Saturday, December 18, 2021

Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1) by R.L. Stine

Title: Welcome to Dead House (Goosebumps #1)
Author: R.L. Stine
Publication Date: July 1992
Length: 123 pages

It's been a long time since I actually wrote a book review! I've always had trouble keeping up with them and at some point it became hard to do them at all. But I've been reading my R.L. Stine collection in order by publishing date (roughly; I'm missing a few), and I've finally reached the start of the Goosebumps books, something I've been looking forward to for ages! So I figured it would be fun to try to review them all! I'm also going to watch the corresponding episodes of the TV series, where applicable, and review them at the same time. So, to start with, the first ever Goosebumps book, Welcome to Dead House!

So, Josh and Amanda, along with their parents and dog, move into an old house in Dark Falls after inheriting it from an unknown relative. Right away, the dog knows something's up and runs away, found sniffing around the cemetery. Meanwhile, Amanda keeps thinking she's seeing people in the windows and in her bedroom. The kids make some friends, but all the other kids act pretty strangely, won't stay out when it's bright out, and more than one of them claims to have lived in Amanda and Josh's house before.

Spoilers ahead! I feel like it's hard to talk about the Goosebumps books and show without revealing twists.

Quite a bit of time is spent on the buildup, relative to the short length of the book. The first half of the book is basically the family unpacking and Amanda seeing ghosts, before they meet anyone else. Ultimately it turns out everyone in town is dead (in kind of a zombie/ghost hybrid sort of way), and every year they trick people into moving into the house so they can get fresh blood. Amanda and Josh manage to escape from one of the kids trying to kill them, by melting his flesh with a flashlight. Then they have to rescue their parents, who've been captured by the other adults and are about to be killed in this sort of amphitheatre thing in the cemetery. The amphitheatre is shaded by a tree, and they manage to knock it down, hitting all the dead people with sunlight, and escape. In a little ending twist (common in the series), as they leave another family is moving into the house. (So are there more dead people around that weren't killed?? Apparently!)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one, but I know the series will get even better, because really the dead people in Welcome to Dead House are not as interesting as the average Goosebumps monster. Still, a solid 4 stars! In the last couple years I've read a bunch of the early Fear Street books, Point Horror and some stand alone horror, and Goosebumps is just so much better! While R.L. Stine's teen horror has a lot of unlikable characters, toxic relationships, etc., his Goosebumps books have none of those issues and are just pure fun horror. I love it!


Now, for the episode of the TV show! While I did read some of the books when I was a kid, ultimately a lot of my "big Goosebumps fan" energy comes from the TV series. My dad taped (what we thought was) every episode off of YTV when I was a kid, and I've seen them countless times. I still love the show, cheesiness and all! But, it turns out we missed a couple, and maybe the only time I've seen those ones was when the whole series was on Netflix and I watched it through. Welcome to Dead House, Parts 1 and 2, are among those missing episodes! So when I watched it this week after reading the book, it was barely even familiar to me.

I was surprised how many changes were made in adapting this book, and now I'm curious to see if other episodes are similar! There were little things, like the fact that the family actually bought the house in the show, as opposed to inheriting it, and that they've actually managed to sell their old house, unlike in the book where they still have it to go back to. But there are also big things, like the way the dead people are way more zombified than in the book, and the addition of a magical old wreath that protects the family and scares the dead people. Also, there's no amphitheatre and the big fight takes place at the house.

Not my favourite of the Goosebumps episodes (though how much of that is because it doesn't have the nostalgia of episodes I've watched many times?), but still good. Highlights include some very 90s outfits on Amanda, and the fact that Josh is played by Ben Cook, who is also Jerry in Piano Lessons Can Be Murder (one of my favourites) and Marty in A Shocker on Shock Street. It's always fun to recognize the repeat stars!

Tune in next time for the second Goosebumps book, Stay Out of the Basement!

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Read-a-Thon hours 21-24: 3:00-7:00

Currently reading: Lumberjanes, Vol. 15: Birthday Smarty by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh - finished!!

