This entry of Goosebumps is another of the more well-known entries. However, if you go into this book expecting anything, expect to be bored. In this review I’ll see if the characters should be more worried about fevers or werewolves.

Synopsis:

Grady Tucker and his family have just moved to Florida from Vermont. He’s only been in his new home a month before he hears howling on a full moon, cool, maybe we’ll get some cool werewolf action early on in this Goosebumps entry.

The reason the family have moved is their dad is researching swamp deer from South America and seeing if they can live in Florida. In actuality, from what I’ve read, swamp deer only live in India. Also, is Grady’s dad doing the equivalent of introducing an invasive species to see what happens?

Grady wants to go explore the swamp, so he has his sister Emily come with him. They’re swamp walking when Grady wonders what could go wrong. Thanks for jinxing the book, Grady.

Emily finds a cool pond and comments about how noisy the swamp is. Grady jokes about seeing an alligator, which causes Emily to almost leave.

They find another pond. Emily pranks Grady back by pushing him into the pond, but at the last second, she pulls him back.

They climb a hill and go down the other side. This is when they get lost, great. Despite being hot from the warm climate Grady wishes he had worn pants since he’s developed a rash.

Somehow, they are also unable to find the hill they just climbed down 30 seconds ago, so I think that’s called being directionally challenged.

Grady is attacked by human plant, just kidding, it’s a tree root he tripped over. He’s now bleeding from his fall; seems he’s having a pretty rough time, and at this rate, he won’t even make it halfway through the novel.

Grady finds mushrooms, but he doesn’t know what they are, is Grady an idiot?

After walking around the swamp for a while they find a shack. Emily and Grady yell at the shack. An old man answers the door causing them to run away. He chases after them. Honestly, if you hear some kids yelling in the woods, one of them appears to be bleeding, and if the swamp is generally deserted, wouldn’t you want to find out what was going on or at least help?

When they get home, Emily and Grady tell their parents what happened. Their parents tell them they already know about the swamp hermit and he’s harmless.

Later at dinner their dad asks if they know why they call this place Fever Swamp. When no one can answer this obvious rhetorical question, their dad replies he doesn’t even know. Great, this is not how a rhetorical question works Mr. Tucker.

After dinner, Grady runs into the swamp hermit. It’s actually Will though, a boy who lives down the street. Grady talks with Will for a while when Will says the swamp is named after a fever that killed a bunch of people in town who dared to enter the swamp.

Will goes home. Grady starts to feel sick. Turns out he has a fever in fever swamp.

That night he hears howls, but he’s too busy dreaming about the hermit. Stine shows restraint by not having the dream be a fake out, this may be the first time this has ever happened.

Grady wakes up to howling, so he goes to check out the sound. He also hears scratching, but it’s just his sister Emily in the kitchen. She’s also heard the howls.

Grady opens the back door to discover, nothing.

The next day, Grady goes out back and gets tackled by a giant dog. Grady takes an immediate liking to the dog and wants to keep him.

His parents see the dog and don’t want the large animal. Grady’s dad makes a statement of all time by saying the deer are their pets. No, they aren’t, they’re literally animals you plan to release in Florida and that you’re running experiments on.

After a bit of a discussion, they decide to keep the dog. Will comes over and Grady’s parents ask him if he recognizes the dog, he does not.

They name the dog Wolf due to his size.

Will, Grady, and Wolf are walking through the forest when they spot the swamp hermit. He walks away. They think they see blood on the hermit’s clothing.

On the way back they find a heron torn apart. Grady tells his dad about the bloody hermit. His dad doesn’t believe him.

That night, Grady wakes up to a large crash. It’s Wolf who wants to go outside. After releasing the dog outdoors, the parents decide the dog will be an outdoor dog only now, seems like an overreaction.

There are more howls that night and it’s a full moon again, I think full moons happen only once a month, but according to Stine, they can happen every night if the plot calls for it.

Grady sees a large animal running outside. He goes to investigate and finds a shredded rabbit.

