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Give Yourself Goosebumps Special Edition #1
Into the Jaws of Doom
Help! You're trapped in the Hall of Science. And a mad Super Computer wants to keep you there forever.
Escaping is the ultimate challenge. Because in this book, there's only one way out. That's right. Make one mistake -- and you're cake!
The Hall of Science is filled with tools you can use to protect yourself against a terrifying T-rex, a rampaging robot arm, and other enemies. But look out! The giant mutated germ will make you sick. And the pendulum will hypnotize you... to death!
The choice is yours in this scary Goosebumps adventure. It's packed with over 20 super-spooky endings -- but only one way out!
Escaping is the ultimate challenge. Because in this book, there's only one way out. That's right. Make one mistake -- and you're cake!
The Hall of Science is filled with tools you can use to protect yourself against a terrifying T-rex, a rampaging robot arm, and other enemies. But look out! The giant mutated germ will make you sick. And the pendulum will hypnotize you... to death!
The choice is yours in this scary Goosebumps adventure. It's packed with over 20 super-spooky endings -- but only one way out!
238 pages, Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
8 people are currently reading
622 people want to read
About the author
R.L. Stine
1,679 books18.6k followersRobert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.
R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.
Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.
http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...
R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.
Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.
http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 16, 2012
When I was a little girl, Into the Jaws of Doom is the only Give Yourself Goosebumps that I did not enjoy. Unlike the others, this book is unnecessarily complicated with its implementation of the dice roll and an inventory (that had items with dubious usefulness) in order to advance. While some might delight in the book's difficulty, I got frustrated that there was only one true ending. What I really liked in the other Give Yourself Goosebumps is the fact that there were many endings that could be considered the real one, depending on the choices one makes. Either a positive or negative outcome left me giggling delightedly and even more determined to unlock the other endings. Not so with this book. Although I have tried, my efforts turned out in vain. One unlucky dice roll, or one missing key inventory item and you are done for. I threw away this book in disgust and never tried it again.
Pick another book from the series. You'll be happier.
1/5 Stars.
Pick another book from the series. You'll be happier.
1/5 Stars.
April 26, 2012
it was interesting but to confusing and complicated
September 11, 2022
Definitely way too complicated and I hated the format of the pages. And when you get to where it says go right then left then left then right, you will get lost. It’s just not good. This is the first special edition so they tried something new but they quickly realized that it didn’t work and fixed the problem because the one after was GREAT. One that’s like this but did it right is #25 shop til you drop… dead
December 13, 2025
One of my most dreaded reads of all time… not for quality reasons, of course, but just reading the entirety of this without having an aneurism. It was as tough as I expected: I got an aneurism. Anywho… Into the Jaws of Doom is the first GYG special edition of the series, and is easily the most challenging Goosebumps book ever produced. The only way a kid could somehow get through this on one attempt was by obtaining Checkout Time at the Dead-End Hotel; said book has a page guide straight to the ending in the back of it for this entry. I honestly just recommend following that if you don’t care to read the entirety of this thing, unlike what I did. So… is this sucker any good? Yeah. I actually think the challenge is a pretty nice idea that works well if that’s what you’re looking for; it’s difficult to get to the “good” ending without using a page map, and I appreciate this volume trying to go for making it far harder to “win.” There’s a lot of fun ideas: Peedee A., the super computer, and the mechanics of exploring the museum—which is pretty open-world per floor—are all neat, and I really liked them. There’s some fun moments and creatures (like the dinosaur segment, The Visible Man’s inclusion, etc.) that helped the book stay interesting—and it was never boring, so that’s a plus since some GYGs can be fault to that. The book’s setting is cool, it’s entertaining all-throughout, and a majority of the endings were decent (none stuck out much, though). The book’s faults, however, consist of the mirror maze section, the “good” ending, the abacus puzzle (personal issue), and a few wet fart endings. I’d say, ball-parking it, that there were 7-10 mid-to-endings that didn’t land, and the most notable of them was… oh shit… it’s the “good” ending . In the whole book, you’re trying to escape. You’d expect the one “happy” ending to allow you to do that, right? Nope. And that’s not a bad thing in my eyes: it’s more so the ending was just dumb. I’m fine with a dark ending as the big finale, which also means the entire book is just dark endings (so technically, this is the darkest GB book ever, lol), but the ending didn’t land. Essentially (mild spoiler), you’re double-trapped and you have to endure more of the same. Context will tell you why it sucks. Dear lawd. So yeah, bad ending, but I do like that it was dark for being the big advertised ending of the book. The mirror maze segment also sucked; I had to read like twenty of the same kind of navigation pages, all asking to go south, east, north, or west. It’s bullshit and it made navigating both hard to predict and annoying. The abacus puzzle near the end pissed me off; I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t do these things, and it made ZERO sense. More of a personal gripe, partly out of spite that Goosebumps as a series did another abacus puzzle in Terror in Little Creek—the latest Goosebumps game. Yikes. Overall, 8.5/10. It’s a really solid read that has a lot of appealing concepts thrown in the table, only messed a little with some rougher endings and moments. Peedee A.‘s “reward” for us at the end was really the fact that this the only GYG written like this lmao. Why the fuck is it called Jaws of Doom? I just clocked that the title makes no sense lol.