Pages read these hours: 266

Total pages so far: 1369

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams
Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki
The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate
Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni
Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson
Lumberjanes, Vol. 14: X Marks the Spot by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh
Heart of Stone (High School Hell #1) by I.D. Russell
Lumberjanes, Vol. 15: Birthday Smarty by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh

Snacks:
Just sipping at my Monster.

Current state of things: Success!! After finishing Heart of Stone, rather than starting another book off my pile, and not having time to finish it, I went off-list and grabbed another Lumberjanes volume, which I finished at exactly 7:00! Eight books completed!

Read-a-Thon hours 17-20: 23:00-3:00

Currently reading: Heart of Stone (High School Hell #1) by I.D. Russell

Pages read these hours: 142

Total pages so far: 1103

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams
Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki
The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate
Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni
Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson
Lumberjanes, Vol. 14: X Marks the Spot by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh

Snacks:
La Cocina tortilla chips and mango salsa (om nom nom)
Started my Monster energy drink

Current state of things: Definitely a bit of fatigue and difficulty focusing, so not quite the page count I was going for! But I'm still on track to at least finish my 7th book by the end!

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Read-a-Thon hours 13-16: 19:00-23:00

Currently reading: Heart of Stone (High School Hell #1) by I.D. Russell

Pages read these hours: 193

Total pages so far: 961

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams
Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki
The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate
Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni
Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson
Lumberjanes, Vol. 14: X Marks the Spot by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh

Snacks:
Chocolate milk

Current state of things: Good! I was distracted a lot but that's getting better. Getting my second wind. The fact that I go from tired to alert at like 10:00 pm every day is very inconvenient during the work week but super handy during the read-a-thon! With 6 books under my belt, I've decided to attempt a longer book! I used to always include one longer (300ish page YA) book in each read-a-thon, but in recent years I haven't. So we'll see how this goes!

Read-a-Thon hours 9-12: 15:00-19:00

Currently reading: Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson

Pages read these hours: 283

Total pages so far: 768

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams
Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki
The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate
Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni

Snacks:
Chicken fingers with honey dill, and curly fries with ketchup.

Current state of things: Not sleepy but getting a bit distracted by my group chat, lol! Anyway I read all of Grease Bats (love!) and have just started Terror in Winnipeg. I was considering reading a bigger book next but felt like my remaining TBR pile was too big so I wanted to knock off another shorter one.

Read-a-Thon hours 5-8: 11:00-15:00

Currently reading: Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni

Pages read these hours: 245

Total pages so far: 485

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams
Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki
The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate

Snacks:
Started an Amp energy drink. (Saving the stronger Monster for the late hours.)
Pizza Pringles

Current state of things: The drowsy hours are over! The afternoon of wakefulness is here! So far I'm sticking with my strategy of alternating regular novels and graphic novels, to good effect. I'm reading a long-ish graphic novel right now. If I'm still feeling good at the end, I might jump into my long novel!

Read-a-Thon Hours 1-4: 7:00-11:00

Currently reading: Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki

Pages read these hours: 240

Total pages so far: 240

Books finished:
The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams

Snacks:
Lemon Greek yogourt
Water

Current state of things: Weak start! I could barely wake up this morning, and have been drowsy ever since. But I feel like I'm starting to perk up now. Should have gotten to sleep earlier last night! I'm not a morning person.



Dewey's 24 Hour Read-a-Thon!


It's read-a-thon time!! Aw yeah.

I put most of my reading pile together really quickly this time, grabbing books from my book cart (which holds library books and TBR books I wanna get to soon). Then I spent a couple days second guessing it. Then I added more books. So anyway, now I have a pretty big pile; I even added in a longer novel, something I haven't done in a few years because I have a short attention span. We'll see if I get to it! Here's the pile:

  • Lumberjanes Vol. 14: X Marks the Spot by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (111 pages)
  • Grease Bats by Archie Bongiovanni (303 pages)
  • Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer (238 pages)
  • Dr. Stone, Vol. 1 by Riichiro Inagaki (200 pages)
  • Fushigi YĆ»gi, Vol. 1 (3 in 1) by Yuu Watase (573 pages)
  • The Sixth-Grade Mutants Meet the Slime by Laura E. Williams (111 pages)
  • The Picture-Perfect Crime (Clue #7) by A.E. Parker (95 pages)
  • First Date (Fear Street #16) by R.L. Stine (165 pages)
  • Terror in Winnipeg by Eric Wilson (97 pages)
  • The Journey (Animorphs #42) by K.A. Applegate (139 pages)
  • Heart of Stone (High School Hell #1) by I.D. Russell (296 pages)
While the list of books is a little shorter than my ambitious pile in April (of which I read a surprising amount), the page count is actually higher. (Actually, I guess the book count is higher too if you count that 3-in-1 volume as 3 books!) Anyway, it's a total of 2328 pages, consisting of 1425 pages of graphic novels, and 903 pages of standard text. So, running out of reading material is highly unlikely!

Finally, here's my opening survey (prepped in advance as usual, because I can't accomplish things at 7:00!):

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Winnipeg, Manitoba
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Wires and Nerves. I finished the Lunar Chronicles earlier this year and I'm excited to get a little more in that universe!
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I got the really good tortilla chips (La Cocina) and some mango salsa.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I recently got my hair dyed rainbow!!
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? No big changes planned!

Sunday, April 25, 2021

Read-a-Thon hours 21-24: 3:00 - 7:00

Currently reading: Stars Above (Lunar Chronicles #4.5) by Marissa Meyer

Pages read these hours: 208

Total pages so far: 1660

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon
The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright
Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Kat Leyh
The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate
Twin Spica, Vol. 12 by Kou Yaginuma
Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors (The Bailey School Kids #3) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones
Revenge of the Computer Phantoms by J.R. Black
Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon
Lumberjanes, Vol. 6: Sink or Swim by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh

Snacks: none

Current state of things: Ready for bed!! And very happy with my accomplishments today!!

Closing survey:

1) How would you assess your reading overall? Great!
2) Did you have a stategy, and if so, did you stick to it? My strategy was basically to alternate middle grade novels and graphic novels, which I mostly stuck to. (I fiddled with the order a bit to make sure I had some easy reading for the tough late hours.)
3) What was your favorite snack? Hmm, the leftover flatbread pizza was pretty tasty.
4) Wanna volunteer for our next event? Stay tuned for the recap post! Not really; I'm too busy reading!

Read-a-Thon hours 17-20: 23:00 - 3:00

Currently reading: Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon

Pages read these hours: 185

Total pages so far: 1452

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon
The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright
Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Kat Leyh
The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate
Twin Spica, Vol. 12 by Kou Yaginuma
Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors (The Bailey School Kids #3) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones
Revenge of the Computer Phantoms by J.R. Black

Snacks:
An apple
Long johns
Started another energy drink (I don't normally drink two, since you aren't really supposed to have more than one in a 24 hour period... But I gotta admit, it's effective lol)

Current state of things: Not bad. It really didn't feel like I spent most of four hours reading that last book, but apparently I did?? I think it's because I was getting sleepy and more easily distracted. But now that I'm caffeinating again I'm feeling a bit more on-task. And looking at how much of my huge book stack I've gotten through is very motivating!!

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Read-a-Thon hours 13-16: 19:00 - 23:00

Currently reading: Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors (The Bailey School Kids #3) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones

Pages read these hours: 515

Total pages so far: 1267

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon
The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright
Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Kat Leyh
The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate
Twin Spica, Vol. 12 by Kou Yaginuma

Snacks:
Bacon
An apple
Water

Current state of things: Great! I've been listening to some coffee shop and common room ambiences while I read, and have been going strong. I can't believe I'm almost done my seventh book!

Read-a-Thon hours 9-12: 15:00 - 19:00

Currently reading: The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate

Pages read these hours: 203

Total pages so far: 752

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon
The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright
Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Kat Leyh

Snacks:
Even more pretzels
Leftover pear and gorgonzola flatbread pizza
A couple of fruit punch Pull n Peels
Finished my Monster

Current state of things: Getting distracted a little more easily the last bit, but still going strong. Almost done my fifth book of the day! Very pleased with my page and book counts at the halfway mark!

Wooooaaaah, we're halfway there!



Read-a-Thon hours 5-8: 11:00 - 15:00

Currently reading: Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together

Pages read these hours: 151

Total pages so far: 549

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon
The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright

Snacks:
A banana
More pretzels (I seriously cannot stop eating pretzels.)
A Monster (I'm changing tactics this time and having a Monster during the day, so we'll see how this changes my focus and energy levels!)

Current state of things: Good! Hour 5 was a bit drowsy, but since then I've caffeinated and am doing better! And the book I spent most of these hours on had much denser text than the previous books, hence the lower page count, but I'm still doing alright! We're already 1/3 done, whaaaat!

Read-a-Thon hours 1-4: 7:00-11:00

Currently reading: The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright (just starting)

Pages read these hours: 398

Total pages so far: 398

Books finished:
Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold
Fray by Joss Whedon

Snacks:
Coconut Greek yogourt with oat and dark chocolate granola
Pretzels
Water

Current state of things: Going strong! My pace so far has been good, with surprisingly little drowsiness!

Read-a-Thon Time!!

 

"The time has come!" the Walrus said, "to read so many things!" I have been SO pumped for this read-a-thon! The books are stacked; the snacks are sugary; the caffeine is abundant!

I went a bit overboard on my book pile this time, I think! I blame the bingo board. I don't normally do that challenge, but decided to go for it this time. Then I started picking books that would help me complete the prompts, and adding books that just felt like good read-a-thon books, and next thing you know, I've got a mountain of reading material. So, I won't run out! We shall see how much of this pile I can accomplish today:

  • Lumberjanes Vol. 4: Band Together by Noelle Stevenson and Shannon Watters (112 pages)
  • Lumberjanes Vol. 5: Sink or Swim by Shannon Watters and Kat Leyh (112 pages)
  • Fray by Joss Whedon (216 pages)
  • Dr. Horrible and Other Horrible Stories by Zack Whedon (78 pages)
  • Twin Spica, Vol. 12 by Kou Yaginuma (422 pages)
  • Revenge of the Computer Phantoms by J.R. Black (126 pages)
  • The Phantom of Five Chimneys by Betty Ren Wright (127 pages)
  • The Truth About Stacey (The Baby-Sitters Club #3) by Ann M. Martin (167 pages)
  • Santa Claus Doesn't Mop Floors (The Bailey School Kids #3) by Debbie Dadey and Marcia Thornton Jones (71 pages)
  • The Familiar (Animorphs #41) by K.A. Applegate (143 pages)
  • Bat and the End of Everything (A Boy Called Bat #3) by Elana K. Arnold (182 pages)
  • Stars Above (Lunar Chronicles #4.5) by Marissa Meyer (369 pages)
That gives me a total of 2125 pages!! I believe my record is 1809, which is how much I read in April 2019. That was four graphic novels, one middle grade novel, and one huge novel that's mostly pictures, which definitely gave me an edge that time. This time, there are 940 pages of graphic novels, and the rest is mostly pretty easy middle grade reading. Let's see what I can do with that!

Finally, here are my responses to the opening survey (prepped in advance as usual, because I can't accomplish things at 7:00!):

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today? Winnipeg, Manitoba
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to? Tough call this time, but I'll go with Twin Spica Volume 12. I've been reading that series for ages and this is the final volume!
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to? I bought some of the filled long johns that they make in-store, and they are SOOOO good.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself! I enjoy doing jigsaw puzzles. I've had the same one on my puzzle mat for months because it's a mystery one where the picture on the box is all mixed up, and it's super hard.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to? This is my 20th read-a-thon. No plans to change anything at this point!