This was a really short one-shot so it didn’t have a lot of space to stretch out and build any sort of ambiance (not that ambiance is Stine‘s strength), but it did do something I liked:⁠
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A girl is at camp and she feels like she’s had enough vague threats and weird occurrences and she calls her parents to come pick her up.⁠
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And they COME!⁠
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I mean, she let everyone know that they were coming so the bad guy had to move up the timetable, but I like the effort anyway. Any other Stine book and they would have said “weird how people keep dying and I’m being chased by something I don’t know, but mom would be so disappointed in me if I came home early from camp...“

This was a fun one. Fun and fast.

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This is one of the good ones! The story centers on a kid that finds a weird egg during an egg hunt. The egg eventually hatches and a yellow goo-monster comes out.

The kid wants to figure out what the goo monster is so he takes him to a science lab where the scientist says these eggs have been popping up and he’s been keeping them in a cold room so they can stay alive because the heat would kill them.

Which… fine. Goo monsters. Got it.

But then the scientist says he won’t let the kid leave because he wants to study him.

The scientist kidnaps the kid!

The kid’s dad shows up looking for him but the scientist says no, he hasn’t seen any kids recently.

The scientist eventually says he hasn’t decided to kill the kid, the goo monsters attack the doctor, the kid escapes, yadda yadda yadda.

Then the obligatory twist ending that takes all the fear away and bing bang boom: the story.

I liked this one a lot. A whole lot. I hated the twist ending, but I thought Stine did a great job of leaning in on a genuinely scary idea (kidnapping, and not in a particularly fantastic way but just being kidnapped and held by a random adult) without making it TOO scary for the kids.

But I could have absolutely seen him throw caution to the wind and write a story that gave kids way more than just goosebumps with this. If he had taken just a couple things out of this story, extended the timeline, and gave in to a writer’s cruelty they usually have at their disposal (and then not released it in this series), this book could have been fucking terrifying to kiddos just by focusing on being kidnapped, alone, and uncertain about your future.

Even as it is, though, it was still nice to read something with such wild (and close) potential.

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Goddamnit, dude, are we REALLY back to fuckin’ MONSTER BLOOD?

Yet another entry where Evan is yet again “traumatized” by the monster blood but is yet again instigated by someone shitty (in this case his nephew Kermit) and yet again prodded into absolute stupidity by Andy (who at this point is either outing herself as a sociopath or the actual devil), Evan yet again acts like a friggin’ moron and then hijinks ensue.

The ONLY part of this that reverberated with me was the fact that Evan absolutely hated Kermit (good job with the names, Stine) but he has to babysit this little underwear stain because he couldn’t afford a Walkman without the babysitting money.

And, as a kid who had a Walkman, I can tell you that I would have done a LOT of awful things for money to buy one. That and a Game Boy was basically my youth and my Walkman is SOLIDLY why I got so heavy into music.

Though, all truth be told, you could usually find a tape from New Kids on the Block in mine as I was an unabashed fan.

But the rest of this, like monster blood itself, is better forgotten.

Ugh.

Why is Evan such a weakling in body, mind, and spirit?

Why is this book basically Clifford the Big Red Dog with a protagonist whose intelligence is rivaled by said dog?

Why is ANDY so keen on watching her friend’s life get destroyed?

How is Kermit actually good at science?

WHY DOES STINE KEEP GOING BACK TO MONSTER BLOOD?!

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RL Stine just can’t resist the final sting.

This is a bananas book about a family that basically gets tricked into going to a horror theme park (when their car fucking EXPLODES). The rides are basically death traps and it turns out that the gates have been locked with only them and the staff inside.

The family freaks out and it’s revealed that the monster staff are real monsters and the family is on a reality show.

They are further tricked into thinking they can leave, except they’re really led to more monsters that are going to eat them all on TV.

The family escapes the eating monsters, space the staff monsters, escape the park, pile into the new car that appeared out of NOWHERE, and-

Wait, can we talk about the car? They parked in the parking lot and the car blew up. The staff member at the ticket counter told them not to worry and that… I guess the park would take care of it?

But if they were just going to murder the family, why replace the car at all?

This stuff makes my head hurt.

Anyway, they escape and drive home. All’s well that ends well.

EXCEPT a staff member clung to the back of the car and gave them free passes back to the park.

The park they almost died at. The one that shoots snuff films for reality TV.

