It's time to get the buzz on the seventeenth Goosebumps book. After our last books dealing with ghosts, monsters, implied mutilation, cursed objects, and Camp Nightmare's amazing end twist, it's almost refreshing to return to good old fashioned science gone wrong. It's Why I'm Afraid Of Bees AKA R.L Stine Watches a Bee Documentary and Gets Inspired.
COVER STORY
This cover's kinda goofy, but in the right way. I guess there really is no better way to sell the book's concept than to have a really well detailed bee body with a kid's head slapped on it. I particularly love his confused facial reaction. I love the background in this with the orange sky and the well detailed trees. Oh god, here I go again with my tree praise, but I can't help it. Tim Jacobus draws a damn fine tree. Bob Ross would be proud.
STORY
Immediately upon opening this book, you're given a warning that this book contains a lot of bees. Thanks, I kind of assumed that. The protagonist is Gary Lutz who, to call the kid a bit of a loser would be an understatement. The neighborhood kids don't want to play with him, he's always picked last in games, and he's just generally bad at everything. I guess that's why it's fitting that the neighborhood kids dub him "Lutz the Klutz". I mean, I know I'm dumping on a child for being bullied through his adolescence, hell, I've been there, but A for effort on the rhyme. Also he's afraid of bees. Why? Well, this book really doesn't get into why, despite the title. That's bait and switch, Jovial Bob!
But I guess it would have to do with his neighbor Mr. Andretti (Mario Andretti?) a beekeeper who works with hives in his backyard. Andretti likes to pick on Gary with is bees. Another issue for Gary includes the local kids having no problem beating him up. Later, he tries to impress girls with his biking, but his shoelace gets caught and he take a header. Even his own mother laughs at him when he can't open a peanut butter jar. At this point I can only imagine Charlie Brown music playing in the background as he walks around. Of all the Lutz the Klutzes, Gary's the Charlie Browniest!
Gary retires to this life of torment by playing a video game named Planet Monstro. But when he gets stuck in a level, he does what all true gamers do, consult the internet for help. Yeah, this is a book released in 1994 and it references message boards. Gotta admit that's pretty progressive for Stine. It's here that Gary spots an ad for Person-To-Person Vacations. A place where you can swap lives with someone else for a period of time. Gary jots down the address and heads there the next day. It's here he meets the woman in charge named Ms. Karmen. She tells Gary that Person to Person is a service that lets you swap bodies with someone else for a week. At first Gary backs away, but after getting beaten up again conveniently after leaving, he's all like "yeah, screw this noise. Swap me!"
A few days later, Ms. Karmen calls Gary, telling him she's found the perfect pick for the mind swap. A kid named Dirk Davis. Now you'd wonder why Dirk would want to swap with Gerald here, but he wants a smart kid to help improve his grades. Gary thinks it's fine and they begin to set things up in Gary's room. She straps him in, but suddenly a bee enters the room and starts flying around Gary. The machine activates and Gary slips into darkness. When he awakens, he sees that everything looks bigger, and his body feels weird. He finds the closest reflection and to his horror sees a bee's face staring back at him. The good news is the mind swap worked. The bad news, Gary has turned into Jerry Seinfeld! And unlike the cover, Gary doesn't have a human head grafted to a bee's body. It's anatomically correct baby. Keep that in mind for later because Stine's gonna do some ass pulls so bad that it'll turn you inside out.
He tries to get Ms. Karmen's attention, but ends up almost being run over by her car. He goes back home, but now sees his human body interacting with his mother. Seems that Dirk is inside his body after all. After eating some pollen to restore his energy, Gary sees his dad and tries to get his attention, only to be swatted away. Get used to that happening a bit in this book. He gets attacked by their cat and thinks to sting him, but remembers that bees die if they get stung, so opts out of it. Before he can even think of anything else, a net falls on him. It's Mr. Andretti, who places Gary inside one of his beehives.
We get a few chapters from inside the hive, giving Stine the perfect time to play Mr. Educator. Showing us around a hive interior and seeing how bees make honey, how scout bees do dances to show other bees what to do, etc. Gary eventually makes it out of the hive, and continues his quest to get anyone to notice him. He gets attacked by his sister, then goes to try to get the attention of Dirk. Doesn't work, as you'd expect. So he instead has the clever idea to use his computer and type a message. That seems like the most plausible way to end this, but Dirk dismisses it and turns the computer off. The fates really love kicking Gary in his bee balls, huh? He follows Dirk to the park where he sees that Dirk is really helping improve Gary's popularity. Oh, and a dragonfly then eats Gary. Never mind, that's just a random fake out dream caused by a weary Gary. Well, that and it's a Goosebumps staple.
