Rey (Dorky big sibling)

This blog is SFW, but isn't appropriate for everyone.

- Some of my interests include Horror, Call of Duty, and and other scary/violent content.

Feel free to reach out! I'd love to make friends with other middles or be a big sibby for others!

- I cuss when im feeling on the bigger side

First off, Who's Your Mummy

Im gonna start with my only real problem with this book, the pacing. Every goosebumps book needs to have some smaller mysteries and scares before things really ramp up, but i wasnt too engaged by the ones in this book. Primarily the first half of the book is about how afraid the main chsracter is of bats, and said bats are just regular bats completely unrelated to anything supernatural. They just really didnt get me excited for what was to come cause they were normal animals. There was still enough idle chatter about mummies and weird people around town for the first half to not feel like a waste.

I also liked the characters enough. Abby and Peter have a fun relationship, and their creepy uncle does a good job being eerie even when were supposed to trust him so that things later make more sense. I did especially enjoy the siblings' water gun obsession, because yeah you get super soakers at the beginning of the summer and that thing will dominate the next 3 months.

Once the mummy stiff starts though, it gets really nuts. The main chsracter disintegrates a cat. Straight up turns the cat into dust with her super soaker, which was honestly the scariest thing tk happen in the whole book. What do you do in that situation, its horrifying! It was a 600 year old zombie cat that eats Egyptian organs, but still a cat. And yeah, theres not really living mummies in this book. Just a group of laye Egyptians who figured out that grave robbing and eating mummy organs could make them immortal.

The strangest part is that you need a chemical in hair to prime the organs for immortality granting? While kinda nonsensical, it does grant the ghosts of the mummies a reason to spend the last act of the book chanting "Hair hair hair hair!" Which was really fun, so overall a worthwhile addition to the lore.

Perhaps the wildest part of the story was the ending stinger, where the kids bring their sick grandma a mummy liver to make her live longer!? Thats so messed up! At least tell her shes eating a dead guy! Most ending stingers dont really get more than a chuckle out of me, but this one had me thinking about it for a while

Now, time to Say Cheese and Die Screaming

So, most of these books are cool twists on original goosebumps books, but say cheese and die scream doesnt really have a twist. Its just another straight up say cheese and die plot, with the main difference being that the main characters are photographers with actual reasons to use a camera instead of just for the giggles.

I like David. When he realizes theres real danger he locks in and joins julie in stopping the cameras future from coming through.

Also her mom is terrible. Julie tells her flat out everything thats happening, and her mom says "wow thats a great story you just made up. Oh BTW I just checked the news and everything you just said actuslly happened, what a coincidence". Willfully ignorant.

Anyways thats say cheese and die.

Enter Horrorland

- Kid / Teen regresser

- loves being outdoors. Especially hiking trails, old bridges and stuff, abandoned places

- Always brings home new trinkets

- Writes a ton in their diary always doodling too

- Huge sweet tooth. Eats ice cream too fast and always gives themselves a brain freeze

- Loves learning new things, even when little. Will read through more basic history books on topics theyre not as familiar with so theyre still learning without being overwhelmed.

- The other wayfinders know about their regression and go on their adventures with them sometimes. Though theyre just fine exploring alone

- Plays pretend by reenacting specific roman battles rather than just generally playing knights or anything

- They love using old tech! They like listening to all kinds of music from the last hundred years on an IPod nano.

- Watches / plays "Retro" cartoons and games, a lot of stuff from the 20th century

Im not a fan of anything that ends with "it was all a dream", "it was a simulation", or "It was all preordained and free will isnt real". This story jubilently proclaims that to you in chapter 1. The first 2 chapters are completely fictional, and because you expect the rule of 3, the story goes exactly where you think it would. At the very end its confirmed it was all a story Robby wrote and the crowd goes mild.

I love superheroes, and I really liked The Masked Mutant, but this story just didnt hit the same. For one, Dr. Maniac is just alright. He just kinda does silly evil things that feel kinda whatever. Like asking people to eat squirrels or forcing kids to ice skate. Its just whatever to me. The Anti-Hero, the Purple Rage, on the other hand I really liked. Hes a fun parody of the Hulk who gets really angry about the most mundane of things. At one point he proclaims that children falling off of buildings are his biggest pet peeve and like- who has enough experience with that to have a fully formed opinion. Him i guess lol. He just casually goes on a talk show and acknowledges the fact that he should be fictional. The middle part of the book with him is definately the best part.

