To be honest, I never really expected body horror in the Goosebumps series, but here we are.

And this is one of the better ones in the series that is also more intense than usual.

Part of me wants to think Stine is trying to graduate the horror with an aging audience to keep them and hopefully bridge the gap between Goosebumps to something harder in Fear Street. I know that it could be said that there’s an overlapping age range for the series (there sure was for me), but it’s jarring as a kid to jump from something like Monster Blood to dealing with murderous cults and kidnapped parents (which we’ll get to later).

But the thing I want to believe a little more than Stine wanting bridge books is that he had a case of senioritis. He knew his time with Scholastic was up, they were giving him a rash of shit about ghostwriters and taking him to court, Parachute wasn’t pulling in NEARLY as much money as they should have, and the end of it all was in sight. With this in mind, he just kind of took his foot off the brakes a bit more and let more unfiltered horror into the Goosebumps series.

I don’t know. I don’t know the guy so at this point it’s just wild speculation. But I’ve worked jobs - even jobs I liked - where I felt more free to be more of myself (not a jerk or anything) when my notice had been given.

We’re almost done with the series, folks. Just one book to go and, I hate to spoil it, but it’s one of the biggest wet farts in the series and a HUGE disappointment as a closer.

*sigh*

Oh well. We’ll get through it.

Together.
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Continuing the trend from the last book that felt more intense than your average Goosebumps book, we have this gem.

Do you remember how I said Scholastic accused Stine of having ghostwriters? This book might be the strongest case for it.

1) It’s WAY more violent than other GB books. Deer and rabbits are torn apart with graphic detail about the corpses.

2) It ends with the protagonist getting attacked and bitten by a werewolf.

There was a misconception that nothing bad ever really happened to the protagonists, but there have been plenty of instances where the sting ending was the kid losing. One turned into a chipmunk, supposedly for the rest of their life. One was attacked by a venomous (called poisonous which is amusing because that’s what we used to say) snake as a ghost watched and waited for the kid to die. And this one ended with a werewolf diving in and biting a kid’s chest.

Maybe to death? Probably more likely to infect him with the curse.

Regardless, this book felt way more hardcore than other GB books. That’s definitely not a bad thing. At this point I feel so saturated with soft fake-outs and sting endings that I’m ready for more violence and actual repercussions.

Anyway, I’m not saying Stine actually used ghostwriters (beyond his own statements of using freelance authors’ detailed outlines for books in this specific series). Maybe he too was bored with the low stakes of most of the books.

But if I were Scholastic and I really want to point to a different tone as an indicator that there was another cook in the kitchen, this would probably be the book. Honestly, besides the last Monster Blood, I’d probably point toward the last FEW books in this series!

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When I started re-reading this series, a friend of mine was renting a house and found this book on one of the shelves. He sent me a picture and said something like he couldn’t believe I was going to read this book.

But I am so excited to tell you folks how good this book actually is!

It isn’t my favorite (that honor goes to the Blob), but it is SOLIDLY in my top 5. It’s got a genuinely creepy skeleton of a story to it where an entire class of kids disappear one year only to have a new kid to the school stumble onto an old elevator that brings him and a new friend to… basically an alternate dimension.

The kids who had disappeared were transported to this black-and-white mirror world of their own en masse and, realizing they are never going to leave, decided to reenact Lord of the Flies. They’re ruthless, violent, and insane. Beyond that, there’s a distinct lack of humanity because almost everyone has given up and become nihilistic. There’s a vibe of “we’re screwed, so we’re going to hurt you as well so you’re just as bad-off as us.”

Personally, the idea of being trapped in a world that is basically empty except for its insane and violent inhabitants with no hope of leaving is pretty creepy. It would be impending doom and a ticking clock as there is no escape, no hope, and the only guarantee is that the others will find you one day and, until then, it’s just survival in a shitty world.

I think it might be one of the more unsettling books in the series.

After I read it, I told my friend he should give it a go. There’s a lot of characters getting whipped into hysteria by everyone around them and this felt poignant in modern America, but he declined saying it’s still a children’s book.

