Science Project (Terror Academy) by Nicholas Pine

Terror Academy #8

by Nicholas Pine

Desperate for help in biology, Andrea Hill asks socially awkward Clark Thompson, a science whiz who spends all his free time working on secret experiments, to tutor her, but when Andrea's friends ridicule Clark, he turns his experiments on them. Original.

Genres: Young Adult

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Grace Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do you like the 'dorky dude getting his revenge'-trope? Do you like giant mutant animals who kill and do your bidding for you? Do you like a gnarly side of GORE to your YA Horror? Look no further, dude. This one was SO MUCH FUN!!

Thanks to my friend Erica for recommending this one, and it did not disappoint. Trigger alert for a few animal deaths as it's always a major bummer for me 😭

[Erica Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giving this one a high 3 for being one of the more memorable and amusing and creative Terror Academys I’ve read so far.

Moral of the story: NEVER piss off the school genius because he just might sic his giant rabid pet opossum on you!!!

You won’t feel bad for the initial victims bc they def deserved it (not talking about Suzy, obviously), especially the sexist sociopathic jerk who inexplicably talks like a 50s greaser teen.

I expected mutant animals, sure, but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting a MUTANT BLOODTHIRSTY PREHISTORIC MENAGERIE. Amazing.

There’s a surprising amount of gore in this one, and a very entertaining ending that had me howling to the very end. Honestly great.

[Matthew MacIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, it just wasn’t that good. The book is very fat phobic which in itself is just gross. We follow Junior Andrea, who at the start of the book is part of the popular group, but her boyfriend tries to rape her at a beach party, so she breaks up with him and is now unpopular and ostracized. She decides to take on a more academic role in school that makes her parents happy which includes biology where she is partnered with the super nerdy Clark. Andrea and Clark do not get along, so the teacher, of course pairs them together. Andrea joins Clark’s science project which has to do with DNA. He basically wants to turn animals back into their original species from millions of years ago. The book really makes no sense, because Clark is able to change the animals and somehow control them but that’s never stated why he can which is so dumb. Also the “chubby character“ is killed off Andrea‘s ex who is dating her gets her pregnant and wants her to get it taken care of, but apparently she wants to get together and be married so his only choice is to murder her. Super gross and dark for a young adult book. if you like weird animals who mutate and kill you may like this book but it’s barely a three star book.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always remember the Terror Academy books as being amazing, but this one was just weird as heck. Maybe I used to skip this one as a kid? It would explain why absolutely none of it was familiar.

[Egghead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mutation murders.
Popular to pariah.
A bad senior year.

[Sati Marie Frost · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of all the Terror Academy books - and I’ve read a dozen of them in the last couple weeks - this is the one that aggravated me the most, because it had the potential to be really good. Weird prehistoric animals? Popular girl falling for the nerd? Ex-boyfriend murdering people? I was loving this until halfway through. But the about-face of Clark - who should have been the hero - turning into the villain really wrecked it for me.

Even then, it could have been saved if he’d been a tortured, nuanced villain, rather than the cartoonish evil guy he was written into. But they went for cartoonish. Sigh.

And Andrea’s admission at the end that she sometimes missed Johnny (Johnny, who tried to rape you and murdered your best friend!) was just…ick.

This whole series has been a mixed bag. Nothing great, but some decent tales, and a bunch of mediocre ones, and a few terrible ones (Night School, I’m looking at you) but none so aggravating as this, which had the potential to be my favourite in the series, and turned out my least favourite.

[Alexis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is a book in the Terror Academy series. It is about a girl who falls in with the wrong crowd. She learns that people can be perceived in many different ways. The guy she likes is a jerk at school and she is warned to stay away.