Lorraine: I’m going to be honest here for a second and let you know that there is a certain amount of embarrassment that comes with writing for Childhood Trauma. I mean, not “OMG I’m gonna die! I’m never going to write again! I quit!” embarrassment, but like “crap, I think my co-worker just saw the Goosebumps book I’m carrying around in my purse,” embarrassment.
Like, “I just mentioned a ‘mature perm’ to someone and they looked at me funny” embarrassment.
Like, “I don’t know where I’m going to keep all these damn kiddie books” embarrassment.
Like, “I can’t believe how excited I just got when I found out Nugs and I acquired the same Goosebumps book!” embarrassment.
We read and review the same books all the time, but this? This was totally and completely unplanned.
In one of the many love letters emails we send between us, Nuggy announced that she was looking forward to reviewing her newest G-bumps book because it had a ridiculous cover and was all about garden gnomes. It was the very book I had purchased on a whim mere hours before.
Nugs: I’m a little nervous about our brain share. It’s getting hot in here.
Lor: Nugs and I decided we would promptly set to work on a bi-winning post. I hope you are all now fully prepared.
Nugs: Seriously? I’M not even fully prepared, and we’ve been emailing back and forth about this shit for weeks.
We open with what may be the best opening of a book ever. Forget “Call me Ishmael,” and “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife;” read some of this:
It was a hot, sticky June afternoon. The first Monday of summer vacation. And Joe Burton had just made another excellent shot. That’s me. Joe Burton. I’m twelve. And there is nothing I love better than slamming the ball into my sister’s face and making her chase after it.
And RL loves starting sentences with “and.”
And I already know this kid is an idiot because he introduces us to himself in the third person.
And please never mention slamming balls in the context of your sister, ever, kaythanks.
Joe goes on to say that he is really different from his family; they are all tall, skinny and blond and he is short, chubby and brown haired. *coughAdoptedcough* Oh, wait. This is a Goosebumps book? *coughYou’reADogcough*
His momma says he just hasn’t had his growth spurt yet. I bet she also tells him he’s just big boned and that he’s the specialist boy ever made. Joe ain’t buying it. “I’m a shrimp,” he emos.
In order to feel better about himself, he tells us about his weirdo sister Mindy. What makes her so weird? She alphabetizes her books by author and keeps her own card catalog for them. She also organizes her closet by color, in the same order as the rainbow.
So… basically Mindy = Nugs?
Nugs: I love how whenever you guys see anything about being freakishly organized, you automatically think of me. That jpeg of the clusterfuck of unalphabetized, messily strewn about shitty novels up above gives me hives.
Lor: We get some exposition about how Joe and Negligent Father of the Book (NFotB) love to garden and have an ongoing rivalry with their next door neighbor Mr. McCall. Also, their dog likes to go eat up McCall’s veggies so McCall wants to kill the dog.
Moose is Joe’s best friend and McCall’s son. He’s also the Jack of sixth grade, apparently, because the book keeps describing a thick neck and raging muscles and a deep voice and… isn’t this kid supposed to be 12?
Seriously, his laugh shakes walls and he flattens ping pong balls with his pinky or something. Whatever. I can’t dwell. I’ve got to cover the first 9 chapters and this shit is super-charged with exposition.
Joe thinks he’s funny. He isn’t.
Joe likes to lie to Mindy a lot. I mean, “trick her.”
After Joe pretends to be hurt, Mindy swears never to believe another word he says, WHICH MIGHT BE IMPORTANT LATER. (Nugs: Probably not.)
Anyhow, the kids get distracted because Buster is digging up in the McCall lawn again. I kind of hope the dog gets caught so we can have some action because this is getting pretty boring. Instead, Joe uses a dog whistle he wears all! the! time! to call over his dog. #lame.
After that’s done, NFotB shows up with the next stupid plot point: he found a fruit fly on his tomato. HOLY PLOT TWIST. A SINGLE FRUIT FLY? *phew*
They kill the fruit fly, and for his next trick, RL will use that dumb plot point to get us to our next destination, the garden ornament store where maybe we’ll finally hear about these lawn gnomes.
