Gooseblog: Goosebumps #54: Don't Go To Sleep!

Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight. Because it's time to enter a dreamland of insanity that could only come from the mind of Jovial Bob Stine. It's Don't Go To Sleep! AKA Bed To The Bone.

COVER STORY

Cover's fine. Nothing I'd say is super amazing. Save for the detail on the monster's hand. We still get some of Tim's most infamous traits like warping, and his recent love for random lightning in the background. Although, with this book involving sleep and the dream world, they feel like they fit this cover much better than the random lightning did with Chicken Chicken.

STORY

Matt Amsterdam is out protagonist for this edition. He's a nerdy kid, particularly a fan of Star Trek. He's also an easy target for his two older siblings Greg an Pam. Wow, a Goosebumps book with more than two siblings. Thinking outside the box, eh Jovial Bob? Matt is also a kid that everyone seems to pick on. Even their dachshund Biggie hates him. He's also a kid who believes he's outgrown his room and wants something bigger, like the guest bedroom. But his mom tells him it's out of the question. When he gets mad about Greg and Pam tormenting him, she defends the older siblings. I dunno, this mentality can work when it's the younger sibling, but defending the older just makes you sound like a jerk. But hey, Goosebumps Parents!

Despite being told not to, Matt still decides that he's going to go sleep in the guest bedroom and does just that. When he wakes up, he notices that he seems taller. He looks in the mirror and he hasn't just grown in size, but in age. He's a teenager, about as old as his siblings. But when he goes to the kitchen for breakfast, he sees Pam and Greg are now twelve. Before he can process this however, he's sent to high school where he has to deal with bullies and the biggest horror that these books have provided so far... advanced calculus! He tries to tell the principal about this new situation, but she doesn't believe him. He also bumps into a girl named Lacie, but doesn't hang around long enough to talk.

Matt goes back to sleep and wakes up back in his twelve year old body. However, when he goes to get breakfast, his family are replaced by a mysterious man and woman who tell him he's their only child. Regardless, Matt heads to school and runs into Lacie again. But before they can talk again, two older looking teenagers dressed in all black start chasing after Matt. He runs home, and tries to get help from his other family members, but they don't know who he is, since in this world he has a different family. He eventually calms down and with no men in black chasing him, he goes back to sleep. This time he wakes up reverting back to an eight year old. If that wasn't strange enough, his family in this dream world are a circus troupe.

It also just so happens that Matt's act in this circus is to ride a ferocious lion. But before he can process that, the two men in black show up and chase him some more. Matt manages to overcome his fear of the lion and uses it to chase the two men off. So Matt is starting to realize that every time he falls asleep, he wakes up in some other dimension. He goes back to sleep, and this time when he wakes up, he's now an old man. He's like "screw that" and goes right back to bed. This time he wakes up and is an alien monster. He runs off, trying to find help, particularly Lacie, who he thinks may know something about what's going on. He finds her, but soon finds she's not alone. The men in black arrive and capture him. As they throw him into a cabin and lock him in a room. It's here where he falls asleep again.

He wakes up, back to human form, but now a couple years older. He's still trapped by Lacie and the men in black however. They finally talk to him and reveal their intentions. Lacie has been working with the two men in black named... seriously... Bruce and Wayne. It turn out that the guest bedroom he slept in was a reality warp. It's why whenever he goes to sleep, he wakes up in a different reality. They're the reality police, and they're here to put a stop to Matt. See, his shifts in reality aren't just affecting him, but the entire world, and that just can't be allowed to happen. So, how can they fix this, by putting him into a coma, of course! They try to force him into a drinking a sleeping potion that will put him out cold forever. Or you could just kill him. I mean, these are kids books, but the point still stands.

Before they ready the potion, he goes back to sleep, this time waking up as a tiny squirrel. This gives him the chance to escape. After nearly being run over by a car, he makes it home, only to be found by his sister who keeps him in a hamster cage. Matt escapes the cage and makes to a tree branch where he falls asleep. This time he ends up waking as a fat kid and breaks the branch, causing him to crash to the ground below. He tries to get to the guest bed, since it may be the only thing that will undo this warp. But his family think he's some stranger, and shut the door on him. Too bad this coincides with the reality police on his trail. He evades them again, then waits until night to sneak into the house and sleep in the bed.

TWIST ENDING

Matt wakes up, back in his own body. Seemingly back in the correct reality. No signs of Lacie or the reality police. It seems like everything is finally going to be all right. That is until he gets home from school and learns that his mother moved his room into the guest bedroom. Here we go again!

CONCLUSION

Don't Go To Sleep! is okay at best. It does feel like Stine's been starved for some dream sequence stuff in a while, and this one tries to cram as much random and weird stuff as possible. However, it feels like it never ramps up to being as crazy and wild as it could be. We get a lot of age shifting, which was done better in The Cuckoo Clock Of Doom, and an admittedly fun bit with Matt as a squirrel, but nothing else really comes off as that memorable. Even the stuff with Matt as a monster, which you think would lead to more entertaining ideas. But nothing much really. Matt's an okay protagonist, albeit a bit whiny, so it's not a pain to be following him along in this journey. As for scares, nothing much really comes off as freaky enough to constitute being that memorable. And that's this book's problem, it doesn't feel all that memorable. It just feels like a mediocre book to throw out there for another month. Not as bad as others like this, but nothing that makes you want to come back. But I will say this, it's much better than that mess of an episode based off this book, that's for sure. If you want a book that does surreal reality bending, stay tuned. One's coming up that really does it better than this book. Don't Go To Sleep! Gets a C.