Slappy Birthday to You by R.L. Stine
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Slappy Birthday to You is the first book in the Goosebumps Slappyworld series by R.L. Stine. This book was first published in 2017 and features Stine’s iconic ventriloquist dummy character known as Slappy.
I decided to pick this one up because ventriloquist dummies, well actually, all dolls scare me. I wouldn’t be able to sleep in a room that had a doll in it, for example. That doll would find themselves shoved in a closet on the far side of the house. Preferably, a closet with a lock on it.
In this story, we meet Ian Barker, who is gifted Slappy on his 12th-birthday. He has wanted a ventriloquist doll for a few years now and can’t believe he finally has his very own.
We get the story behind Ian’s fascination with the dolls and then we follow what it’s like for him as the proud new owner of Slappy. Spoiler Alert: it doesn’t go well.
What do we know about Goosebumps? It’s nostalgic, it’s formulaic and it can be a lot of fun.
I decided to listen to the audiobook for this story and I do recommend that option. Slappy provides the Introduction, the Epilogue and some fun little observation sections in between. His voice is really well presented on the audio. It definitely sounds like it could be him.
It’s eerie and high-pitched and if I ever saw and actual doll talking I would die and then be resurrected so I could die again. So, thank goodness, so far, that has never happened.
Unfortunately, for me, Slappy is more slapstick than scary at this point. He tries to be witty and snarky, but mainly his bad puns and ill-timed one-liners are anything but funny.
That’s the thing that sort of irks me about this. I love the humor in Children’s and Middle Grade stories, and I feel like it is something that those stories in general should have. Stine’s humor just feels so out-dated and frankly, not good.
I’m not trashing him. He’s a freaking icon and we cherish Goosebumps, Fear Street and basically anything else he has touched over his decades-long career.
However, perhaps he should have someone help him with the jokes, cause these aren’t landing.
There were some fun, creepy moments in this and I did genuinely enjoy the ending. I thought it was clever and definitely gave me a little lift of the brow. It was good.
I will probably be picking up the next couple books in the series, there are 19 total, just to see if they get more engaging for me. I am actually interested to see how we transition into the next tale as far as Slappy’s character goes.
I would recommend checking out this series for hardcore Goosebumps fans, if you haven’t gotten to it already. For newbies, I recommend starting with the original series.
I could be biased, formulating opinions based solely on nostalgia, but so far, nothing touches those originals for me. Overall though, I always have fun picking up a Goosebumps books and will continue doing so for years to come!