Nugs: This book really pissed me off because the cover and the description on the back are NOTHING like what goes on in the actual plot. Nips, I know R.L. is your new best friend or whatever, but if he keeps lying to me like this, we are going to have serious beef.
Lor: I hate to break it to you Nuggy, but it happens a lot with these covers. Mostly because roughly 93.7% of these covers are scary and/or freaky as shit and approximately 0.0001% of these books are actually scary and/or freaky as shit.
Nugs: Yeah, I noticed that. That Dummy book is really going to fuck me up, though.
Anyways, the front cover promises us some exciting Jaws-level shit:
And here’s a direct quote from the back of the book:
“Something’s lurking deep below the surface. Something dark and scaly. Something that’s half-human, half-fish…”
OK, first of all, this book isn’t even about a shark, or anything that “lurks” anywhere. It’s about a fucking mermaid that isn’t close to evil.
Lor: AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. A mermaid! You know, the back of the book is pretty honest though because it says that it’s half-human, half fish, which is the definition of a mermaid.
It also says this mermaid is lurking and “dark.” I don’t know if that’s vaguely racist or if this mermaid is just really emo. 🙁
Nugs: If she starts singing “Part of Your World” I am fucking out of here.
The mermaid even saves the kid that gets attacked by a shark that appears for two fucking seconds. I was really disappointed because (as my fellow Ladies of Snark know) I am obsessed with all things shark. Instead I had to settle for a bunch of fake scares (The mermaid is dead! No, wait- she’s only crying! The kid got grabbed by an octopus- no, it’s only his sister, with two arms! Seriously.) that took me twenty minutes to get through (I’m not kidding). It was basically a mash-up of Splash and Finding Nemo.
Lor: Dude, as soon as mermaids were mentioned, I was thinking of Splash. I rocked the shit of that movie when I was little-er Lorraine. I haven’t revisited now in my adulthood, but now I’m dying to know how this could’ve possibly childhood traumatized me.
Also, the picture to the right obviously shows that I have too much free time on my hands. And that I rock Paint. Obvs. Also, also, Nemo’s dad wasn’t really negligent, right? But, I mean, this is a Goosebumps post so someone has to have negligent parents.
Nugs: Lor’s ninja Paint jobs kick the shit out of my art skillz.
Back to the book, why is the ten-year-old girl named Sheena? She sounds like an x-rated jungle cat.
Just stuff to consider.
Anyway, the stupid kid in this installment is named Billy. He’s on a boat for the summer with his sister, the aforementioned porn star, and his uncle, a marine biologist named Dr. Deep. I did not make that up. I wish that I had.
Lor: DR. DEEP! And you are telling me RL got huffy when Sara suggested there was sexual innuendo in his books.
Nugs: Basically some zoo team comes over to ask Dr. Deep to find a mermaid, and of course the annoying little boy finds her instead. Then the doctor gets screwed by his assistant (not that way, sadly) (Lor: Dude, someone should screw Dr. Deep), who hooks up with a team of ugly fat guys who want the mermaid for themselves. Unfortunately, everyone escapes, and the mermaid gets away with a bunch of other mermaids. If there are like thousands of other mermaids, HOW HAS NO ONE FOUND THEM YET? Just wondering. This guy is as much a marine biologist as George Costanza.
Despite Billy going on and on about how “pretty” the mermaid is, there’s no underage rapekissing.
There is, however, a part where the twelve-year-old asks the big burly dude to show him how to work the sonar probes. Note to self- do not read Goosebumps on the bus, around people that will look at you weird when you laugh. I love how Sara Nips assumes I’m going to find some kind of innuendo in all these books, judging by the notes she leaves me in the covers (she’s right).
Lor: Just so we’re keeping track, Sara has sent Nugs It Came From Beneath the Sink and Deep Trouble. So far I’ve gotten My Hariest Adventure and Welcome to Dead House. W.T.F.
Nugs: Uh… awkward.
We LOVE you…
I’m also getting annoyed with the fact that all the little siblings are obnoxious to the point where it’s seriously fake. I know Stine thinks he gets down with the kids, but it IS possible for a kid to not want to axe murder their family. Then again it’s Goosebumps, Land of Neglectful Parenting. This book takes it to a whole new level of fucked-up by not having the parents make an appearance at all, yet he does point out that they left their only children with a man who’s so uncomfortable on land that when he came to visit them for Christmas he spent the entire visit in the bathtub. Moving on…
Lor: But how. How does one move on from that? HOW?
Nugs: I recommend intense therapy. CHILDHOOD TRAUMA, yo.
That was my first “yo” of the post. I should have stretched first.
Also was I the only one that got the hidden drug references that were all over this shit? This kid constantly burned himself on the poisonous coral that he was warned about by his uncle- DARE To Keep Kids Off The Reef!
At the very end, Billy encounters a sea monster, but doesn’t get eaten or anything. Oh, wait- there’s a Deep Trouble II. I get it now.
Lor: Just so we’re perfectly clear here, Nugs, I have no idea what went on in this book. Was there a plot?
Nugs: Is there ever?
Lor: Good point. But I’m just saying that from where I sit (pantsless in bed), and according to you, this had reef(er), a dude named Dr. Deep who likes to spend lots of time naked in a the tub, Sheena the porn-star cat, and an emo mermaid.
Nugs: Deep Trouble: Ye-yeah.
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.
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.
