It's haunting season, ladies and germs. Find your best bed sheet and get spirited, it's the tenth edition of Goosebumps. It's The Ghost Next Door AKA Conspiracy theories and the perils of peer pressure.
COVER STORY
I like this cover. It's not exactly a scary one, but it still works to sell the concept of the book. It contains a lot of things that would be synonymous with the work of Tim Jacobus. You got the warped perspective mixed with the checkerboard tile, and of course the converse sneakers. It also works to sell the gender ambiguity of the titular ghost next door. Spoiler, maybe?
STORY
Hannah is our protagonist for this story. She wakes up to a very ominous dream about a fire. She lives with her parents and 6-year old twin brothers Bill and Herb. Because this book was set in the 50s or something, or Stine is just bad at kid names. She almost ends up hit by the bike of a new kid in the neighborhood named Danny Anderson. Which is particularly weird to Hannah since she doesn't recall any signs of a moving truck or any one near the old house. She turns her back to Danny, but when she looks again he appears to have vanished into thin air. Later she writes a letter to her friend Janey. She mentions how she made a campfire in the backyard, and how it was total death. Jovial Bob's gonna drop these hints before the big surprise, isn't he?
She later walks around town, saying hi to everyone, but nobody acknowledges her. But before she can think much of it, she sees Danny and some other boys being accosted by the postmaster Mr. Chesney, who is attacking their dog for being on private property. Chesney is our stock bitter old man of the book, hating anything and everything. But that's not the most concerning thing that Hannah sees, as a mysterious figure in black seems to be following her around. She runs into Danny again and the two seem to hit it off as friends. However, Hannah still has her concerns when she learns that Danny goes to her school, but she's never seen him there before, nor does he know any of her friends. Conspiracy, or is it because it's a big school? Danny disappears again, and Hannah begins to believe that he must be a ghost. A ghost next door even. He then returns with a ladder to get his ball off the roof, only to fall off head-first. I guess he's gonna be a ghost after all.
But Danny must have bones of steel as he manages to land on his feet. No visible signs of pain from the fall, which just adds further to Hannah's "g-g-g-ghost" conspiracy. She continues to stalk Danny around, but also once again gets caught by the shadowy figure. Before anything happens, the shadow disappears and Danny comes to her aid. Despite that, she still thinks Danny is a ghost. Hell, she goes so far in her conspiracy that she thinks that the whole family must be ghosts. This seems to check out when Hannah tries to talk to Danny's mother, but she refuses to acknowledge her. But Danny might not just be a ghost, but a ghost hanging around with bad influences, as Hannah spots him and his friends running out of an ice cream parlor with stolen cones. They later decide to get some revenge on Mr. Chesney by destroying his mailbox. Chesney manages to stop them, promising that next time he'll have his shotgun at the ready. Well, he fits the mold of the crazy mailman pretty well. Before Hannah can do anything however, she seems to get caught again by the shadowy figure.
Hannah learns from Danny that his mother is deaf (our second deaf parental figure in these books by the way Jovial Bob), which may be why she didn't hear her. But Hannah still has her doubts. Things continue to escalate with the shadowy figure showing up constantly every time she gets near Danny. She even sees it in her dreams, but under its hood is the face of Danny with glowing red eyes. So, things are definitely escalating to the point that Hannah doesn't know what to believe anymore. She confronts Danny the next day, but when she grabs him, her hands go right through him. Danny gets frightened by this, while Hannah finally comes to the realization. Danny isn't the ghost, she is! Dun dun dun!
After seeing her house being checked out by other people, she finally learns about what happened. She had died five years ago. Remember the mention about the backyard campfire? Well, things went horribly wrong as the fire wasn't completely put out, and it spread into the house, killing the entire family in their sleep. That's why she hasn't gotten any replies from her letters. That's why she hasn't seen her friends. That's why she didn't know about Danny moving in. And that's why nobody has been responding to her. She's been in a state of limbo for five years and just now seems to be awake. How this can make her ride a bike and hold a ball is beyond me, but maybe she has those powers that Patrick Swayze learned in Ghost.
Hannah tries to get a hold of Danny, but he runs away from her. She follows him to see that he's still out to get revenge on Mr. Chesney with the other kids. They wreck his mailbox, but that's far from their plans for the night. Yes, their attempts at petty thuggery has leveled up to full blown arson. They literally go into Mr. Chesney's house and light a fire. That escalated at a breakneck pace, didn't it? Hanna tries to stop them, but again gets caught by the shadowy figure. Meanwhile, Danny gets caught in the blaze while the other kids try to get help. Hannah tries to save him, but the shadowy figure again stops her, this time revealing his reasons. You see, this is the ghost of Danny, and if Danny dies, he'll be born. I guess this means that a ghost is essentially a shadow in wait until the body dies, then it goes full Casper. I guess it's the best we can do to give this book a villain that it really didn't need.
Despite that, Hannah breaks free from Ghost Danny and tries to find the living version. She manages to grab him and drags him out of Chesney's burning house in time. He thanks her, just as things go black again. Hannah soon sees her family once again, ready to finally take her home to the afterlife. So, no real twist ending in this book, instead we go out on a mega happy ending.
CONCLUSION
The Ghost Next Door is a decent enough story. It builds up pretty well to the big mid-book twist and has some decent pacing. It does feel weirdly illogical though. I don't exactly get why Hannah has these powers to move things, and even gets hurt in certain parts of the story. but I guess it's more for the sake of convenience as to ensure we don't get the big reveal too early in the book. Even though Stine peppers way too many subtle hints about Hannah being the dead one up until we make it to the twist. I do like the message about the evils of peer pressure and all, but the whole sudden accidental arson stuff feels like it built up way too quickly,convenient stuff to give us one big final moment of heroism for Hannah.
As for the Ghost Danny, while I get what Stine was going for, I don't think it was really needed. It doesn't feel all that scary or threatening, just sort of hangs around saying "Hey, don't do that! You get away now!" to Hannah. I think it would have worked better if it was the grim reaper, wanting to take Hannah's soul to a realm of eternal damnation. But I guess that would be too scary at this point. But then again, we've had melting faces in this series, so I can't even find a line anymore. In the end, despite nitpicks aplenty, I still liked this book. Hannah was an okay, albeit aloof, protagonist, the pacing, as mentioned, was fine, and I like that we end on a happy ending, instead of just adding some sort of plot twist on op of another, better handled plot twist. Proving that even Jovial Bob has restraint. Who knew? The Ghost Next Door gets a B.
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