I LIVE IN YOUR BASEMENT
Goosebumps #61: I Live In Your Basement © 1997 by Parachute Press. Cover Art by Tim Jacobus. Spoiler-Free Review RL Stine wrote I Live in Your Basement while in his David Lynch era. That’s my theory at least. I mean it with both the pros and the cons that come...
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I LIVE IN YOUR BASEMENT
Goosebumps #61: I Live In Your Basement was a trippy. If you have ever wondered: what if David Lynch wrote a Goosebumps book (he would never), then it might read something like this. It was a bit rough in spots, and I wasn’t sold on the ending, but I still enjoyed it overall.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DUMMY II
Goosebumps #31: Night of the Living Dummy II was a fun read and a significant improvement on the first book. It still suffers from a lack of depth for the living dummy itself, but it was all-around a more enjoyable read.
NEW YORK COMIC CON 2021
My first big convention since 2019, and my eighth return to NYCC. I didn't have a table, but I reconnected with friends, bought too many books, fought off imposter syndrome, and made it home with some new ideas.
TRICK OR TREAT
Richie Tankersley Cusick's Trick or Treat builds a creepy atmosphere from the first page and never relents. It follows familiar patterns and doesn't quite sell the twist ending, but it's still a really fun and spooky read.
99 FEAR STREET: THE THIRD HORROR
99 Fear Street #3: The Third Horror brings the trilogy to an explosive conclusion. While I appreciated its different approach, it still left behind a lot of questions and suspicious motives.
99 FEAR STREET: THE SECOND HORROR
99 Fear Street #2: The Second Horror was saved from mediocrity by an out-of-left-filed twist ending, but that didn't do enough to make up for the largely uninspired plot.
99 FEAR STREET: THE FIRST HORROR
99 Fear Street #1: The First Horror kicks off the trilogy on a strong note. It's nothing new so far as haunted houses go, but it's a solid story and pushes the envelope for scares we might expect in a typical Fear Street novel. It also works fairly well as a stand-alone.
REMEMBER ME 2: THE RETURN
Christopher Pike's Remember Me 2 was a problematic mess. It's an argument for avoiding sequels altogether unless you're James Cameron. On the plus side, it gave me a lot to write about.
IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SINK
Goosebumps #30: It Came From Beneath the Sink was a great title with all of the elements needed to make a great Goosebumps book, but it failed to raise the stakes high enough and ended up being forgettable.
MEET ME IN OUTER SPACE
I've been making Blair a new mix every year since 2014. What started as a means of processing my grief has become a tradition I look forward to. Today would have been his 54th birthday.
THE BABYSITTER II
R.L Stine's The Babysitter II is a competent but uninspired sequel. I guessed the twist early and got bored with the dream sequences. The only thing that saved it was its cast of characters.
MONSTER BLOOD III
Goosebumps #29: Monster Blood III is a case of diminishing returns. At three books in, we still haven't seen any bleeding monsters or a monster blood bank. I feel cheated by the promise of the title.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER
Lois Duncan's I Know What You Did Last Summer is a much better book than the movie that it inspired. It holds up really well, even as we approach 50 years since its publication.