The ending just kinda had me reading with a consistently confused look on my face. I get that its supposed to be nonsensical and over the top, but Robby's brother, who has built a mech suit to become Dr. Maniac, just keeps proclaiming that hes evil and never gives a reason why. Hes just evil now deal with it. And then Robby beats him by deleting the text on the script on a random computer that was being used to broadcast a bunch of kids ice skating. And then we smash cut to him being like "pretty neat story i just made up, right?"

The only real thing in the entire actual story is thst a jpeg of Dr. Maniac asks Robby to come to Horrorland. Which is such a lame thing to be the main antagonist's only actual action. This story has a lot of potential, but i just dont like the direction it chooses to take any of it.

Enter Horrorland

So this is where anything actual canon occurs, and its just Robby playing a vr game. Though I have to commend that the whole alternate timeline panic park stuff that gets introduced here is pretty interesting. Still, this whole book just generally left me feeling bummed. Lots of potential, but execution I just didnt like.

The buildup to the climax here is really good. Carly has the mask stolen, she learns of the legends of the horse stable, and they set up all the characters. I thought it was cool how the mask shop owner isn't really an active role. He shows up to be ominous about fate and then fades away.

I also did like the characters overall! While her friend i cant remember the name of was kinda forgettable, Carly Beth gets to shine. Because of the original book she gets to have a pretty nuanced personality. Shes still a bit of a scaredy cat, but also sees the fun in scaring others now. Her undying love of horses, even in nonsensical situations like leaving food for dead horses, is cute. I also like the farm-hand's grandson, who catches so many strays. People are always calling him a ghost or blaming him for the anger in the haunted mask. But he just kinda remains cool for the whole book.

The climax is really where I started raising an eyebrow. One of the side characters is revealed to have been a ghost all along, without much foreshadowing I could find besides them being superstitious. And then Carly decides to put on the haunted mask for a Shonen anime power boost. And they dont really go out of their way to make the mask itself scary. Like yeah its a bad thing, but youre not dreading or anything. She does it as just the lesser of 2 evils. The actual ending, however, im in love with. As thanks for feeding dead horses, a stampede of ghost horse appear and nuzzle Carly Beth, an act of love so pure that it lets her take off the mask. Genuinely a great ending to the story. Still, the ghost just doesnt really satisfy the need for an antagonist, and is introduced far too late to be super compelling.

All together this ones just a solid entry. Not leading the pack, but certainly not a bad story.

Enter Horroland

Monster Blood has always been a high ranking recurring villain to me. I find things that can grow exponentially kinda creepy in general, but still pretty cool in concept. This book does it real justice! Especially since, unlike 3 of the 5 monster blood books, the cover doesnt completely spoil where the story goes. The first half really makes you think that its just going to be stopping it from growing too big. Then they make you think the annoying kid who bought the stuff is gonna eat it. And then they do the final switch that the protag accidentally ate it. Having the protag be the one uncontrollably growing genuinely suprised me. It made for surprisingly good body horror.

I kinda loved the characters. Matt was a really relatable protagonist who had to deal with the most annoying person on earth, Bradley, who properly functions as a secondary antagonist. Like- the monster is the blood, but it doesnt really have much agency of its own, so introducing someone who can push the story forward was really useful. With how he constantly screws over Matt, you really wanna see him get what's coming to him.

Also, this book has 2 of my favorite side characters in any of these books. The goons. Theres these 2 shady guys in trench coats who keep bugging Matt about the thing he ordered online, and theyre the most classic mafia tall guy short guy dynamic imaginable. You think theyre gonna be integral to the plot, but right before the end when everything is at its worst theyre just like "woah, we got no idea what a monster blood is. Were here to collect for a recall on some other thing. Good luck with whatever you got going on tho" and then they fully dissappear. Truly a masterclass in creating tension with no intent to pay off anything.

So, I experienced most of this book as an audiobook when I couldn't fall asleep one night, and it was certainly interesting. The voices were honestly really good, especially Bradley. They made him sufficiently annoying to listen too, but not actually annoying enough to bother me. What did take me out of the story was the way they tried to convey Matt's keeping voice as he grew. Instead of the author dropping his voice to a more normal adult level, he started doing what I can only describe as a cookie monster impression? Or a really bad heavy from tf2? Which was kinda funny, but quickly just became distracting. I dont think it hampered my enjoyment, especially because I got to hear what the goons sounded like. It was exactly what I expected.

