This isn't the first time I've reviewed two books in a week, but it's the first time I'm making a big deal of it.
Why?
Is it because it's the third week of January and I've only talked about one book? Is it because there are a lot more Goosebumps books than I thought there was and if I don't do more than one-a-week, I'm going to be doing this until the day I die? Is it because I don't have much to say about this first book?
Yes. All of that is true.
And also I feel like it.
But before I get to that, I want to share some good news with you all.
Eventually, it seems, RL Stine does learn to make a funny joke. I don't know when, I don't know how, and I don't know how many books until it shows up in his writing, but eventually, we can be certain, it happens.
Okay. Onto the first book.
In Goosebumps #10 'The Ghost Next Door' we follow the life and times of Hannah, a girl all alone during summer vacation. Her friends are at summer camp and not writing to her. So it's just her, her parents, and her two younger brothers. She's feeling pretty lonely. And then she meets a new neighbour, Danny. Danny claims to live next door, but Hannah thought the house was empty. Danny claims to be in the same grade as her at the same school, but Hannah has never seen him before. Danny doesn't know any of Hannah's friends, and Hannah has never heard of the boys Danny hangs around with. It's all very mysterious and sudden, and Hannah begins to suspect that maybe--
Hannah is the ghost.
Yeah, this twist was pretty obvious from about page 3.
Despite that, we spend the rest of the book seeing Hannah live out her day to day life mostly alone, sometimes with Danny, eventually stalking Danny from afar to find proof that he is the ghost she thinks he is. But those paying attention at home will notice that outside Hannah's family and Danny, nobody ever interacts with Hannah or seems to notice her.
Hannah also keeps seeing a strange, think, faceless, shadowy figure watching her, following her the way she is following Danny, eventually warning her to stay away from Danny.
All this is very strange, and Hannah can't help but think there is a problem with her theory. If Danny is a ghost, does that mean his family are ghosts? Are his friends that she has never met before also ghosts? And surely the mailman Danny and his friends harass, or the poor ice cream store owner they rob, would notice if they were ghosts. Hannah decides she can't keep puzzling it out and confronts Danny, only to discover in doing so that she is the ghost, that she has been the whole time.
And then something unusual happens.
The book keeps going after the twist. Hannah learns that she died five years ago in a fire, and after her discovery, her ghost family vanishes. Danny avoids her, since now he knows she's a ghost too, and is afraid, but Hannah keeps stalking him and his friends, following them to the home of poor postman Mr Chesney, whom they have been harassing for weeks. Danny and his friends break into the house and accidentally start a fire, but while his friends escape, Danny is stuck. Hannah rushes to his rescue and helps him escape. When Danny is fine, she realises that she came back as a ghost just for this moment, just so she could save Danny from dying the same way she did and now, now she can move on.
Oh and the shadowy figure is revealed to be Danny's unborn ghost trying to keep Hannah from saving Danny so that when Danny dies, his ghost can exist... In some way that is different to how it already exists. But since Danny doesn't die, the ghost-not-ghost does... die... I guess. It's weird and probably best not to dwell on.
So look, I know I am a grown adult and these are spoopy books written for children who probably haven't seen 'The Twilight Zone' or 'The Sixth Sense' or any other version of this story with this twist, so it's not like I earn some bragging rights for guessing the twist. But even though I did see the twist coming about 100 pages before it happened, and even though the twist ending is a big part of the 'Goosebumps' identity, it didn't subtract from my enjoyment of the book.
The characters were likeable and sympathetic. You feel for Hannah's isolation, and you worry about Danny and the bad crowd he has fallen in with. Even when you know Hannah is the ghost, you want to see how she learns and what that means for her. And even though the reveal of the shadowy figure's identity is... bad... It was an extra layer of mystery to keep me going.
'The Ghost Next Door' shows us how even when a mystery is at the heart of a book, the enjoyment doesn't come purely from the reveal but from the journey. And that's just as true of spoopy children's horror novels as it is of actual mystery novels. If it wasn't, nobody would read a Raymond Chandler book twice.
'The Ghost Next Door' was a journey worth taking, even when I'd seen the destination. It's a solid entry into the series, at least in terms of pure entertainment value and page-turning engagement.
But I will say there's not a lot under the surface. Stories from the point of view of a ghost tend to work best when they are thematically about loneliness, isolation, regret, and grief. The ghost's perspective is one of loss. See, again, 'The Sixth Sense' and why it holds up under repeat viewings. The emotionality carries the film more than the actual plot. But 'The Ghost Next Door' doesn't do much with its own themes. They're there, they're just under explored.
That's all for this book, friends. But we're only halfway through our spooky double feature! Click on ahead for more!
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