But he should have read it. It’s one of the best!
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The first Deep Trouble was a bit of a miss for me because it wasn’t Jaws. It WAS a very interesting book that tackled (albeit in a simplified junior way) the ethical dilemma of capturing endangered species for study.

So, while I didn’t get a maniacal hammerhead shark stalking kids, I did get a thinker of a book and I ended up really liking it.

When it came time to read this one, I went in with zero expectations and it was also pretty good. It didn’t have the same depth (see what I did there?) as the first one, but a genuinely interesting thing happened in it:

A family gets stranded on an island.

Oh man, THIS is my jam. I love books about people stranded on islands. The need for survival, the inventing of solutions to problems unique to that island, time, and person (or people) so the characters(s) can get what they need to stay alive, and the struggle to not only live but to maintain the WILL to live… That’s some awesome stuff. Having societal obligations stripped away leaving only humanity always makes for an intriguing story.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last long in this book before they were off the island, the problem was solved, and the book was done.

It was still a good book. As a matter of fact, I’d say out of all the stories that have sequels, this is probably my favorite.
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Last camp book in the original Goosebumps series!

This is definitely my favorite camp book in the Goosebumps series. It has everything: gaslighting, ghosts, attempted murder, snakes, and betrayal.

It was also scarier than a LOT of other Goosebumps books and it made me start thinking about JK Rowling.

The genius of (the morally questionable) Rowling was that her books graduated in difficulty, subject matter, and characterization as they went on. Kids who were eleven when the first Harry Potter book came out got to grow up WITH Harry and deal with more and more mature things right next to him as they had to deal with more mature things in their own lives.

It was brilliant.

And I’m not saying Stine is Rowling or anything (Stine is OBVIOUSLY better than Rowling even if he never read the story I sent him as a kid. At least he’s not a TERF. That I know of. Please don’t correct me), but the books have been getting scarier and it would be WILD if the last one served as a bridge to the scarier and far more violent Fear Street books.

Imagine: A kid goes through a scarier than average Goosebumps story and the family moves in the end like Welcome to Dead
House only pull up to a new house in a new town and the kid gets out to survey the scene. It’s quiet and he realizes that there aren’t any birds singing. And it’s chilly even though it’s summer. And what does that street sign say?

“Fear Street? What kind of town names a street like that?”

And then nothing. That’s the end.

I think that would have been the coolest thing Stine could have done but, alas, it didn’t work out like that. But we’ll talk about all that later.

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When I originally read this, I was impressed that the kid could basically fall asleep on command. I’m pretty quick to fall asleep and my wife gets pretty jealous of it, but I can’t just zonk out when I’m super stressed about things - like I can only imagine this kid was.

And I really enjoyed the fever dream state of this book. Absolutely dreadful episode of the show, but the book was good.

Except for one thing: You know how in movies they sometimes try to be cute and slip in names as an homage to the movie-maker’s influences? Like how in Friday the 13th, Tommy was at Karloff’s Garage? Or how in Scream, Rose McGowan said “Wes Carpenter?”

And you know how it NEVER feels natural? These names are critical to the point where they seem almost unique to that individual. Are there other people named Wes? Sure! But in the context of horror movies, is there really any other Wes? Or a Karloff?

It takes me right out of the story.

It’s even harder in books because I can’t exactly read when my eyes are rolling in my head.

That said, Stine has avoided it almost entirely until this book. He fell HARD in this book.

Two characters. One named Bruce. One named Wayne. They’re always together so it’s “Bruce said,” “Wayne added.”

Ugh.

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I cannot put into words my dread at knowing I would need to eventually read this book. The cover and title are memorable and I remember thinking “ugh, so that’s Goosebumps now, eh?” as a kid.

I wasn’t stoked.

But then I read it and yeah, it’s just as dumb as you think it would be. A girl is slowly turning into a chicken after upsetting the neighborhood witch.

The only entertaining thing about it is that RL Stine has often been called a reader’s stepping stone (one place called him a training bra which is just hilarious) to Stephen King and I don’t think either party liked that. It’s very dismissive of Stine’s work and King had a character call Goosebumps dumb in “Fairy Tale.”

