Daniel Stalter

Goosebumps Ranked Part 2: From Almost Great to Best.

It’s up now on my blog complete with every ermahgerd photo I’ve taken in the last 5 years. I've also included a second collage of Erma reading the best books of the series.

Goosebumps Ranked Part 1: From Worst to Slightly Better.

It’s up now on my blog complete with every ermahgerd photo I’ve taken in the last 5 years. I will finish the rankings with Part 2 tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy this collage of Erma reading some of the worst books in the series.

Monster Blood IV surpassed my expectations. I thought it was going to be terrible, but it turned out to be something slightly better. In fact, I will argue that it was the best Monster Blood book of the series, if only because the other three were the absolute worst. The blue slime creatures were fun, and I enjoyed the way that they behaved and evolved. I also liked how Kermit’s mom put hot sauce on everything. The previous Monster Blood entries revolved around the ideas that slime is scary and so are things that grow big. This one thankfully divorced itself of those ideas, so much so that I think it would have been better off being a standalone book. This is especially true when you factor in that Evan, Andy, Conan, and Kermit were not especially compelling characters. Their repeated run-ins with the substance known as “Monster Blood” made them come across as stupid, annoying, and incapable of learning from their mistakes. The first forty pages of this book were tedious as a result. It made me wish that the Monster Blood books had gone the way of the Night of the Living Dummy sequels and featured a different set of characters in each book. I think we all would have benefitted from it, but it’s difficult to say by how much. The green slime may have led to some iconic book covers and strong sales, but I am not sure that any Monster Blood book could have overcome its threadbare premise.

Score: 2

RL Stine wrote I Live in Your Basement while in his David Lynch era. That’s my theory at least. I mean it with both the pros and the cons that come with the comparison. On one hand, the book was delightfully weird at times and it kept me guessing. On the other hand… I’m still a bit confused about how it all fits together. There’s a twist at the end that “explains” all of the random idiosyncrasies of the book, but I don’t think it was successful. It relies really heavily on a pretty wild concept in order to work. I often use the term half-baked when criticizing these books, and I usually mean it in the negative. I don’t want to use that here. Maybe a more abt metaphor would be wine that needed some more to age. This book had the right ingredients, but it needed some more time for gestation. I also appreciate a book that takes big swings and misses over a book that plays it safe and succeeds. I Live in Your Basement was messy but ambitious, and I like that about it. Even with its faults, it managed to be interesting. 

Score: 3.5

Werewolf Skin was a really fun late entry in the Goosebumps series. It was a fun premise, and it felt like an original take on werewolves. It did a great job building tension in the plot starting in the early chapters. I really enjoyed the characters, even found some of their idiosyncratic logic questionable. I was grateful that there weren’t an over-abundance of fake scares that Stine has a tendency to waste pages on. Alex’s interest in photography was put to good use in furthering the plot. The werewolf skin itself made for some excellent body horror, and it let to an wonderfully creepy climax. My chief complaint is that the ending was a bit too abrupt. It left me wanting to know more about the backstory and motives of a few key characters. It had a classic Goosebumps twist, but it was missing key information to stick the landing. In spite of my small grievances, Werewolf Skin managed to be one of the stronger books in the series. I even liked it better than The Werewolf of Fever Swamp.

Score: 4

Read the full review with spoilers on my website blog.

It was a major relief to get a good Goosebumps book after the last two. The Haunted School is easily in my top 3 for the entire series. This book had some of the most genuinely creepy moments of anything I have read by RL Stine, and I’ve read enough of him to have some authority with that proclamation. Sometimes these books feel rushed to meet a deadline, but every aspect of The Haunted School felt intentional. This is the first perfect score I have given to a Goosebumps book since One Day at Horrorland (the other was Welcome to Camp Nightmare before that). Which is to say: it has been an entire pandemic since I have given one of these books a 5 out of 5 stars (unless you count The Beast). The characters, the pacing, the concept, and even the twist ending were all some of the best in the series. I had so much fun reading this one that I wasn’t even mad that I predicted one of the major plot reveals. I can’t stay mad when it was so well written and the rest of the plot kept me guessing. The Haunted School delivered some of the creepiest moments of any Goosebumps book, and is an absolute standout of the series.

Score: 5

Deep Trouble II was a story about scientist being really bad at science. There were so many holes in the logic of the villain that he ended up being the only part of the book I enjoyed. If you think about him a non sequitur joke instead of the primary driver of the plot, then this book works as a self parody if you squint just right. Because evil plans are hard when you’re a villain who is bad at planning things, and they can go very poorly if you’re a marine biologist who doesn’t understand basic math. This wasn’t a good book, but I genuinely enjoyed the faulty logic of it all. Stine does really well when he leans into the weird, but he does even better when he matches that with context and good characters. Deep Trouble II felt rushed and uninspired, but it managed to eek out just enough charm to occasionally feel like a self aware B-movie.