September 11, 2025
My first Ultimate Challenge GYG.
The storyline was okay, there was a bit of adventure. There weren't really any other human characters.
I liked: The Visible Man, learning how to use an abacus, finding certain items, and that if you lost, sometimes you are given a hint on what to do/need.
Apart from that, it wasn't so amazing. The dinosaur wasn't a huge part of the storyline (so could have had a more appropriate cover). The good ending seemed a bit weird. I didn't like how in order to actually win, you need to go into one part, then leave that place to go somewhere else, then return to the place you originally first went to. Just made it unnecessarily longer.
The storyline was okay, there was a bit of adventure. There weren't really any other human characters.
I liked: The Visible Man, learning how to use an abacus, finding certain items, and that if you lost, sometimes you are given a hint on what to do/need.
Apart from that, it wasn't so amazing. The dinosaur wasn't a huge part of the storyline (so could have had a more appropriate cover). The good ending seemed a bit weird. I didn't like how in order to actually win, you need to go into one part, then leave that place to go somewhere else, then return to the place you originally first went to. Just made it unnecessarily longer.
June 11, 2019
Really good book. It's like a storymode ga,e but in book form.
February 15, 2022
Super fun until the last ten pages or so! I love choose your own adventure stories and this one was extra fun with the inventory management system.
January 27, 2025
Pretty good although it's not for everyone as it is very complicated. 10/10
August 26, 2025
I KEPT DYING. I’M PRETTY SURE I RAN INTO EVERY BAD ENDING POSSIBLE.
November 2, 2025
This was very detailed and I can’t tell if I liked it or not.
February 15, 2020
Unlike most books in the Give Yourself Goosebumps series, or Choose Your Own Adventure books in general, where there are multiple good or bad outcomes, Into The Jaws of Doom: The Ultimate Challenge Special Edition, has only
one
good ending and every other outcome leads to death, doom, mutilation, and just plain not fun things.
Make no mistake, this is Choose Your Own Adventure Hard mode.
While most of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books have 130-some branches (one page for each step in the adventure, give or take), dividing storylines, and the occasional branch where you may have picked an item on the way, this book has 238 branches, most of the pages are divided in half, and there is one constant storyline regardless of the choices you make. You also have to keep track of the items you picked up, some of the maps hidden in the book and where they are, and the rooms you visited previously by writing them down. The icing on the cake? Some of the events are decided by chance with a dice roll, and sometimes your character's (ie. YOUR) height and weight comes into play and will screw up your chances of survival depending on the traps. Whether you wear braces comes into play one time!
In short, this book is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book that has started a bizarre metamorphosis into a tabletop RPG and has already started to gain tiny traits of one.
And your enjoyment of this book will depend entirely on whether you want to deal with this sort of challenge.
In this Choose Your Own Adventure book, you are a nameless, blank slate of a kid taking a class trip to the Hall of Incredible Science, a science museum full of all sorts of dangerous gadgets that seem almost futuristic in their design. Unlike most of the Give Yourself Goosebumps stories where you have at least one buddy tagging along, usually an A-student with glasses or a dorky, slacker goofball, you're all by your lonesome because you got distracted by a video game in the computer lab when the field trip was over. Someone sends you a message over one of the computers that The Super Computer has taken over the building and, now that you now "know too much" just by reading this plea for help, the entire building and all of its technology is being infected by The Super Computer's intelligent A.I. and everything is trying to kill you.