The ending was the only part I really didnt like. After sneaking back home as a giant, Matt gets Bradley to help him by looking at the instructions that came with the monster blood, but they dont find anything. And then, at the last second before the cops show up (because why wouldnt they) it just wears off. It was a sample size that didnt last as long as the real thing. And thats kinda it. If the characters took literally no actions things would have ended exactly the same. Matt didnt even eat all the monster blood, just a little glob. There was a whole duffle bag full of it. But I guess it just shriveled up after the trial was done? The most satisfying part was the ending stinger, where Bradley uses the mosnter blood to make a plant giant to cheat at the science fair. When Matt notices its sentient and presumably evil he just doesnt care, and since seemingly Bradley wasnt invited to horrorland with him, I'm just gonna assume it ate him. Joking aside, it was nice to see Matt, who was kinda a pushover the whole book, get back at Bradley for everything.

Really good story that did the best at giving the original a new twist. Probably my favoeite out of horrorland so far, and the entire Monster Blood saga.

Enter Horrorland

Sometimes goosebumps kinda drops its horror angle and just becomes fantasy adventure. This is one of those. The title, Creep from the Deep, made me think it might have something to do with either one of my favorite 2 originals, Deep Trouble and Calling all Creeps. Sadly it didnt really have anything to do with either.

I honestly cant say I loved this one. It wasnt bad, but a few things didnt fully work with me. I really liked his crazy imagination in concept, and often its put to good use. It allows the narration to embellish and then backtrack in a way that feels more natural. The book isnt lying to us, Billy is just an unreliable narrator for the moment. My issue comes with his superhero fantasy. Every so often there will be a third person sentence of Billy gloating about how cool his superhero identity is, but it never changes anything. He doesnt act brave or reckless because of this fantasy or anything, he doesnt act like he believes these stories even a little bit. Hes a pretty normal kid despite the narration implying hes more of an oddball.

The villains were also a little off. Most Goosebumps books have a quirky or weird villain. Even when it does traditional monsters it usually puts a twist on them. But the villains of this are just evil skeletons. Ghost pirates who want treasure. The entire book is the protags doing a fetch quest for the pirate captain to get their uncle back. When they do what he wants he says "Actually I love lying so much that I wont give him back", and then they throw a peice of wood at him and he instantly dies. The villains just arent a threat to anyone and arent super funny or memorable either.

I asked myself "what is even happening" multiple times while reading because things just kinda occur for the sake of adding excitment or somwthing kinda scary to the story. I didnt dislike it, but definately not my favorite.

Enter Horrorland

Im only 3 books in right now, but I think this has been my favorite. Its classic Goosebumps stuff. Annoying younger kid, oblivious parents, and a good twist. A really strong start.

Britanny is probably the most relatable protagonist so far. Some of the other protagonist have been given gimmicks, but Britanny is just a normal person who likes painting. She genuinely tries to be nice to her demon of a cousin. Her best friend Molly is allowed to be mean to him, which is pretty cathartic.

I really liked the twist that Slappy wasn't alive until near the end. Ethan consistently acts scared around the dummy, but still brings him everywhere. And you can genuinely suspend your disbelief to think that hes a kid whos so scared he does whatever slappy says. It feels logical when the girls read the words thst can bring him to life thinking it'll put him back to sleep. A lot of the time in these books the characters make some pretty boneheaded decisions, which doesnt always take me out of the story, but its appreciated when It doesnt happen. Also that they dont defeat him by saying the words again! They bring in the mind stealer doll, who was basically fake out from earlier in the book, to beat him.

As a kid I never read all of these books. I had a lot of the original series, and only read a handful of the horrorland ones, but its kinda cool reading them now. The characters have phones and have acess to the internet, and actually use them when applicable! Goosebumps being aggressively 90s was never a problem, but I can appreciate it being super 2000s as well.

Enter Horrorland:

Okay, last the Horrorland segment. And I gotta be honest, I think these are going to be consistently my least favorite parts of these books. I love horrorland and theme parks in general, but by the third book these parts seem to always follow the same pattern. Every scary thing that happens is usually a complete fake-out. And even when they dont immediately tell you its fake, I'm all too aware that we have another 10 books to go, so nothing important is going to happen until the other 70% of the characters will be introduced. Im still reading them, because I like these characters, but they drag a little.