Score: 2

You can read my full recap and deep dive with spoilers over on my website blog.

My Best Friend is Invisible was not a fun read. I found it tedious to get through. It felt rushed from the beginning. The twist at the end could have been fun for a short story, but the way they withheld important information until the end made it feel cheap. It reminded me of You Can’t Scare Me, which is not a compliment. On top of that I found every character extremely annoying. Maybe I was in a bad mood while reading it. The book was like a smattering of ideas that didn’t quite fit together. It felt like a rough draft written on a deadline. It makes me want to put about the same amount of effort into this review.

Score: 1.5

Read the full spoiler-laced and lazy review on my website blog.

I really wanted to love this book. I came so close to loving The Curse of Camp Cold Lake. It had all of my favorite elements. It had a great setup and premise. The pacing was fantastic. This was on track to becoming one of my all-time favorites before it got derailed by the twist ending. I really hated the twist ending. It wasn’t fun, it didn’t make sense, and it left an unfortunate mark on an otherwise solid read. I can’t go into too much detail, but this book had so much potential. It delivered some of the best horror Stine has written. There was some great atmosphere and character building. I was fully on board with Sarah’s messy adventures. I felt for her and was rooting for her even as she made some terrible decisions. I was genuinely on the edge of my seat trying to figure out how things would play out right until the last few pages. Typically I love an RL Stine twist at the end, but this one spoiled the best elements of the book. It was silly and uninspired in a way that really bummed me out. I’ll get over it though. The Curse of Camp Cold Lake may have fallen apart at the end, but it was a damn good book up until that point.

Score: 3.5

There was a really fun idea at the core of The Blob That Ate Everyone, but it never lived up to its potential. The strongest part of the book was the middle section with the storm. I wish we had gotten there sooner and that the book leaned into that aspect more. The opening and closing acts felt inconsequential and silly by comparison. Zach worked fine as a main character; I found the whole aspiring horror writer who is afraid of everything very relatable. I wish Stine had just dropped the blob monster entirely, even if that was the idea that spawned this whole thing. The typewriter was the far more interesting element from a story perspective. The Haunted Typewriter doesn’t grab you in the same way, but I’m sure it could be workshopped. SO far as middling Goosebumps books go, The Blob That Ate Everyone was more enjoyable than some of its contemporaries. I wish it had been better.

Score: 2.5

Don’t Go to Sleep was a really fun read. It was a great balance of horror, adventure, and comedy. The premise was relatable, and it didn’t waste time with fake scares. I laughed out loud at several parts of it. I appreciated the trippier elements and reality distortion. The plot kept a steady pace while escalating the drama with each chapter. I’m always relieved when a Goosebumps book avoids some of Stine’s worst tendencies. I enjoyed the characters, although Lacie could have been fleshed out more. The science of it is wonky, but no one is reading Goosebumps books for plausibility. The twist at the end felt refreshing; it wasn’t so much a punchline as it was the perfect note to end on. Going into this last stretch of books, I had feared that there would be a decline in quality, but so far the 50s have been just as wildly inconsistent as the rest of the series. I haven’t done the math, but it feels like for every great Goosebumps book there is a bad one and a mediocre one. Those aren’t terrible odds. I got lucky this time because Don’t Go to Sleep ranks up there with the very best.

Score: 4.5

The Overnight did a really good job of building tension throughout most of the book. It was unfortunate that the climax and conclusion ended up lacking the same punch. I thought the overall premise was solid, and the plot felt like it was driven by the actions of the characters. It really felt like Stine puzzled out what a group of teenagers would actually do in this situation, and used that fear and tension to great effect.I think the book also deserves some admirable comparisons to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Both books shared a similar premise, but the executions were quite different. Overall, I liked this book a lot more than I didn’t. It also made me glad that I chose to read the Fear Street books out of order. The Overnight was one of the first three books written back in 1989, before there was a following and mass production of these titles. It was refreshing to read a book that was untouched by all of that. I’m noticing that the character building in these early books was much stronger in general, especially regards to the supporting characters. Thankfully, I have a few more Fear Street titles from this early era to look forward to.