When I say "everything is trying to kill you", I mean it. The computer controls everything in the museum and wants you dead. Locked in a giant building on its own is pretty spooky; giant bugs and moving T. Rex skeletons escaping the exhibits seeking your demise makes it even worse.
Some of the deaths are pretty gruesome (deaths include falling down elevator shafts, being electrocuted, poisoned by a snake bite, being drained of blood by a giant mosquito, and robot-inflicted murder), but the Goosebumps writing manages to keep it from being too horrible. Typical of Goosebumps fare, some of the deaths tastefully fade to black and/or have a Cryptkeeper-esque pun associated with them. For example, when your character gets strangled to death by a disembodied robot arm, the game over text includes the pun "ARMed and dangerous". I remember an electrocution scene using the phrase "Shocking!" somewhere in there too.
Somehow the Goosebumps puns seem less silly when they're paired up with a character with extremely low chances of survival who was only a victim of circumstance, but what can you do.
If you've read a Give Yourself Goosebumps before, you should know what to expect in terms of content and writing style. Since these are aimed mainly at children, the visuals are one step away from being too terrifying provided you don't dwell on them too long (having your blood completely drained out by a foot-long mosquito would be downright horrifying in real life) and the humor style, when it breaks up the suspense, is completely benign and goofy. This book just happens to have only one good ending and you have to work for it.
I will admit, I have yet to actually complete this book and get the good ending, but I have had fun attempting to make my way out and have gotten pretty far in previous attempts. This is one of those books where you spend an afternoon with a sheet of paper and a pair of dice trying to solve it. I appreciate it for what it was trying to do.
Think of it as a game more than a book, really. If you try to go into it with the same mindset of other Choose Your Own Adventure books, where you're going to try to hit the multiple endings or casually see if you can somehow get a good ending, this book might only serve to frustrate you. You have to play with the high stakes in mind.
Make no mistake, this is Choose Your Own Adventure Hard mode.
While most of the Give Yourself Goosebumps books have 130-some branches (one page for each step in the adventure, give or take), dividing storylines, and the occasional branch where you may have picked an item on the way, this book has 238 branches, most of the pages are divided in half, and there is one constant storyline regardless of the choices you make. You also have to keep track of the items you picked up, some of the maps hidden in the book and where they are, and the rooms you visited previously by writing them down. The icing on the cake? Some of the events are decided by chance with a dice roll, and sometimes your character's (ie. YOUR) height and weight comes into play and will screw up your chances of survival depending on the traps. Whether you wear braces comes into play one time!
In short, this book is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book that has started a bizarre metamorphosis into a tabletop RPG and has already started to gain tiny traits of one.
And your enjoyment of this book will depend entirely on whether you want to deal with this sort of challenge.
In this Choose Your Own Adventure book, you are a nameless, blank slate of a kid taking a class trip to the Hall of Incredible Science, a science museum full of all sorts of dangerous gadgets that seem almost futuristic in their design. Unlike most of the Give Yourself Goosebumps stories where you have at least one buddy tagging along, usually an A-student with glasses or a dorky, slacker goofball, you're all by your lonesome because you got distracted by a video game in the computer lab when the field trip was over. Someone sends you a message over one of the computers that The Super Computer has taken over the building and, now that you now "know too much" just by reading this plea for help, the entire building and all of its technology is being infected by The Super Computer's intelligent A.I. and everything is trying to kill you.
When I say "everything is trying to kill you", I mean it. The computer controls everything in the museum and wants you dead. Locked in a giant building on its own is pretty spooky; giant bugs and moving T. Rex skeletons escaping the exhibits seeking your demise makes it even worse.
Some of the deaths are pretty gruesome (deaths include falling down elevator shafts, being electrocuted, poisoned by a snake bite, being drained of blood by a giant mosquito, and robot-inflicted murder), but the Goosebumps writing manages to keep it from being too horrible. Typical of Goosebumps fare, some of the deaths tastefully fade to black and/or have a Cryptkeeper-esque pun associated with them. For example, when your character gets strangled to death by a disembodied robot arm, the game over text includes the pun "ARMed and dangerous". I remember an electrocution scene using the phrase "Shocking!" somewhere in there too.