Gary is getting weak, but uses his strength to return to Person-To-Person and try to get the attention of Ms. Karmen. He gets into her office and uses the microphone to get her attention. Yes, despite having the anatomy of a bee down to the letter, he somehow has human vocal cords and the ability to speak. Ms. Karmen eventually notices Gary. But you see there's been a bit of a snag. You see, Dirk's having a ball in Gary's body and really doesn't want to go back. Well, that and a potential lawsuit if this gets really messy that she would much rather avoid. So, she just bails and leaves Gary locked in her office. WHAT THE HELL IS THIS BOOK?
Gary manages to escape, then makes it to Dirk's house. He sees Dirk's body, but it's acting erratic and crazy. Yes, it turns out that the bee is in Dirk's body, and it's not having a good time. He's panicking, eating pollen, completely confused about what he is and what he can do. That's actually a creepy concept. The cartoony adventures of bee boy Gary is one thing, he eventually manages to control himself and get a bearing of his situation. But this is an insect in a human's body that doesn't have that ability and is freaking out. Realizing that the bee isn't able to help him, Gary goes to find Dirk instead. He finds Dirk scaring off some bullies and starts to yell at him that he wants his body back. Dirk, somehow able to hear him (I guess due to some bond caused by the mind swap?) refuses to do so, and instead just kicks Gary out of his room. Gary flies away like a sad bee would, then realizes that bees die in the fall and it's August. Did he anger some warlock to have so many things try to kill him?
Then through some sort of fast resolution, the other bees decide to follow Gary into his room and they begin to swarm Dirk. Gary, realizing he's as good as dead anyhow, stings Dirk. Gary then starts to fall into darkness again.
TWIST ENDING
So, in the mother of all ass pulls in a book of many, Gary awakens in his human body again. Somehow the sting caused everything to pop back into place. Gary's back in his body, Dirk's back in his, and the bee... well... he's in Goosebumps Heaven right now with Petey, Mr. Mortman (#JusticeForMortman) and Spidey. Gary's life immediately changes from here on in. He's gained confidence in himself and all the kids like him. He even befriends Dirk, who apologizes for the whole "stealing your body and leaving you for dead" stuff. After this whole experience Gary isn't even afraid of bees anymore, making the title an even bigger lie. In fact, we end this book with Gary picking a flower and licking its pollen.
CONCLUSION
I've read seventeen Goosebumps books so far, and while many of them do have some "out there" concepts, this one has to be the most bizarre concept he's had so far. It's well paced, actually is filled with content and does feel like a memorable adventure, but man is there some stuff to think about in this one. First off, Stine really stretches to find plausibility to having Gary be able to get people's attention. If he had just written that Gary's head was on the bee's body, that's fine. That would work. But he says from the get go that his mind went in and the rest of the body is that of a honeybee. So, there would be no logic in him being able to communicate if he doesn't have human vocal cords. Add in another ass pull with the sting being the thing to make everything better and you have a book that feels like it doesn't need to explain how it works to you. Just sit down, turn your brain off and read it. And while Goosebumps has veered into the poorly explained, it never felt that blatantly abstract.
But, for all the problems, the leaps in logic and whatnot, I didn't hate this one. It's no classic, and you really have to give it the benefit of the doubt, but it moved fine enough, got the ball rolling on the story very early on, and never felt like anything was getting in the way of the story. Not even the hive stuff. I actually had fun on this adventure for the most part. Maybe it's just my fascination that this book gives us a protagonist who the world seems to just want to kill. Throughout this book it's just Gary nearly being killed over and over again to the point where you feel bad for him. And yeah the mega happy ending is schmaltzy, but after all this, I think it's more than warranted. Also, the whole thought of the bee's experience in the human body is pretty damn creepy. I wouldn't say this book is any masterpiece, it suffers a lot, but at this point, I've read much worse. Why I'm Afraid of Bees gets a Bee Minus.
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