And THIS book is Stine actually taking a swing at being “inspired” by a King book and reworking it to be a Goosebumps book.

The King book? Thinner.

So does that make this fanfic? Or is there a better term? Perhaps a more nefarious term? Because as it stands right now it feels like parody more than anything else. If Mad Magazine took on Thinner, it would probably be this book.

So it’s entertaining to see Stine try to boil down a full-length novel about racism, classism, the justice system, and a failing marriage into a children’s book.

Obviously it’s not going to be a success but damn it, I enjoyed seeing him try.

When King’s Under the Dome came out, it really freaked me out. Not the story, but the fact that so many people lost their minds and followed a madman just because he had charisma. He was able to whip up a crowd and it led to horrible results that I could (now can) absolutely see happening. It freaked me out so badly I stopped reading King for a long time with the exception of Elevation.

Until I read this book and thought “Thinner was so much better than this. I should re-read that.”

So there are TWO good things about this book!

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This was a frustrating read. And it wasn’t frustrating because the story was weak or anything - it was frustrating because this kid needed real parents and the Stine trope of absentee parents hit hard. I’ve never wanted to grab a kid in a book and give him the mentorship he DEFINITELY needs more in my life.

But, if I could, I would have told him that:

1) Girls (or anyone, really) aren’t prizes and it’s weird that he’s competing against someone for a girl as if the girl has no say in this.

2) MOST girls are into people who are genuine rather than people putting up facades.

3) It has to suck to live your whole life in competition with a neighbor and this will never stop unless YOU stop it.

4) Be content with yourself. You’re good enough and you don’t need the external validation of your neighbors to feel good about yourself.

This was a sad book for me because Stine wrote a sad kid so well I felt bummed I couldn’t help him out. That’s pretty good on Stine’s part. ;-)

It was also way better than the cover or title would have led me to believe. It felt like there were more fleshed-out problems and characters in this one.

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I am forty-one. Okay? Fully grown, husband, father, about to wrap up his first career, and old enough to get freaked out and buy a red convertible.

A Miata. Cool car but Jesus, get used to buying batteries.

I say that because the next part sounds a little kooky:

I thought this one was a little spooky.

I don’t mean the actual story, but little details here and there. The cold is scary because you can’t go far from your threat. Snowmen are NOT scary, but I think ANYTHING where everything is pointed the same way or doing the same thing is SUPER creepy. When I drive (in my Miata) past a pasture with sheep and they’ve all got their heads down eating, I like HARD for one to lift their head.

I don’t know. Call it a quirk.

So these little details kinda creep me out. Cold, snow, uniform snowmen, a town of suspicious locals, all of this is creepy.

But then the last half of the book happens and we’re back to a silly book.

This is one of those books where a different author could take these bones and make a FAR different book. A far SCARIER book.

Actually, I think this book might have a practical purpose. You could give this to an aspiring horror writer and ask them to take the bones and make their own story. Every writer would take it somewhere new but these bones hold a lot of promise.

It’s a good start, a disappointing end, and a whole lot of promise.

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This is an interesting book, not especially because of the actual plot but because of the protagonist.

EVERYONE hates the protagonist.

Stine’s no stranger to writing the bullied, but this one is WILD. Even the TEACHERS are getting in on it.

In a Goosebumps book. Sold by Scholastic. At school book fairs.

(Ah, remember school book fairs? That’s a high I’m still chasing.)

You would think that by now (and so close to the end of the original Goosebumps run), Stine would be leaning into tropes that would make him less of a target from parents. He pretty regularly writes parents in this series as either nonexistent or neglectful but… I don’t know. It feels like a strange choice to reinforce the idea that even teachers can’t be trusted to be good people in an era when we were (I was, at least) CONSTANTLY told that your teacher can and should be trusted with any dark shit you can’t tell anyone else.

As for the story, it’s okay. Everyone hates this kid, this kid decides to play the weakest prank ever concocted (it’s so weak that you can kind of see why the teachers hate him), and hijinks ensue when it backfires on him.

It feels pretty standard by now but I’ll be honest: this series is wearing a little thin with me and I’m looking at the few I have ahead of me and I’m getting pretty excited to move on.

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