Score: 3.5

Chicken, Chicken is widely regarded as one of the worst Goosebumps books. I can hardly say it was good, but I think it was more of a mixed bag than terrible. I certainly enjoyed it more than several other books I could name (like Go Eat Worms and You Can’t Scare Me). The first half of the book actually started out strong. It had some great body horror and comedy scenes, arguably some of the most memorable in the series. Then the second half of the book ran out of ideas, and the ending left a lot to be desired. I think the more frustrating part of this book is that it could have been good. In spite of a boring second half, the book still managed to be weird, creepy, and funny. These are all hallmarks of a good Goosebumps book. What needed to happen was a complete re-characterization of the “witch” Vanessa. The way she was portrayed here didn’t make a lot of sense in this plot or setting. With a few significant edits, this could have been really good. Unfortunately, that is not the book that got published. Chicken, Chicken may not be as bad as its reputation suggests, but it comes nowhere near being great.

Score: 2

How I Learned to Fly is a unique entry into the Goosebumps canon. With the 52nd book in the series, it was refreshing to see Stine try some new things. The magic was ridiculous but enjoyable, and there was a pretty strong message at the book’s core. The main character got a little grating at times, but I empathized with his predicament. The weakest part of the story was the lack of development in its supporting characters. There was a lot of room for nuance that was wasted. A stronger supporting cast could have made this a perfect rating for me. I can’t recall any other Goosebumps book delving into themes of validation and self-worth, let alone neatly folding in a powerful lesson. The ending was one of Stine’s best and gave Jack more growth than the typical Goosebumps character is privy to. Even though it fell a little short of great, I liked this one a lot.

Score: 4

Beware, the Snowman wasn’t a bad book. It also wasn’t very good. If it were the first Goosebumps book I ever read, I might feel a little more generous in my take. Stinene did a great job establishing an isolated and foreboding atmosphere. I enjoyed the idea of this tiny mountain town filled with angry snowman effigies everywhere. I thought the plot moved along at a good pace. Jaclyn was fine as a main character; what she lacked in survival skills she made up for with unearned confidence. I can’t say the same for the adults in this story. They were a mess of confusing motives and terrible decisions. I’m not saying they’re the worst examples of parenting I have seen Stine portray, but what qualifies as good parenting in a Goosebumps book is a pretty low bar. My favorite character in the book didn’t even show up until the last 20 pages. While I was initially intrigued by the mystery of Jaclyn’s family history, I was underwhelmed by the big reveals at the end. There was some weird stuff going on in this book, and it’s to our collective detriment that the story didn’t lean into those elements. The biggest flaw of Beware, the Snowman is that, in the end, it just wasn’t that memorable. 

Score: 2

I was surprised at how much I liked Calling All Creeps. It really hit my sweet spot of being both incredibly dark and downright bizarre. This is what I crave in a Goosebumps book. It had a story rooted in the very real horror of bullying, and it gave us some great body horror that included four-way high-fives with lizard tongues. All of this culminated in one of the darkest endings I can recall in this series. Where the book fell short for me was with it’s clueless main character and the shaky logic that served as the book’s scaffolding. I was very sympathetic to Ricky. I even found it endearing how awkward he was at times. But as the book progressed, his lack of common sense became grating. While I enjoyed every scene that the Creeps were in, their logic and motives were a bit of a mess. In a casual read, I could let a detail like this slide. Which is to say that this book could be a five-star review if I squinted just right. Unfortunately, that is not what I do here. This is a place where I take apart and ruthlessly analyze my favorite things.  Calling All Creeps will not be the Goosebumps book for everyone, but it was very much for me.

Score: 4

Vampire Breath was very much on the goofy side of Goosebumps, but it did well by not taking itself too seriously. It felt like we were in on the joke. The pacing was good, but the book lost a lot of steam in the middle section. It made up for it a little bit at the end, but not quite enough to justify whatever the fuck that castle nonsense was. There were fresh ideas here regarding vampires, which is remarkable when you consider that this book is essentially about the magic powers found in the stank breath of vampires. The two main characters and their adversarial relationship kept the story entertaining even when the plot was spinning its wheels. I would say the book had very similar problems to Legend of the Lost Legend in that respect, only I found this book a bit less grating. It felt like a short story concept that got stretched out too long, but it managed to be more enjoyable than other Goosebumps books that I’ve leveled that criticism at (I’m looking at you, You Can’t Scare Me). There was a silliness and novelty to this book that made it charming in spite of its flaws. I could have chosen to be frustrated by a fun idea that fell short of its potential because it very much fits that bill. Sometimes I will like a book more than others for completely arbitrary reasons I can’t articulate. Vampire Breath just might be one of them.

Score: 3