Let it be noted that I HATE the word gnome. Never trust anything with a silent g. I’m looking at you phlegm.
NFotB is obsessed with these lawn ornaments. He dresses them up for holidays and names all of them and between you and me? He probably dry humps them.
His daughter is in the background complaining about heat exhaustion and NFotB is all, “that’s nice. Must. Get. Ornaments.” His kids remind him that Negligent Mother of the Book (NMotB) will probably divorce him if he buys another damn ornament. NFotB is all, “more room for ornaments then! LOL.” Priorities, ya know?
He buys the two creepy bastards who will be our monsters. Joe is standing next to them and starts yelling, “help! help! They are grabbing me!” and Mindy runs over to help. “LOL,” Joe says. “JAYKAY. Gnomes don’t grab people you gullible wanker.” Mindy is pissed and she’s serious! She’s not gonna believe him, say, if these gnomes come to life or something and try to eat him.
For, now however, the gnomes are only eating Mr. McCalls melons. Sounds dirty, but I just really mean the melons from his garden. Still dirty? (Nugs: Yes.)
Everyone blames the melon snatching on the dog, but Gnome-1 has seeds left in his teeth. You’d think that if you were an evil gnome coming to life to terrorize, you’d be smart enough to floss after you’d had contraband melon, right? Not. Here’s where I hand it off to Nuggy.
Nugs: OK, so. I would just like to point out that the cover of this book is credited to R.L. Stine, the “Master of Fright.”
Whatever you say.
It also promises “Bonus Features,” which I will admit I flipped directly to instead of immediately reading my chapters. The New Bonus Features are as follows:
A Q&A; with Stine where he answers some really dumb questions, a backstory on the lawn gnomes, some recipes for foods that are supposed to be scary but are totally not, something called “Small But Deadly” which I can only assume is about me, and a section featuring other gnomes in fantasy literature, namely from The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series. Way to remind us of what we SHOULD be reading, not wasting our time on this crap. But whatever.
Lor: I’m… not sure how food is supposed to be scary. This concept is strange to me.
Nugs: Anygardendecorationsarecreepyasshit, (Lor: did anyone else read the last part of this as “ass hit.” I think something that is creepy ass hit is really, really creepy) my section begins with Ugly Kid Joe getting caught by his sister sneaking out.
He tells her that he’s “going to eat the rest of Mr. McCall’s stupid melons.” It also says later that he “grabbed frantically at his casaba melons.”
I CAN’T be the only one that caught this. Lor?
Lor: Oh, girlfriend, I didn’t actually read your chapters. I read what belonged to me and then threw that book as far away from me as possible and that was the end of that.
Nugs: I STARTED at my chapter and was able to follow the entire story, so that says it all right there.
Basically, the gnomes draw faces on the melons and Joe gets blamed not only for that BUT FOR LYING, so he gets grounded for two weeks. His annoying sister bothers him, so he goes into her room and messes up the order of her clothes, in a scene which pissed me off, which you guys probably predicted. It’s hard work organizing shit, yo.
Anyway, Joe sees paint on the gnome’s hands and tells his mom, who argues that it’s just dirt. The question here is why the gnomes would have ANYTHING on their hands when they’re supposed to be inanimate objects, but this is R.L.’s World of Negligent Parenting, so we’re not supposed to notice that.
Lor: LOVE! LOLOL. I love that the NMotB is not all, “you idiot. He doesn’t move.” Instead she’s all, “oh darling ugly duckling of our family. He was probably just making mud pies.”
Nugs: Then the two dads (My Two Dads! God, that show sucked) start blaming each other, and I thought there would finally be something cool in a Gbumps book, like some Mortal Kombat-type shit, but all that happens is that they throw some food and yell at each other and crap.
