#tim jacobus
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!
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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!
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My Hairiest Adventure was a mess of ideas that never really added up to a coherent story. I did appreciate the humor in it. The band practice scenes were funny and very believable. Dr. Murkin’s name might be the dirtiest joke ever slipped into a Goosebumps book, especially given the hair-centric plot of the book. The characters were fine, there were just too many. It’s hard to articulate without going into major spoilers, but there were so many missed opportunities to tie the various elements of the plot together. A few relatively simple changes could have made a huge difference. The kids finding an expired bottle of INSTA-TAN and excitedly putting it on was an odd choice for many reasons, but it really didn’t work as a catalyst for the eventual twist. This could have been a really fun book in the vein of One Day at Horrorland, but it ended up reading like an afterthought.
Score: 2
A full review with memes, spoilers, and snark can be found over on my wordpress blog:
https://www.danstalter.com/my-hairiest-adventure/
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