Item - Revenge of the Body Squeezers

This book doesn't really seem to belong in this series; there's nothing special about it to make it a Special Edition -- no gimmicks, no rules, no extra-high challenge level. The only justification I can think of is the fact that it's a sequel to a non-interactive Goosebumps 2000 novel, though that doesn't seem like a very good reason to me. Even if I didn't feel the need to complain about its inappropriate classification, though, I still would have a lot to gripe about -- this is a mediocre effort at best. As in the last book, the writing is pretty awful, being filled with annoying sentence fragments that seem to be meant to make things more exciting but which actually serve only to distract the reader. Like practically everything bearing the Goosebumps label, the adventure lacks originality and intelligence. Surprisingly, though, there is one small but amusing sign of creativity in the book: in probably the most bizarre scene in the whole series, you attempt to save Los Angeles from an alien squeeze-bomb by attacking Leonard Nimoy's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame with a pick-ax! Alas, the execution of this wonderfully bizarre idea isn't as good as it should have been, but the idea alone made me laugh, and that's more than I can say for most members of the Give Yourself Goosebumps family. This is a pretty lousy book, but it deserves a little credit for being more outrageously odd than most of its kin.

More reviews by Demian

I didn't think the writing in this entry was any worse than in any other Give Yourself Goosebumps book. Of course, none of it is very good to begin with so that's not saying much at all. Still, I've got to agree with Demian about the major silliness factor here.

This book clearly goes for laughs rather than scares. One ending has you frozen solid forever in alien vomit after being puked on. Another has you becoming a basketball star after being poorly reassembled by the aliens after dissection, ending up several times taller than you were.

More reviews by Stockton