Somehow the Goosebumps puns seem less silly when they're paired up with a character with extremely low chances of survival who was only a victim of circumstance, but what can you do.
If you've read a Give Yourself Goosebumps before, you should know what to expect in terms of content and writing style. Since these are aimed mainly at children, the visuals are one step away from being too terrifying provided you don't dwell on them too long (having your blood completely drained out by a foot-long mosquito would be downright horrifying in real life) and the humor style, when it breaks up the suspense, is completely benign and goofy. This book just happens to have only one good ending and you have to work for it.
I will admit, I have yet to actually complete this book and get the good ending, but I have had fun attempting to make my way out and have gotten pretty far in previous attempts. This is one of those books where you spend an afternoon with a sheet of paper and a pair of dice trying to solve it. I appreciate it for what it was trying to do.
Think of it as a game more than a book, really. If you try to go into it with the same mindset of other Choose Your Own Adventure books, where you're going to try to hit the multiple endings or casually see if you can somehow get a good ending, this book might only serve to frustrate you. You have to play with the high stakes in mind.
April 7, 2011
INTO THE JAWS OF DOOM BY R.L STINE
THE the hall is full of deadly puzzles you will need to solve. (PAGE 8)
THE SETTING OF THE STORY IS THE HALL OF THE INCREDIBLE SCIENCE.
WERE THERE WAS A BOY THAT WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER.
THE EVIL COMPUTER THE THING THAT PUT HIM THROUGH ALL THIS TROUBLE.
THAT NIGHT HE WENT THROUGH MANY THINGS SUCH AS” GOING THROUGH THE HALL SEARCHING IN ROOMS FOR MAPS AND FIND THING AROUND THE AREA.
THE EVIL COMPUTER LOCKED DOWN THE BUILDING PUTTING EVERYTHING IN HIS POWERS THE BOY WAS ABLE TO GET HELP FROM A PAL BUT HE DIDENT KNOW WHO OR WHERE HE WAS ON THE EARTH. AND THERES A ZILLON OF PEOPLE BUT THE EVIL COMPUTER EXSPECTS THE BOY TO BE IN THE MUSEAM.THE BOY WAS HAVING A BAD DAY RUNNING AND HIDING AROUND THE MUSEAMTO HIDE FROM DINUSUARS.
Since he needed to run room to room he found an electric motor he flew a plane around to get around faster.
THE the hall is full of deadly puzzles you will need to solve. (PAGE 8)
THE SETTING OF THE STORY IS THE HALL OF THE INCREDIBLE SCIENCE.
WERE THERE WAS A BOY THAT WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER.
THE EVIL COMPUTER THE THING THAT PUT HIM THROUGH ALL THIS TROUBLE.
THAT NIGHT HE WENT THROUGH MANY THINGS SUCH AS” GOING THROUGH THE HALL SEARCHING IN ROOMS FOR MAPS AND FIND THING AROUND THE AREA.
THE EVIL COMPUTER LOCKED DOWN THE BUILDING PUTTING EVERYTHING IN HIS POWERS THE BOY WAS ABLE TO GET HELP FROM A PAL BUT HE DIDENT KNOW WHO OR WHERE HE WAS ON THE EARTH. AND THERES A ZILLON OF PEOPLE BUT THE EVIL COMPUTER EXSPECTS THE BOY TO BE IN THE MUSEAM.THE BOY WAS HAVING A BAD DAY RUNNING AND HIDING AROUND THE MUSEAMTO HIDE FROM DINUSUARS.
Since he needed to run room to room he found an electric motor he flew a plane around to get around faster.
March 26, 2008
This book was really hard to read becaue, not like the other R.L. Stine books..you can give yourself goosebumps. You ever yelled at the T.V. or a book because the main character is so stupid...well take it upon yourself and choose your own destiny ...but it's not as easy as it sounds. I died plenty of times.
June 13, 2007
I've read a lot goosebumps books, but I gotta say that this one is a bit better than the rest...It's isn't really a story, more like a game, but....
August 11, 2016
Its fun and awesome
June 13, 2016
A super nostalgic and surprisingly difficult choose your own adventure. Definitely on "hard mode", even for adults. It was great to read it aloud with friends!
April 11, 2020
good book
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews