Item - Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter

Like the previous book this is strange, but not in a good way... The plot is ludicrous (which is to be expected from this series, I suppose) and the novelties in the gameplay (which include some coin flipping and choices dependent on time of week or age of the reader) are pointless and uninteresting.

More reviews by Demian

Anyone for Alice in Wonderland, R. L. Stine edition? As well as having similarities to Monster Blood III from the classic Goosebumps series, Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter consciously channels Lewis Carroll, and it makes for a quirky gamebook. Your parents are going away this summer and leave you with your aunt Fiona, uncle Harvey, and cousins Barney and Dora. Barney is a physical bully and Dora is a manipulative whiner; could the weeks ahead look any worse? When Barney forces you into a game of hide-and-seek, promising violence if he finds you, sneaking into the off-limits basement of their creepy new family home is an easy decision. While waiting down there for Barney to lose interest in seeking, you look inside an antique refrigerator with a pair of odd culinary offerings. You're famished; should you eat the chocolate cake or the delicious-smelling purple goop in a jar?

Cake is more appetizing than goo. After you consume it, Barney catches you around the house, but to your shock he recoils when you hit him in the arm. No doubt about it, you're getting big in a hurry. It must be the cake causing your growth spurt, so you return to the basement and try the purple goop to counteract it. But now you're growing faster, maybe too fast to escape the basement. Even if you get outside just in time, what if you're so large Barney and Dora no longer recognize you? Branded an alien by angry neighbors with weapons, you can take refuge in a circus. Will you get roped into performing an ongoing act as the Amazing Strongo? If the police discover you and give chase, you may end up at the mercy of the Alien Research Institute; or, you might you locate Effy's Bakery, the name printed on the box of chocolate cake. Select the right antidote from Effy, and the nightmare will be over. If you were never chased out of the circus, you could find a different cure for your sudden gigantism. Full reversal of the condition is rare, but don't give up now.

Did you first eat the purple goop, not the cake? It tastes like a gourmet delicacy, but after you go upstairs, little by little you realize you are growing physically smaller. By the time you connect it to the goop, Aunt Fiona has had the old refrigerator hauled to the dump. Soon you are so small your family doesn't notice you in the room, and you can get washed down the bathroom drain into the sewers. Will you grab a ride on a discarded popsicle stick? If you somehow get to the dump, your odds of finding the refrigerator are as tiny as you, but give it a shot and you may return to normal. Earlier, if you took a bus to where your aunt works at the university to beg her for help, there's hope to be had from a Dr. Abbott. You're almost too small to make him believe you are human, but if you can, Dr. Abbott has a few longshot inventions to try. Avoid leaving your family's house in the first place, and you may wind up in a kitchen cabinet with a mouse who's bigger than you. Can you defeat the rodent in a duel? Go outside and you'll be stalked by Dora's cat Puff, and may have to hide in a dollhouse. You'll never be safe until you turn human again.

Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter starts out well. The description of the basement has you feeling right there in the scene, and the main branching decision offers an appealing dichotomy of adventures. So why am I panning the book? It plays too fast and loose with coincidence and with the scale of your size. Too often, the timing of your return to normal is dictated by what’s funny, rather than as a result of your in-story actions. Readers feel more invested in a gamebook when the decisions matter. The author also relies overly much on choices that are pure luck, removing power from the reader's hands. Somewhere in these pages there was a great horror gamebook to be had, but Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter doesn't deliver. It's not the worst Give Yourself Goosebumps, but has minimal value beyond nostalgia.

More reviews by KenJenningsJeopardy74

The plot of this book is pretty odd; I'd figure my chances of getting serious food poisoning from purple peanut butter are better than my chances of changing size rapidly. The style and humour here are both par for the course in this series. It's random, meaningless drivel - yet over the years, I've still come back to it fairly often. Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter isn't a great book by any means, but I've always found it a fun diversion.

More reviews by Stockton