*sigh*

I genuinely think that this is probably in the top 5 scariest entries in this series for kids but this joke ending takes all of the air out of it and makes the whole thing feel… well, like a joke.

It was pretty good right up until the end if you could turn your brain off for the duration because the decisions made in this are pretty dumb.

Ah, but it’s a Goosebumps book. Characters are going to be dumb.

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I can’t recall if I knew this one existed, but if I did, I definitely skipped it and I’m thinking it was probably because it looked pretty girly.

Ah, youth. I was (perhaps still am) such a huge moron.

The story follows a girl that gets wishes and guess what? They all go horribly wrong because the granter is very literal.

Now, I’ve been rolling this around in my head for a few years now, but what would you wish for if you only had one wish and you weren’t sure the granter had your best interests at heart? I’d like to know because everything I come up with can be twisted around pretty easily. You only need to watch the first couple Wishmaster movies to understand how THAT works.

Anyway, it doesn’t go well for her and this is yet ANOTHER book where a kid gets hosed. Sure, they might not have been “injured,” but her parents are never going to see her again and her life expectancy has PLUMMETED so I always kind of wondered where exactly Stine’s line in the sand was where he can’t brag that kids never get hurt in his books.

Also, twelve Goosebumps books down! Only FIFTY to go.

Ugh.

We’ll get through it together, I suppose.

I guess.

I hope?

Side note: to get a worker’s visa here in Germany, you need a degree/certification/qualifier that makes you a better hire than a local. Because of this, I can’t just put in an application at the local Burger King.

But I wonder if I had a ton of follower here or YouTube or Bluesky or whatever - if THAT would count as a unique qualifier, should I want to work in, say, a bookshop.

Because I definitely want to stay out here. The Fanta’s amazing.

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This is classic Goosebumps. Stine used twists at the end of books going back to Stay Out of the Basement (one could argue Welcome to Dead House had one, but I’ll let it slide as more of a question), but they were either small potatoes or little more than punchlines.⁠
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Then this book came out.⁠
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A girl talks about monsters incessantly, but then she sees a real one and nobody believes her.⁠
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The monster (a librarian) almost gets her until she knocks over a card catalog, causing him to scream in agony because if there’s one thing librarians - even monster librarians - hate, it’s a messed up card catalog, and he stops to fix it.⁠
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Kids, ask your folks what a card catalog is.⁠
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Then the parents believe her, invite the monster to dinner, and eat him alive. Turns out THEY’RE monsters, too! But they don’t want any other monsters in town because they don’t want the townsfolk to get scared and run them out so they have to play it cool.⁠
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The sister (and her little brother) SUDDENLY know/remember that they’re monsters and that their fangs are going to come in soon, and they live happily ever after.⁠
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Is it a bullshit twist? ABSOLUTELY. But it’s so bananas that it almost feels worth it.⁠

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Dummies aren’t scary and dummies that want to make humans slaves - even dummies that try to kill a dog… it’s just laughable. It always has been for me. The whole dummy/doll/toy thing never got me.

I mean, I SUPPOSE that there’s the threat of the world thinking you’re insane as more violence stacks up around you and you’re saying “the doll did it!” You can only say that so many times before you’re hoisted off to the asylum, but so what? You know what wouldn’t follow you there, to the place with barred windows and locked doors?

The evil toy.

I will say that I forgot most of the plot of this book and thought that it was Slappy all along because this is not the last time you’ll see this stupid dummy.

But no! It’s the OTHER dummy, Mr. Wood! The girl read an incantation that made him come to life and hijinks ensued.

But Stine, unable to resist a sting at the end, made Slappy - a doll that hasn’t moved at all this entire time - ALSO come to life despite not having an incantation read.

And… ugh. I get that he was writing for kids but if you’re going to make a world with rules you have to FOLLOW THOSE RULES.

YOU FUCKING MADE THEM!

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Good god, I do not like these Slappy books and I am NOT stoked about future entries, not just because Slappy sucks but because Stine is awful at writing sequels.

Alas, I have to complete this series not only because I want to see if the parents of the 1990s had any genuine concerns (so far they’re looking pretty dumb) but also because, you know, the autism.

Speaking of autism, if you like how pretty my grid is with the rainbow and want to read more rants, I have a feed dedicated to records and you can follow it @recordrainbows - it’s going to be fun to see that develop over time because I choose pretty vinyl when I can. ;-)

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