More shit happens, like the gnomes “disappearing” (it was only the fog- oops) and Moose’s dad’s car being painted on. The boys decide to meet in the lawn to catch the gnomes in the act, and, because they’re idiots, they bring the dog. \
Moose, who apparently has a “pudgy head” (thanks for the descriptives), trips over the dog, who barks. The gnomes see them, of course, so it’s supposed to be all suspenseful and shit, but it’s not, because we don’t care.
AND… take it Lor.
Lorraine: I was going to make fun of these kids for their spying failure, but it turns out the lawn gnomes didn’t see them at all. Suspense fail.
So the boys go follow the gnomes and watch as they throw black paint on the side of the house. I wonder if they just waddled up to Home Depot to buy that paint with they gnome-y money.
Moose falls down AGAIN and wakes up the dog who starts barking and this time, for real for real, the gnomes spot the boys aka the worst spies ever.
Gnome-1 is all, “beat dem hos!” and they start chasing the boys. Mindy hears the commotion and comes outside to investigate. The gnomes grab her and drag her off the porch and down the street. Ow.
Nugs: Wow. This seems super violent for a Goosebumps book. Maybe RL has some untapped rage because Sara got married (SQUEE!) and therefore is unable to return his obvious love?
Lorraine: Yeah, I’m going with the explanation that these books are dumb. That explains most of everything.
Once they are a few houses down the street the Gnome-1 (they have names, but it’s a little late for that now) is all, “we mean you no harm.” Mindy rightly points out that they just dragged her ass down a street.
The gnomes explain that they can’t help their property destroying and melon eating ways because they are “mischief gnomes” which means they are gnomes who cause mischief.
The gnomes go on to explain that they once lived in a magical gnome forest where they did gnome things, but they were kidnapped and sold and forced to work as garden gnomes. They want to escape, but see, they have six more friends back at the store and want the kid’s help in setting them free. The kids are dumb so they decide that of course they’ll help the gnomes.
They all head over to the store and when the kids break into the basement they are met with, not 6, but about 600 lawn gnomes. They come to life and are all, “LOL. YOU BELIEVED US,” and start trying to decide what to do with their new prisoners. Tickling them for hours and playing tug of war with their bodies are options.
They kids are freaking out until they hear Buster and start calling for him. Buster leaves them though, so Joe decides to use his dog whistle. When the gnomes see the whistle, they freak out and start trying to take the whistle away.
Joe gets it back in the end and blows it, expecting the dog to run back and save the day. Instead, though, the whistle actually makes all the gnomes freeze up again.
Nugs: Seriously? That’s all it took to get these assholes to shut the fuck up, and we really sat through a good hour of this crap? Why didn’t this happen sooner? Oh, right. Then there would be no book.
Lorraine: Why, you ask. Why would the whistle make the gnomes freeze? Your answer is, “Aw, that’s cute that you are asking questions about the “plot” in a Goosebumps book. Super cute.”
The kids get out of the basement, go home, the dad only kind of misses the gnomes, but decides to buy a lawn gorilla to console himself.
Joe tells the gorilla to behave better than the gnomes and the book ends with the gorilla winking at Joe.
Just run away, kid. Just run away from home.
I'm a 30-something south Floridan who loves the beach but cannot swim. Such is my life, full of small contradictions and little trivialities. My main life goals are never to take life too seriously, but to do everything I attempt seriously well. After that, my life goals devolve into things like not wearing pants and eating all of the Zebra Cakes in the world. THE WORLD.
I'm Nugs, the resident In-House Snark Squad Organizational Psychotic, or as Lor, calls it, "Prodigy." I cover the BSC along with Sweeney, Goosebumps, and whatever else I occasionally sneak into. I'm a native New Yorker stuck in LA, so my first language is Brooklynese, with a smattering of colloquial English. I'm a total sci-fi and comic book geek, which the Ladies have fostered by adding to my "impressive" collection of robots and action figures, even though they claim to be afraid of me. Also, if Ryan Gosling ever happens to accidentally stumble upon my posts I will probably be arrested. Oh haaaai.
