed horror story that's also includes a bit of humor as these monster hunters in training try to stop the Guttatas. The story started out with Toby as this shy kid who had a hard time excelling at anything. He was an average student who had to struggle to maintain his grades. But once he started working at Killer Pizza and training as a monster hunter, he started to become more confident and trusted in his abilities.
Although the story mostly focused on Toby; Annabel and Strobe were not forgotten. You learn a lot about them such as Annabel might be rich, smart and popular but she didn't want to sit around the pool all summer like her friends were doing nor work at her father's company. She wanted to figure out who she was away from that. While Strobe seems to be masking his inner conflict with a desire to train and fight monsters.
Not only did I enjoy reading this but I also really like how the cover looks like a scratched up greasy pizza box. I thought this was an inventive story and I'm interested in reading the next book in the series.
