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Mostly Ghostly #3
One Night in Doom House
Dragged into a haunted house by his friend Aaron, Max finds some objects that he thinks might help his ghost friends Nicky and Tara. But when he takes them home for further research, he upsets a whole colony of evil ghosts—and sends a crazy human-melting Heat Ghost after the girl of his dreams! When Max realizes what he’s done, he embarks on a wild ride across town to keep the ghost from melting his classmates. Will he make it in time—or will his whole school melt into the ground, with all his friends inside?
144 pages, Hardcover
First published January 25, 2005
15 people are currently reading
348 people want to read
About the author
R.L. Stine
1,680 books18.7k 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 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 29, 2017
Posudila u biblioteci i onda shvatila da je treći dio :), nema veze, pročitala brzo, uzivala u ovoj divnoj priči o duhovima, više pisana za mlađi uzrast ali ni to ne smeta ;). Večeras nastavljam sa četvrtim dijelom.
June 13, 2020
(Warning, long)
I wish I had written reviews for the first two books back when I read them last year as I can't recall my specific thoughts on them, mostly. Either way, I liked this more than the 2nd one as it focuses less on the Sraw Loser stuff with Max, so less scenes with his awful father or him being embarrassed. That's still there in spots but it's not as annoying. There's some pretty decent suspense, like the first scene in Doom House and everything with Mr. Morgo, a fire ghost.
There's also a nice bit at the end I appreciated. Oh and the Mom is really nice here, she was before but less dad means less chances to ruin nice moments. Granted, the story has the least going on of the series so far, not much is really learned aside from how the bad ghosts were captured and there is some rehashing. But the overall story is solid and I thought it was mostly good.
But let's talk about the films. I reviewed them on my blog and it had been long enough that I didn't recall the books enough to compare them. As it turns out, the books are kind of thin (standard 130-ish pages) so the movies had to add things. The first film was pretty faithful as a whole despite this, but the 2nd was thinner so the film added even more. Most notably expanding the role of the Beserker ghoul. They also ditched Traci the popular girl and replaced her with a nicer girl, who serves the same role.
Then comes this one's movie, which is least the faithful. In places it's due to the changes they made in the previous movie but otherwise it's to expand things into a movie. It's almost like this should have been a TV show or something! Infact....let's play Dominic Noble to show you what was changed.
WHAT THEY DIDN'T CHANGE: Max explores a legendary haunted house nicknamed Doom House and finds some horrors that turn out to be fakery made by someone. Max finds a tricket that turns out to be a "life pod" that the villain was previously captured in. He gave it to his love interest so he visits her only to be told it was given to her friend. Once he gets it back, he approaches the villain who has Nicky and Tara captured and he defeats the villains. Oh and there's a bit where at first it seems like Nicky and Tara "died" but they pop up back at Max's house.
WHAT THEY CHANGED: In the book, Doom house at first seems to be owned by a guy who turned it into a tourist attraction, but it turns out he's an evil fire ghost that was one of the ghosts that Nicky and Tara's parents captured. In the film, the fakery was made by a ghost hunter named Simon Drake for his show and he is no way a villain, just some jerk that Phears uses the body of. Speaking of, Mr. Morgo is now Phears' boss and not a fire ghost at all, and he only appears at the very start and end, leading to Phears taking his place. Also in the book Max finds out Traci's friend put the trinket put at his house and he goes on more of a hint, but in the movie the friend just has it.
In the book, the baddie is defeated by snowballs as he is a fire ghost. He's not one in the movie so he's defeated by smashing his life pod, which honestly makes more sense but is less fun.
Side note, the 2nd film has some different backstory for Phears since the books didn't go into how he was captured at that point...but the third book explained it, and the film used it so now it looks like the films contributed themselves for no reason. Whoops.
WHAT THEY ADDED: Plenty of extra arcs and story elements. The pointless subplot with Max possibly moving is film only, because that was actually the plot of the 5th book. Because Traci is replaced with a nice girl, there's an extra conflict with them breaking up or whatever. There's also a different bully guy, the book had these two big dudes but the movie has some guy named Aaron.
WHAT THEY LEFT OUT: Aaron, Max's friend. He was left out of the 2nd movie too, weird. (Yet they used the name for a different character, weird)
There's possibly more but that's the gist of it, the main concepts are sorta the same, with a lot changed and added. Honestly I'm not mad as stuff needed to be added to make this a film, so I can't blame them and there are some fine ideas. Although there was no reason Phears needed to replace Morgo, having a new villain made the book stand out more. Perhaps they cast Danny Trejo, realized they had only so much to spend on him so his role was downsized? Guess we'll never know.
The problem with the film was the execution being mediocre, not the ideas themselves, mostly. Overall, book was much better although I honestly like the first two films more than their book versions. The first movie had a happier ending and the 2nd had more interesting stuff in the story. This film was a wash though.
Okay, NOW I'm done, I am reading the 4th book tomorrow though. See ya then.
I wish I had written reviews for the first two books back when I read them last year as I can't recall my specific thoughts on them, mostly. Either way, I liked this more than the 2nd one as it focuses less on the Sraw Loser stuff with Max, so less scenes with his awful father or him being embarrassed. That's still there in spots but it's not as annoying. There's some pretty decent suspense, like the first scene in Doom House and everything with Mr. Morgo, a fire ghost.
There's also a nice bit at the end I appreciated. Oh and the Mom is really nice here, she was before but less dad means less chances to ruin nice moments. Granted, the story has the least going on of the series so far, not much is really learned aside from how the bad ghosts were captured and there is some rehashing. But the overall story is solid and I thought it was mostly good.
But let's talk about the films. I reviewed them on my blog and it had been long enough that I didn't recall the books enough to compare them. As it turns out, the books are kind of thin (standard 130-ish pages) so the movies had to add things. The first film was pretty faithful as a whole despite this, but the 2nd was thinner so the film added even more. Most notably expanding the role of the Beserker ghoul. They also ditched Traci the popular girl and replaced her with a nicer girl, who serves the same role.
Then comes this one's movie, which is least the faithful. In places it's due to the changes they made in the previous movie but otherwise it's to expand things into a movie. It's almost like this should have been a TV show or something! Infact....let's play Dominic Noble to show you what was changed.
WHAT THEY DIDN'T CHANGE: Max explores a legendary haunted house nicknamed Doom House and finds some horrors that turn out to be fakery made by someone. Max finds a tricket that turns out to be a "life pod" that the villain was previously captured in. He gave it to his love interest so he visits her only to be told it was given to her friend. Once he gets it back, he approaches the villain who has Nicky and Tara captured and he defeats the villains. Oh and there's a bit where at first it seems like Nicky and Tara "died" but they pop up back at Max's house.
WHAT THEY CHANGED: In the book, Doom house at first seems to be owned by a guy who turned it into a tourist attraction, but it turns out he's an evil fire ghost that was one of the ghosts that Nicky and Tara's parents captured. In the film, the fakery was made by a ghost hunter named Simon Drake for his show and he is no way a villain, just some jerk that Phears uses the body of. Speaking of, Mr. Morgo is now Phears' boss and not a fire ghost at all, and he only appears at the very start and end, leading to Phears taking his place. Also in the book Max finds out Traci's friend put the trinket put at his house and he goes on more of a hint, but in the movie the friend just has it.
In the book, the baddie is defeated by snowballs as he is a fire ghost. He's not one in the movie so he's defeated by smashing his life pod, which honestly makes more sense but is less fun.
Side note, the 2nd film has some different backstory for Phears since the books didn't go into how he was captured at that point...but the third book explained it, and the film used it so now it looks like the films contributed themselves for no reason. Whoops.
WHAT THEY ADDED: Plenty of extra arcs and story elements. The pointless subplot with Max possibly moving is film only, because that was actually the plot of the 5th book. Because Traci is replaced with a nice girl, there's an extra conflict with them breaking up or whatever. There's also a different bully guy, the book had these two big dudes but the movie has some guy named Aaron.
WHAT THEY LEFT OUT: Aaron, Max's friend. He was left out of the 2nd movie too, weird. (Yet they used the name for a different character, weird)
There's possibly more but that's the gist of it, the main concepts are sorta the same, with a lot changed and added. Honestly I'm not mad as stuff needed to be added to make this a film, so I can't blame them and there are some fine ideas. Although there was no reason Phears needed to replace Morgo, having a new villain made the book stand out more. Perhaps they cast Danny Trejo, realized they had only so much to spend on him so his role was downsized? Guess we'll never know.
The problem with the film was the execution being mediocre, not the ideas themselves, mostly. Overall, book was much better although I honestly like the first two films more than their book versions. The first movie had a happier ending and the 2nd had more interesting stuff in the story. This film was a wash though.
Okay, NOW I'm done, I am reading the 4th book tomorrow though. See ya then.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 1, 2016
Had you ever felt that something was bothering you and you don't want to tell nobody about it because people might look at you as someone crazy, well if not I'm going to tell you about these two kids named Max and Aron and there getting followed by these evil ghost that are trying to harm them."Spoiler Alert"The genre of the book "Mostly Ghostly" is realistic fiction because the book is very spooky and scary because there is a part when Aron and max where opening a coffin and some skeleton came out of it and scared them both.My opinion about this book is that it is a good series its really spooky sometimes, and sometimes funny so overall I like this book.
The setting takes place in this haunted mansion, I know this because in the book it says "Hey Max i could do my project in that abounded mansion ,'well Aron they are going to call the police on us ,"Who cares the won't find out Aron said " Find but not for long."This book is about these two kids trying to make some project and something is bothering Aron and Max and this ghost name Phears want max to help him on something but Max doesn't want to, so now Phears wants to kill Max.The conflict in this story is person vs person because Phears is trying to kill Max in the story ,I know this because in the story Phears says ,"Maxie now you got me and angry ,next time i see you your dead."The major event that happen in the book is when the clocked looked at Aron and it started to move, that's when Aron believe all the things that Max told him, I know this because in the story it says "Why is the clock moving Max?!, Max Screamed RUN!! "
My favorite part was when Max and Aron saw this coffin and they decided to open it and a skeleton poped out, this was my favorite part because this showed that not all scary books are about something scary it might also have some funny parts to it.I liked the way the author introduced a new charter and that knew character was Aron, Aron played a big part on this series ,I know this because Aron was always with Max, and Max investigated the haunted mansion with Aron.The interesting thing I learned about this book is that not all books that are scary need to be scary sometimes you can make then funny or anything else you want it to be.I was satisfied when Aron started to believe that Max was right about the ghost haunting him, I was satisfied because they always thought that Max was a loser because he believed in ghost and they didn't.
The title relates to the book because its mostly talking about ghost and the title of this book is called "Mostly Ghostly " you cant tell right away that the story is mostly going to talk about ghost and also in the book it even has ghost.The characters emotions are scared because the evil ghost named Phears wants to kill them and they don't know what to do.On the second series of the book
"Mostly Ghostly "they are trying to find Nick and Tara's parent because they dont know what happen or how they die, and for this story Aron is trying to do a project for school they really don't talk about Nick and Tara. The book has structure because it uses sounds to make it scarier and more interesting, I think the author did this because to make it more scarier, and want's you to know what they are hearing.
In conclusion,I would rate this book a 3.5 because the setting could of been better it should of been in some scarier tunnel that leads to somewhere evil. I would recommend this book to someone who like spooky an scary book because some parts they try to make you scared , like the part when the skeleton was in the confine and it poped out.I like this series and i hope you read this book to because it has many interesting things.
The setting takes place in this haunted mansion, I know this because in the book it says "Hey Max i could do my project in that abounded mansion ,'well Aron they are going to call the police on us ,"Who cares the won't find out Aron said " Find but not for long."This book is about these two kids trying to make some project and something is bothering Aron and Max and this ghost name Phears want max to help him on something but Max doesn't want to, so now Phears wants to kill Max.The conflict in this story is person vs person because Phears is trying to kill Max in the story ,I know this because in the story Phears says ,"Maxie now you got me and angry ,next time i see you your dead."The major event that happen in the book is when the clocked looked at Aron and it started to move, that's when Aron believe all the things that Max told him, I know this because in the story it says "Why is the clock moving Max?!, Max Screamed RUN!! "
My favorite part was when Max and Aron saw this coffin and they decided to open it and a skeleton poped out, this was my favorite part because this showed that not all scary books are about something scary it might also have some funny parts to it.I liked the way the author introduced a new charter and that knew character was Aron, Aron played a big part on this series ,I know this because Aron was always with Max, and Max investigated the haunted mansion with Aron.The interesting thing I learned about this book is that not all books that are scary need to be scary sometimes you can make then funny or anything else you want it to be.I was satisfied when Aron started to believe that Max was right about the ghost haunting him, I was satisfied because they always thought that Max was a loser because he believed in ghost and they didn't.
The title relates to the book because its mostly talking about ghost and the title of this book is called "Mostly Ghostly " you cant tell right away that the story is mostly going to talk about ghost and also in the book it even has ghost.The characters emotions are scared because the evil ghost named Phears wants to kill them and they don't know what to do.On the second series of the book
"Mostly Ghostly "they are trying to find Nick and Tara's parent because they dont know what happen or how they die, and for this story Aron is trying to do a project for school they really don't talk about Nick and Tara. The book has structure because it uses sounds to make it scarier and more interesting, I think the author did this because to make it more scarier, and want's you to know what they are hearing.
In conclusion,I would rate this book a 3.5 because the setting could of been better it should of been in some scarier tunnel that leads to somewhere evil. I would recommend this book to someone who like spooky an scary book because some parts they try to make you scared , like the part when the skeleton was in the confine and it poped out.I like this series and i hope you read this book to because it has many interesting things.
November 3, 2010
A few weeks ago, I started to read a book called, Mostly Ghostly: One Night In Doom House. This book is about two boys, Max and Aaron. These boys had to do a project on Paraguay, but they didn't want to. So they went to the Grover Mansion and went inside and recorded everything so that they could do their project on that. The two boys, Max and Aaron thought the Grover Mansion was actually a real mansion, but it turned out that it was a fake for Halloween. My favorite part was when Max walked up to the coffin, he opened it and a skeleton popped out. If you get this book I hope you like it as much as I did.
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October 5, 2024I remember overall enjoying this series as a kid and that the last book didn't answer all the important questions in the series (regarding Nicky and Tara) but this series definitely should've stayed in my past as it definitely doesn't fit in my present. I can see why this series didn't penetrate the culture like Goosebumps did. Very forgettable though does contain some pretty disturbing imagery for a kids series which was cool.
May 1, 2020
I've been meaning to get back into this series for a little while now. When I was younger I always thought I would finish some other series I was working on and then eventually make a dent in the Mostly Ghostly universe - never got to it! Now there's 3 feature films based on the books, which I also need to get to. What a wonderfully creepy place Doom House seems to be!
January 31, 2018
I loved it!
March 2, 2022
Iako dječja bolja od nekih iz Fear Streeta, malo previše odugovlačenja i premalo radnje/zapleta. 4.0
April 2, 2025
Fav one.
November 13, 2015
R.L. Stine has created another fun and haunting story in One Night in Doom House. What I liked about this story is that the bad guy was not Phears, but Mr. Morgo. Phears freed them from the Life Pods (silver balls), so there is a tie-in, but he isn't in this story.
I liked that Aaron had a larger part in this story and Max's brother, Colin, is still as obnoxious as ever. The Life Pods add another interesting twist to the story. Are Nicky and Tara's parents trapped in their own Life Pods somewhere? Maybe. I also enjoyed the heating power of Mr. Morgo. He really knows how to have a sizzling good time, even though he sometimes gets a little hot under the collar.
Overall, I would have to say that One Night in Doom House is another fine addition to the Mostly Ghostly series. I can't wait to find out what happens next in Little Camp of Horrors.
I rated this book a 9 out of 10.
I liked that Aaron had a larger part in this story and Max's brother, Colin, is still as obnoxious as ever. The Life Pods add another interesting twist to the story. Are Nicky and Tara's parents trapped in their own Life Pods somewhere? Maybe. I also enjoyed the heating power of Mr. Morgo. He really knows how to have a sizzling good time, even though he sometimes gets a little hot under the collar.
Overall, I would have to say that One Night in Doom House is another fine addition to the Mostly Ghostly series. I can't wait to find out what happens next in Little Camp of Horrors.
I rated this book a 9 out of 10.
February 9, 2008
R.L. Stine has always been a favorite of mine when I was growing up, and the collection of his books I still have to this day is extensive. Mostly Ghostly: One Night in Doom House, is catered to the young adult, but that does not stop him from weaving a good plot line in this continuing story. While his Goosebumps line focused on different stories each book, this new series follows a young boy named Max around, as well as his two ghost friends, Nicky and Tara. A read for all ages.. so go ahead and read it.
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May 15, 2008I like this book because it is very funny but it can also be scary and exiting because when he is trying to get to the school on time before they melt down the school and when he and I think that if you read this book.
October 16, 2014
This really is a cute series, and it's perfect for getting me in the Halloween mood!
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