Are R. L. Stine’s modern Goosebumps protagonists anything other than white? Other than cis, or at least straight? Are they all still just straight white middle-class kids?
I’m not asking out of salt, I’m genuinely curious.
I know I complained when work was slow about not having anything to do, but now that it’s busy and I have less time for reading non-work related things, I’m finding so many things I want to read. But also I’m finding that all I want to do is nap when I leave the office, so, make of that what you will.
A lot of my time, however, is spent reading about the awfulness of our world lately and I’m not…
The Horror at Camp Jellyjam contained all of the elements I crave in a Goosebumps book. It wasn’t afraid to go big and get weird. The book opens with Wendy and her brother Evan arriving at the camp when the trailer that they’re hiding in gets unhitched from their parent’s car and they crash in the woods. Part of me was wondering if the whole book was just Wendy’s ICU fever dream because they were not wearing seatbelts. Buddy the counselor was super-creepy, and the sports-based summer camp sounded like a never-ending gym class. That would have been literal hell for me as a child, so I deeply related to Wendy’s disillusionment as the story progressed. The twist at the end was batshit crazy in the best way. Unfortunately, the book fell short of making enough sense to place it in the upper echelon of Goosebumps classics like One Day at HorrorlandandWelcome to Camp Nightmare. With a few edits to explain some of the plot holes, or perhaps a significantly longer page count, this book could have really worked. Despite its flaws, The Horror at Camp Jellyjam was fun to read and it leaned into its weirdness. It’s hard to stay mad at the messier parts when I was enjoying the ride.
Score:3.5
For my full snark-filled recap with spoilers, gifs, and memes to illustrate my very important points, check it out on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I had heard The Barking Ghost was one of R.L. Stine’s least favorite Goosebumps books, and I can see why. The first act of the story showed a lot of potential and was setting things up nicely. So much so that I was beginning to think that the book’s reputation was misplaced. I was wrong. There was a fun concept hidden, but it was buried beneath a half-baked plot that descended into sheer stupidity by the end. I understand that some kids do find dogs scary. I think those kids were the target audience of this particular book. I was never one of those kids. In fact, I think I wanted to be a dog when I was in third grade. So this whole concept wasn’t exactly scary for me at any age. In many ways, The Barking Ghost was a culmination of some of Stine’s worst tendencies in this series. Too much time was spent on fake scares and not enough time was given to developing the villains or their predicament. This is one of the few instances where the TV adaptation made significant improvements to the book. Which is to say the book really could have been good with a few significant edits. It’s a shame when a good idea suffers in order to meet a deadline. Everything in The Barking Ghost, Stine has done before and he’s done it better.
Score:1.5
For my full snark-filled recap with spoilers, gifs, and memes to illustrate my very important points, check it out on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I had initially planned on skipping The Surprise Party and just sticking to the paranormal-themed Fear Street books for reading, but I changed my mind. I’m gonna read them, even if it won’t be in order. I thought The Surprise Party was really good. It was certainly would have made for a better launch to the series than The New Girl had been. I would consider it more of a crime thriller than a horror story, but it kept me engaged and guessing right up until the end. There was a large cast of characters, but Stine did a good job at making them feel distinct and believable. I appreciated the complexity and layering of the plot, as well as the themes of guilt and trauma. The ultimate villain had a clear and disturbing motive, which is often not the case with these books. All of this made some of the more convoluted parts forgivable. There were definitely a few moments where certain characters made choices that did not add up, even after the big mystery was resolved. I also liked how the early books in this series had lots of character crossover. Even though I hated The New Girl, I liked the sense of all these isolated mysteries happening around one another. The books definitely didn’t maintain too much of this beyond the early entries. All of this is to say that The Surprise Party surprised me. I enjoyed reading it, and I thought it was one of the better Fear Street books I’ve read.
Score: 4
For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog.
It is worth noting right off the bat that this is the one book in the main Fear Street series that is confirmed to have been ghostwritten. I’m no forensic expert in writing styles, but the narrative voice definitely felt different than the plethora of Stine’s books that I have read. All of that aside, The Thrill Club was a mixed bag. There were a few too many characters for how short the book was; which makes me think it would have been a better fit for the Super Chiller spin-offs. The best parts of it reminded me of Christopher Pike’s stronger books. There was an interesting idea at its core, but it was ultimately bogged down by its very dated notions around race. The othering of indigenous cultures in American media is hardly a rare phenomenon, and this was especially true in 1994. Hell, that was pretty much the entire basis of the beloved Indiana Jones franchise. The Thrill Club might not be as egregious as Temple of Doom, but it was still a bad look and it did not age well. Even worse was the book’s treatment of the first black character to grace the cover of a Fear Street book. I’ll save the spoilers for below the jump, but I doubt it will surprise anyone who pays even the tiniest bit of attention to these things. All of this clouded what was an otherwise creepy concept with a complex villain. With more pages to tell the story and a few small but very significant changes, The Thrill Club could have been a really good book.
Score:2.5
You can find the full snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; onmy website blog.
