It's Only a Nightmare!

Give Yourself Goosebumps #32

by R.L. Stine

You're spending the night in a very strange inn. As you fall asleep, you have dreams that are total nightmares. First you turn into a bat. Then your parents become aliens. Can you escape? Or will your worst dreams come true?

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Childrens, Gamebooks, Choose Your Own Adventure, Middle Grade, Supernatural

137 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1998

About the author

Robert 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...

Reviews

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don’t read this one lol. I’ve had this book on my shelf for years, having got it at Goodwill back in I believe 2018. And whilst the buildup to my eventual reading of it was long, I didn’t raise or lower my hopes and went in with an open mind. Turns out… this one isn’t very good. The biggest positive I can give is the Dream Master storyline. It’s not very good overall but it has its moments, like the battle sequence, some decent endings, and meta humor. The Dream Master is a cool character but no spectacle, there’s a handful of okay endings in the story’s entirety, and… yeah that’s it. The book suffers from randomness being at an acknowledged all-time high. The book strives for it and, clearly, it was a shitty idea since it drowned the enjoyment and disintegrated my brain. Most of the endings are either not very good—or legitimately leave you confused and scratching your head. Of the 40 endings here, there’s at least 15 that left me wondering why it turned out that way, or why the author (a ghost writer for sure) didn’t acknowledge obvious plot holes or flaws in it that don’t make sense. Either way… five-sixths of the endings aren’t it. And, to top it all off, the book is both bland and lacks entertainment value when stuff starts turning into the randothon of all randothons. Overall, 5/10. Don’t check this one out if you can help it. Cover is great though.

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wonder if I was the only one who read this book sort of hoping it might be another Dream Trips by Edward Packard, just slightly darker and substantially longer. R.L. Stine at his best as a gamebook writer is a captivating force, drawing into existence diverse story opportunities that reach out and seize the reader by the collar, and it's hard to imagine what he could do in a story veering back and forth between reality and the land of dreams, never leaving us sure what side of REM we're on at any given moment. What fiendish originalities could R.L. Stine imagine in a world of dreams set in an atmospheric old hotel where you're sure nothing is as appears at first glance? The possibilities are virtually endless.

You awaken from a bad dream in the middle of the night, lying in a decidedly gothic bed in a creepy inn while vacationing with your parents. The sneering form of four gargoyles at the head of your bed isn't exactly helping you sleep well, and your nightmares have been particularly intense and frightening since arriving at the inn. The recurring presence of a strange shapeshifter in your nightmares who calls himself the Sleep Master only adds to your disquiet, and you aren't sure what to make of his cryptic remarks about the nature of dreams in connection to reality. After awakening from yet another nightmare, you're hesitant about trying to sleep again, but there's no use staying up the rest of the night and getting no rest.

What should you do? If you attempt to ignoring the unsettling gargoyles attached to your headboard and go back to sleep, you'll have hordes of new nightmares to handle, and more than a peaceful night's sleep at stake. Somehow, the inn is a conduit for alternate dimensions of reality that can intrude on your sleep without warning and morph perfectly harmless dreams into lethal ones. There's no bailing out of these dreams by waking up at the last second. Even as you dive into fantasy scenarios you may have envisioned all your life, the fantasy can take a gruesome turn for the fatal at any moment, and with little provocation. Maybe it isn't so great to have everything exactly how you wish, after all.

If you wander the inn to calm your thoughts and get a bite to eat before returning to your bedroom, you may discover there's more that can do you harm in this place than sinister gargoyles. The inn is full of ways to set you drifting off into dreamland, and you'll find no more rest outside your room than in it. Of course, who could expect to sleep well alone in the eerie corridors and offshoot rooms of a spooky old inn, especially when you already have nightmarish thoughts crowding your brain? Tread carefully in the dream world and try not to do anything too off the wall, and if you should run into the Sleep Master in your adventures, make sure to weigh all options carefully before deciding how to proceed. The way you handle the mysterious Sleep Master, more than any other choice you make in the story, could be the tipping point between whether you meet a violent End...or escape the nightmare inn with your parents and make it (relatively) unscathed back to your old life. Will you win out against terror?

It's Only a Nightmare! may not have quite the charm, imagination or internal cohesiveness of Edward Packard's Dream Trips, and I would have loved to see more action in the real world (as opposed to your dream landscape) since the scary old inn seems so wonderfully atmospheric, but I did enjoy this book. There are some clever twists to it, and a few of the endings are creative. For the devotee of the Give Yourself Goosebumps series, this book is, of course, a must read.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very unique read.

[Griffin C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

As someone who loves goosebumps books about dreams, this book 100% delivers on it's concept. 10/10

[fanboyriot · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was super random at times but I had a fun time reading it and a few of the endings I got were satisfying.

[Jessie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Give Yourself Goosebumps are a fun way to scare yourself.