Goosebumps #55:
The Blob That Ate Everyone
© 1997 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Tim Jacobus.
Spoiler-Free Review
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
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ERMAHGERD #55: The Blob That Ate Everyone.
© 2024 by Daniel Stalter. All rights reserved.
Photo and editing by Daniel Stalter.
Stock photo by zhu difeng; Standard Adobe Stock License.
Observations & Spoilers
The hardest reviews to write are the ones for “meh” books. There’s a distinct possibility that I will not give this one my all. In classic ADHD fashion, I am very tempted to give up on these reviews when I’m less then ten books away from being done. I WON’T. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.
The Blob That Ate Everyone followed the classic three-act structure I identified ways back with Stay Out of the Basement. The major problem is that the second act tapped into something really fun and spooky, but the book remained committed to the boring through-line of the first act. This bummed me out. I wanted a meta haunted typewriter story, and I was left feeling like a better story was dangled in front of me before being snatched away and replaced with mediocrity. I guess I should start at the beginning?
Zach is an aspiring horror writer. He’s also scared of a lot of things. I found this detail cute and relatable. I was the child whose parents banned him from watching Unsolved Mysteries after I would insist on repeatedly watching it only to be too terrified to sleep afterwards. Zach’s best friend Alex loves his scary stuff. She is a true horror fan and supportive friend. Alex passes the vibe check. Their mutual friend Adam does not. Adam is one of those “friends by proximity” friends we all had at that age. You were the same age and neighbors, thus making you friends, but the reality was that you straight-up hated each other. That’s who Adam is to Zach and Alex. I had the exact same archetype in my pre-middle school friends group, so Stine really nailed it with this one. It’s a shame this part of the story didn’t really serve much of a purpose.
So Zach writes stories about blob monsters. Alex loves them, but Adam think they’re lame. He’s friends with these twin girls at school and the three of them love to make fun of Zach. But things turn around one night when Zach sneaks into a burned down store and gets zapped by a typewriter. The store owner lets him keep it, so Zach takes it home. The next day he finally sits down to write with it (we are a solid 40 pages into the book at this point). Zach opens by writing the cliche of all cliches: it was a dark and stormy night. Suddenly a thunderstorm rolls in. The power goes out. After a few sentences, Zach begins to realize he has some real power.
He decides to make Adam appear at his front door. A confused Adam ends up knocking, but doesn’t know how he got there. This part of the story leads you into believing it is going somewhere, but then it doesn’t. Zach’s dad eventually emerges from the basement and Adam goes home. I was left wishing that the story started with this earlier and followed it though to the end. I wasn’t expecting some meta-level Adaptation brilliance, but I think Stine was on to something really fun here. It’s a shame he let go for the snooze the final act turned out to be.
THe final act turned out to be Zach writing a story about his blob monster eating his whole town. Then his mom sent him to the grocery store to get some things. He sees Adam and the twins and they are shitty as you might expect. Then the whole town is attacked by a giant blob monster, just like in Zach’s story. Zach tries to type a new ending to no avail. He eventually realize that the story is in his heart and he just needs to imagine a happy ending. He does this and all is well. Except for the twist ending, where it turns out that a blob monster is writing the whole story. His friends think it’s sad how the blob monster dies and everyone agrees it should get the happy ending where the blob monster eats everyone.
At face value, I enjoyed the ending. It as classic Goosebumps on a lot of levels. I just wish it had felt more like the intent of the whole book, and less like a tacked on “gotcha.” It was a cute little idea tacked onto a story that ran out of good ones. All in all, I was left longing for a story rooted in the second act, where Zach realized his words were coming to life an decided to play God. If the book had been focused on this instead of the forgettable conflict with Adam, then this book could have been something really special. It’s a shame that it wasn’t.
Score Card
For the scoring of each book, I decided to rate them based on five criteria worth 2 points each.
I then split that in two to give it a rating out of 5 stars. Those criteria are:
Concept: the strength of the overall idea
Execution: the mechanics of storytelling
Character: the protagonists, antagonists, and villains
Intent: does it succeed in being the kind of book it wants to be?
Originality: subversion and reliance on genre tropes
Concept: 1/2
There was a fun concept at the core of this, but it did not live up to its potential.
Execution: 1/2
Too many starts and stops. The fun part started too late and ended too early. The ending scene would have worked much better if it had been Zach’s intention, but he lost control.
Character: 1/2
Zack was fine as a lead. I related to the horror fan who was afraid of everything. Alex was fine too. Adam and the twins were just obnoxious, though, and didn’t end up serving much of a purpose.
Intent: 1/2
There were some good scary moments during the storm in the middle section, but the blob monster at the end was just silly without being fun.
Originality: 1/2
Nothing wildly original here. The idea could have been if it was executed better. At least it wasn’t overly derivative.
Based on GoodReads aggregate ratings, The Blob That Ate Everyone is:
Ranked 42nd of 62 books in the original Goosebumps series.
TV Adaptation – Bullet Review
For every book that was adapted for the Goosebumps TV series, I will watch and do a bullet review.
“The Blob that Ate Everyone” is Episode 2×23.
• Look at this random box of worms we found in the basement.
• The show wasted a lot less time getting to the good stuffs.
• Hi, I’m Zach. I say every word out loud as I type it.
• I like Adam’s cowboy pajamas. I want cowboy pajamas.
• The video store was a good touch. Such a relic of commerce
• The blob monster looks like Pizza the Hutt. Also reminded me of some aliens from the original Star Trek series.
• “I must be in the jerk section” Zack throwing shade, totally unaware that the section of the video store he is not allowed in could also be referred to as the “jerk” section.
• Book ending was more memorable but I understand why they cut it. Even so I wish they had more fun with it.
Don’t miss the next post in my Goosebumps blog series:
Goosebumps #56: The Curse of Camp Cold Lake
Also, be sure to check out the latest from my Fear Street blog series:
Fear Street #3: The Overnight
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