I had high hopes for this one. I love stories that play with dreams and a shifting sense of reality. Bad Dreams was all set up to do exactly that… and then it just didn’t. It ended up feeling like a book just going through the motions. Everything that happens here, Stine has done before and he’s done it better. Both of the main characters were irritating. The sibling rivalry stuff led to a few good scenes but for the most part, it was exhausting. Maggie’s boyfriend was useless, which is pretty typical in this series. The “twist” at the end felt lazy and tacked on. The “villain” had completely implausible motives. So was there anything I liked? I liked the lesson learned at the end, which was perfect for the intended audience of these books. I liked Maggie’s unwinding sense of reality as the story went on, I just wish it had gone much further than it did. Ultimately, the stakes never felt high enough, things never got weird enough, and I was bored. Something I am noticing is that when the Goosebumps books are bad, they are still (mostly) entertaining and ridiculous. When Fear Street books are bad, it takes a concerted effort to finish them. Bad Dreams is easily one of my least favorite Fear Street books so far.
Score:1.5
For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog.
The Cheater had a really solid beginning but it got lost in the weeds about halfway through. The premise was immediately relatable; the pressure to impress demanding parents can lead a kid to do some reckless shit. I think this might be the first Fear Street book I’ve read in which blackmail was a central part of the story. RL Stine came close to almost saying something profound about class, privilege, and power but never delivered. All of the right elements were there, but the nuance and execution were lacking. Given my present-day lens of racial disparities in our justice system, it is impossible not to read this book with that context in mind. But what this book really needed to do was get weirder, darker, or both. I know Stine can deliver on all of these elements so it’s a shame that it didn’t happen here. There’s an event midway through that killed the slow-building tension, and the story just never really recovered. The twist was underwhelming and relied on the main character leaving out important details in spite of being our narrator. I get the necessity of that plot device sometimes but it will always bug me. I also wanted way more dire consequences for certain characters that I won’t name here. The Cheater could have been one of the Fear Street greats, but it ended up being kinda forgettable.
I know that this is the book that RL Stine got hate mail for. It’s also one of the lowest overall ranked Fear Street books on Goodreads. I guess I disagree with the masses because I fucking loved it. This was one of my favorite Fear Street reads so far. It featured two of my favorite literary elements; an unreliable narrator and a villain that literally made my skin crawl. Sure, Becka wasn’t the most likable protagonist. But even at her brattiest moments, it was hard not to sympathize with her situation with Honey. Honey was unhinged but in very a familiar way. The way she was able to upend Becka’s life and gaslight her was unnerving. Stine did a good job of escalating from “haha this girl is weird” to “holy shit get the fuck away from me.” The “gotcha game” was particularly unsettling. I appreciated the way that this book toiled with some very real fears. What do we do when polite society prevents us from getting rid of a toxic person? How do you get help when no one will believe you? There’s a depth and heaviness to this book that really stands out among its peers. The Best Friend may have polarized YA audiences thirty years ago, but it’s aged better than a lot of Stine’s other works.
Night of the Living Dummy II is a huge improvement on the original book, which is fondly remembered by many as being better than it actually is. This isn’t quite the Terminator 2 or Empire Strikes Back level of the sequel being better than the original, but kudos to Stine for pulling off the rare fete. Unlike its predecessor, Night of the Living Dummy II does not waste a full two-thirds of the book on exhausting fake scares, and it doesn’t star the same insufferable and bratty twin protagonists. In fact, the only returning character from the first book is Slappy. I liked Amy as the middle child protagonist; I don’t think I’ve seen that before in a Goosebumps book. I also thought the book did a really good job building tension and escalating the stakes up until the third act. Unfortunately, like the first book, there isn’t a lot of logic behind the living dummy or his motives. He exists to play mean pranks and has a weird obsession with making children his slaves with no obvious means of enforcing said enslavement. It was another missed opportunity to do something way scarier. I wasn’t sold on the twist in the third act, it felt too contrived for the sake of creating a twist. Overall, Night of the Living Dummy II was a mostly fun read and a vast improvement over the first book, even as it shared some of the same flaws.
Score: 3
For my full snark-filled recap with spoilers, gifs, and memes to illustrate my very important points, check it out on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
The Third Horror was a really interesting way to close out the 99 Fear Street trilogy. The main character this time is Kody, Cally’s twin sister from The First Horror. Kody has returned to 99 Fear Street in order to play her sister in a movie adaptation of what happened to their family. This seems like a really traumatic thing to put herself through, but she made a promise to return for her sister and this seems like the best way to keep it. I appreciated that this wasn’t a tired rehash of the first two books, even when its plausibility was a stretch and the execution got messy. There were some truly brutal kills and some great scares, which is something that The Second Horror was lacking. The ending was alright, but it could have been better. I really wish it had gone darker. It relied a bit too much on some characters making incredibly stupid decisions and ignoring the consequences. I was never sold on the characterization of Cally as an evil ghost. I keep wanting a more nuanced version of evil to show up in these books and I think it’s just too much to expect. The Third Horror was almost great; the elements were all there but it needed significant tweaking. I could say the same thing about the trilogy as a whole. Overall, the 99 Fear Street trilogy falls somewhere in between its predecessors. It couldn’t live up to The Fear Street Saga, but it was way more consistent than The Fear Street Cheerleaders. It’s messy but memorable, and it would be excellent source material for future Fear Streetmovies.
Score:3
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
The second outing of the 99 Fear Street trilogy brings a few new things to the mix, but not as much as I had hoped. I enjoyed the addition of Brandt’s character, and the ending was one of Stine’s better WTF moments. This is to say that my favorite parts of the book had very little to do with the titular house. Most of the haunting elements felt like a tired rehash of the first book, and we didn’t learn anything new about the motives or origins of 99 Fear Street. Cally is back as a ghost and totally evil now. I was frustrated by the lack of nuance with her character. I wanted to see the internal conflict between who she used to be and who the house had made her, but unfortunately, we never got to see that. It was a missed opportunity. Stine continues to demonstrate his hatred of house pets; I won’t spoil the particulars here on this recurring trope of the Fear Street series. You’ll have to wait until after the jump for that. Brandt’s storyline saved The Second Horror from being a forgettable slog, so kudos to that. It all made for a book that wasn’t nearly as bad (nor as good) as it could have been.
Score: 3
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I’ll be reviewing the full 99 Fear Street Trilogy during the month of October. All of those, plus all of my other Fear Street reviews, can be found over on my blog too.
The First Horror is a really solid kick-off to the trilogy. It also works really well as a stand-alone novel, and I almost wish that it was. There were some genuinely creepy and brutal moments. It definitely scared me as a kid. I had forgotten the order of things, but I had very distinct memories of several of the scenes. I think this might be where my fear of rats originated from. The sibling rivalry between Cally and Kody worked really well. It played nicely into the strange things happening around them. For the most part, this was a pretty standard haunted house story. It had some really good moments that made it stand out (namely what happened to James) but it fell short of being something truly unique. One of the more frustrating things about Stine is that he rarely gives his villains compelling motives, and the house in 99 Fear Street is no different. It’s evil for the sake of being evil, but I want to know what it wants. This is forgivable to an extent since this is just the first of three books, but that means the next two need to raise the stakes and deliver. I have a sinking feeling that they won’t.
Score: 4
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I’ll be reviewing the full 99 Fear Street Trilogy during the month of October. All of those, plus all of my other Fear Street reviews, can be found over on my blog too.
It Came From Beneath the Sink has a great title, a solid concept, and a unique monster. Unfortunately, it never managed to raise the stakes high enough for any of that to really matter. The characters are fine, the plot is technically fine, and it doesn’t rely on faulty villain logic to explain itself. Kudos to Stine for another great dog name; the cocker spaniel named Killer was a great touch. The book’s biggest crime is that it was boring. Stine had the opportunity here to get real weird and he didn’t take it. The Grool was gross and creepy, but it could have been way more powerful and menacing. I honestly think this concept had the potential to reach One Day at Horrorland orWelcome to Camp Nightmare levels of weird and fun, but it just kinda got stuck in the first act. It needed to do more than bring bad luck, or the bad luck needed to be way worse than it was. It Came From Beneath the Sink had all of the elements needed to make a greatGoosebumps book, but it ultimately fell short.
Score: 3
For my full snark-filled recap with spoilers, gifs, and memes to illustrate my very important points, check it out on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
Monster Blood III is the sort of sequel you get when you start with a shoddy concept and then stretch it beyond any reasonable length. The Monster Blood books boast more sequels than any other in the original Goosebumps run, and it’s slightly baffling when you realize how none of them is particularly good. My theory is that the badass-sounding title and beautiful Tim Jacobus cover art of the first Monster Blood drove the book to best-seller status in spite of its weirdly bad plot. This brings us to this book. It was tedious. Andy and Evan, the one strong point of the first book, are stuck in a painfully stupid cycle in which they keep using Monster Blood in spite of its dire consequences. They have horrible ideas, and it’s hard to feel anything for them when things go awry. This time we add Kermit to the mix, who is a new kind of awful. There is nothing scary about green slime that keeps growing. It’s not even as gross as it could be. Also being a giant sounds fun, but that only happens for a relatively short section of the book. Most of it is Kermit being terrible to Evan and Andy. The ending could have been satisfying, but Stine has done similar twists and done them better. I also just didn’t care. Three books into a mini-franchise titled Monster Blood and we still have never seen a single monster from whom the blood supposedly originates. That, I believe, is the most unforgivable thing of all.
Score: 1
Check out my website blog my full review with memes, spoilers, and snark:
Hello my goosebumps fans! Welcome to this blog. On this blog you’re able to ask these….lovely characters some questions. Now for introductions!
Hello askers, I’m Aster. After recent horrific events, I’ve been stuck with monsters in my town as well as my home. The more bothersome one is a dummy.
How rude! Last I checked lab rat; YOU’RE the dummy! Now my dear slaves, I’m sure you know your beloved puppet master. Afterall, even if you foolish slaves tried like the previous ones to escape or destroy me…I’ll always haunt your dreams.
