Goosebumps Reviewed By a 28 Year Old Man

neither do #goosebumps books

Here’s a photo of my Mom and I the day I was born

This boy is the proud owner of a new Goosebumps backpack #schoolsout4horror

Reading these books has been a bit weird.  Sometimes I’d open a book and read a passage and remember a road trip, or sitting with my friend at recess or I’d find a book mark that I’d remember I loved.  It’s important and special to be able to go down this road.  I’m very lucky to have Goosebumps.

When you stay up all night playing #goosebumps board games

Wow...and just like that...it’s over.  My entire Goosebumps collection.  Looking back on it now, it feels as if the whole thing was a dream.  As if my childhood, my collection and reading of Goosebumps were all imagined.  As if I had been a part of R.L.’s plot the entire time...just another time traveling, monster blood eating, half-plant, vampire ghost giant.  Haha.  That would mean that I’m still in the story now...and it’s not going to end...ever...

Prepare yourselves for a sweet gingerly tale of Vampires, friends and time travel.  This is my 57th Goosebumps book (tear)- and it was a shocker! Freddy Martinez loves scaring kids (don’t we all), but he can’t seem to scare his friend Cara Simonetti (great name R.L.).  They are goofing around in Freddy’s basement when they knock over a chest that is blocking a hidden door.  When they open the door, they find a hallway and discover a secret room with an empty coffin!  There is also a tiny vile of something called “Vampire Breath”- they open it- and it releases a gross weird smelling fog.  Then Count Nightwing comes out of the fog...he’s a Vampire.  He tries to attack them, but discovers his fangs have been removed.  He then tells the children that they need to open the Vampire Breath again, and it will send him back in time so he can find his fangs...they listen to him and open the foggy vile... When the smoke clears, Count Nightwing is back in time...but so are Freddy and Cara!  They look around the room which is now FILLED with coffins!  Count Nightwing tells them once he finds the bottle of Vampire Breath he’ll remember where his fangs are and he will drink their blood, turning them into Vampires.  Freddy and Cara run around the castle and try to find the vile before Count Nightwing can.  They run into a girl their age (12, duh) named Gwendolyn, but she turns out to be a Vamp and tries to kill them- but Count Nightwing saves them.  Finally they find the vile before the Count, and they open it- and it takes them back to the future!  Phew- they’re safe right?  WRONG!  Count Nightwing came too- and it turns out he’s Freddy’s Grandpa...Freddy’s a Vampire!  But he ain’t got his fangs yet...ohhhhhhhh they gonna come. This book had a nice twist at the end.  I like that Freddy was a Vampire the whole time.  It was also different from the ‘bumps I’ve been readin lately.  I give this 888 Bumps- nice and smooth finish (just like blood).  All in all I appreciated how we got to the action early, and I am a sucker for time travel.  Haha- maybe I’m a vampireeeee?

1 year ago today I finished my first Goosebumps book.  Now, 56 books later- I am 2 Goosebumps away from finishing my entire collection.  I am so #blessed and #spooked that I was able to spend the last year reading Goosebumps books.  I feel confident that my reading skills have improved, my nightmares have become more frequent and I’m way better at scaring kids now. Thank you to my parents, R.L. Stine, my friends, my Goosebumps fan fiction poetry collective, and most of all- all the ghosts, ghouls, spells and haunted houses out there, without you, I’d have disappeared a LONG LONG time ago.

Solid story, good morals, great music, not too scary, but some different territory for R.L.  This book gets 44 Goosebumps, it would be cool to fly, but maybe I feel like I’m flying when I’m at a Jack Johnson concert, just Wasting Time with Good People watching the Constellations.  

Mathew Amsterdam is a 12 year-old-boy (shocker).  He gets picked up by his older brother and sister and his dachshund, Biggie, makes his life hell-ish.  He really hates his tiny bedroom, so one night he sneaks into the guest room to sleep.  The next morning he wakes up as a 16-year old boy (super shocker), and his old brother and sister are now younger than him.  He goes to high-school and doesn’t know where he’s supposed to go.  There is a cute girl who helps him, her name is Lacie (turns out to be a reality cop- you’ll see)- and some bullies who say- “we’re gonna get you”.  That night he goes to bed in the guest room and wakes up and he’s 12 again, but now he doesn’t have any brothers and sisters.  This continues to happen, he wakes up and he’s really young, one time he wakes up and he’s a monster, he even wakes up as a squirrel!  he finally gets trapped by Lacie and the Reality Police- and it is finally revealed that his guest room is a portal into different realities.  He has to break the chain and get back to his normal life! He finally gets back into his house (as a squirrel) and sleeps in his own bed!  Then life gets back to normal!  Phew!  But when he comes home one day, he mom reveals to him that for his birthday, she moved his room into the guestroom!  NOOOO! This book went to a different place than most Goosebumps books, an emotionally poetic place.  I appreciated that.  Was it scary- nah.  It was a bit Matrix-y, which I appreciate because I think of myself as a Neo.  This book get’s 45 Goosebumps- spring is coming!

Our piece begins with Jaclyn reciting a poem that she can’t remember the last verse too.  It was a poem that has been with her since birth...she does remember...”Beware, the snowman”.  Jaclyn lives with her Aunt Greta, her legal guardian, in Chicago.  Her mother passed away when she was young and her father mysteriously disappeared (remember this!).  Aunt Greta moves Jaclyn to a tiny town in the Arctic Circle (cold!) called Sherpia.  When they get there Jaclyn finds it odd that every house has the same red-scarfed snowman in the front yard.  She quickly meets 2 neighborhood kids and they tell her of the evil snowman who lives on the hill.  Everyone has to have the snowmen in their yards to appease the evil snowman.  They tell Jaclyn about Conrad, a mystical man who has a wolf-like dog, who protects the evil snowman.  When Jaclyn asks her Aunt Greta, she pretends to be all like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about”...(BUT SHE DOES!) Jaclyn decides to go up the icy mountain and do some investigating for herself.  Her 2 friends come with her and distract Conrad and she goes and see’s the evil snowman!  When she goes to the snowman, it turns out he can speak and he says he is Jaclyn’s father!  He tells Jaclyn that he and her mother are sorcerers and her mother was killed by her Aunt Greta, and he was put under a snowman spell.  Then Aunt Greta shows up and says the monster is lying- Jaclyn tries to figure out who is right.  Aunt Greta says the snowman is an evil monster- NOT her father, but Jaclyn has to see for herself.  She then remembers the last words of her favorite poem, says them, and the snow melts off the snowman and he becomes AN EVIL MONSTER!  Aunt Greta and Jaclyn prepare to be thrown off a mountain when a whole army of snowmen come to their rescue!  It turns out, Conrad, who is magical, is Jaclyn’s Dad!  He had to stay in Sherpia to protect the village from the snowman and he called for the snowmen to save Greta and Jaclyn.  They are happy and decide to be together forever! This book got good in the end, but really took a while to THAW out.  I give it 5 Goosebumps, it was cold, gave me chills at times, but ultimately, I never WARMED up to it!  I guess I’ll wait for the next one to SPRING up!

The rest of the stories were sub-par at best.  We had a story about non-stop Poison Ivy (”Monster Blood” anyone?), a tale about a girl finding a Giant Shell, only to realize that what is inside is a giant Hermit Crab (a ting of “Why I Hate Bees?” anyone?) and a boy who gets stuck in a haunted video store and becomes the main dish for all of the Monsters (this I actually liked a bit, reminded me of Attack of the Mutant...anyone?). That concludes my reading of “Special Edition” Goosebumps- next week I’m back onto more stories!  It was fun breaking out of the mold and reading shorter stories from R.L., I would imagine that he felt the same writing them.  This book get’s 0 Goosebumps!  There are ten stories and all the Goosebumps evened themselves out.

These tales ranged from Halloween night hazing rituals, to snake teachers, to evil Teddy Bears, to a remote control that controls life.  My favorite was probably The House of no Return.  A group of kids make the new kid stay in a haunted house.  When he runs out the backdoor, they go looking for him, only to find out that there are ghosts in the house and an they're stuck in there FOREVER!  The thing I liked about this was that the bullies got what was coming to them, it was spooky and I felt good for the nerd who got away. All in all, these stories were satisfactory, I guess.  Tight POV, decent plot, and pretty good twist at the end, even though most were predictable.  In "Strained Peas", our protagonist thinks his new baby sister is evil, only to find out that his parents took home the wrong baby, and when the new baby comes, she's REALLY evil.  I saw that coming R.L.- come on!  I'm a 27 year old man reading at a 7-10 year old reading level, CHALLENGE ME! All in all, this was a decent departure from my normal Goosebumps reading regiment.  I give this collection 666 Goosebumps.  It was evil, it was spooky but I definitely didn't get nightmares.

Sarah goes to sleep away camp with her brother Aaron.  At Camp Cold Lake she doesn't make too many friends, in fact, most girls make fun of her.  One day Sarah decides to hold herself under water for a really long time and see if anyone notices.  While she does this, she actually holds herself under too long and when she comes up the camp is empty and it's winter.  She gets out and meets a girl on the cold shore, Della, she's dead and tells Sarah she passed away at Camp Cold Lake and now she needs a "swimming buddy".  Sarah is confused and scared, and when she comes out of this haze, she is on the sunny shore and being resuscitated.  After she comes to, she starts seeing Della around camp. She tells people she is seeing a ghost, but everyone tosses it off as something that will pass after she gets over the fact that she almost drowned. Della drives Sarah crazy, following her around, popping up in weird places, because she wants Sarah to "be her buddy".  One counselor finally advises Sarah to go water skiing (cause that's a great idea for a girl who almost drowned), and it turns out Della, the ghost, is driving the boat.  After Sarah crashes, Della turns the boat around and heads for Sarah.  The boat comes right for Sarah, hits her, but only cuts the life preserver!  (Phew, not scary at all!) Sarah decides to leave the camp and runs into the woods.  It is in the woods that she finds Della.  Della tells her that her plan worked, she didn't die from drowning, she was bit by a poisonous snake in the woods and now a snake is going to bite Sarah! Right then, Brianna shows up and tells Della to leave immediately- Sarah is her buddy!  Della reluctantly disappears and Sarah is grateful for Brianna saving her.  But then it turns out Brianna was killed by Della too and now Brianna wants to kill Sarah!  She holds a snake over Sarah and the book ends! Whoa!  What I liked about this classic story was the intense POV of Sarah.  She really was a girl going mad by a ghost that may or may not have been there.  I appreciated the twist at the end, where it wasn't the lake that killed her.  It's hard to believe that counselors would be so dumb and let this girl who almost drowned in the lake just get back into the water and not call her parents, but whatever, it's a spook-fest.  This book gets 13 Goosebumps- spring is almost here!

Ok, ok, ok- 50th book, solid subject, woman turns kids into chickens.  Very similar to "Why I'm Afraid of Bees", VERY similar, but that's ok.  Why don't parents listen to their kids?  I like that Cole was actually turning into a Chicken and not just pulling a goof, I admire that about him.  I give this book 50 Goosebumps because this is my 50th babaay!