The next day, Emily blames Wolf for the dead rabbit and says they should get rid of the dog. Their dad is also suspicious of wolf. Let’s say it is wolf, who killed a singular rabbit, that’s kind of what some dogs do, it’s not uncommon, and on top of that, why suspect the dog when there are likely a dozen other explanations out in the wilderness for the cause of a dead rabbit.

Grady hears howls again that night.

The next day, Grady and Will are outside, when Will decides to eat grass. Why? I don’t know, yummy, yummy, grass in my tummy.

Will says a nearby neighbor Ed Warner has gone missing. This is when Cassie, another neighbor shows up. She says a werewolf got him. This is the first mention of a werewolf in this book, on page 80, about two thirds of the way through the book.

This is when Cassie points at Wolf and says he’s the werewolf. Of course, Grady is an idiot and she’s actually pointing at the hermit.

The hermit enjoys the attention and says he’s the werewolf as he runs at the children.

All of the kids run away, but Grady falls over. The hermit tells Grady he was joking. He also tells Grady to watch out for wolf, he then walks away.

Gray walks home when he steps on a snake and gets bit. There’s no way Grady is going to make it more than two weeks in the swamp.

He hobbles his way home. Luckily, the snake wasn’t poisonous, which isn’t a real thing, since in actuality poisonous snakes are venomous, not poisonous. However, at this point I’m half expecting Grady to find a snake that is poisonous, and he accidentally eats it.

At dinner the family talks about werewolves, this goes nowhere.

That night it’s another full moon and Grady hears howling. How many days in a row will there be a full moon?

Grady hears a thud outside. He goes to investigate to find a large hole in the wire enclosure of the deer. Most of the deer have also been killed.

Their dog Wolf gets blamed for this. This makes no sense, there is no way a dog is going to rip through an enclosure, kill a bunch of deer, and then escape all before someone steps outside to find out the cause of the sound. Also, it just doesn’t make sense, like if anything, wouldn’t the dog just dig under the enclosure and why would the dog, who has been fine with the deer wait until now.

The next morning, dad has decided to get rid of Wolf and send him to the pound. Grady’s dad also believes that Wolf killed the other animals and Ed Warner, which makes no sense, clearly the dog is friendly towards people at the very minimum.

Also, unless Wolf is Mr. Pickles, I’m pretty sure he’s innocent.

Before any of this can happen, Grady makes sure that Wolf escapes.

That night there’s another full moon. At this point, it’s just getting ridiculous. Grady sees Wolf and sneaks out to find the dog.

Will shows up. They go into the swamp after Wolf. Grady can’t find the dog, but Will says he sees Wolf. As they search, they find the hermit’s shack.

This is when Grady is ambushed by a werewolf. This is the first time the werewolf has shown up and it’s 116 pages into the book, this is over 94% of the way through the book, come on!

The werewolf pins Grady to the ground. Grady realizes the werewolf is Will. Will as a werewolf takes a huge bite out of Grady’s shoulder, causing him so much pain he almost passes out.

Wolf arrives and fights werewolf Will. There’s a loud shriek and werewolf Will runs away. Wolf chases after the werewolf biting at the creature. Good boy!

Grady loses consciousness.

The next day Grady wakes up at home, he was saved by the hermit. Grady tells his parents about Will and the events that transpired.

His dad leaves to talk with Will. A short while later he returns to tell the family Will’s house is empty and nobody was there.

Due to the courageous actions of Wolf, he’s allowed to stay as the family pet.

A month later, everything is normal in the swamp. However, things aren’t so normal for Grady as he’s become a werewolf.

The book ends.

Review:

This book is mind numbingly boring. I specifically included page numbers above to show how little happens, and the plot doesn’t really go anywhere for the first two thirds of this Goosebumps entry.

There were some really awful elements to this book, but also some good ones. I’ll start with what stood out as pretty bad.

Cassie is introduced only for exposition. Wolf was a good boy who was unfairly accused, mostly to further the plot. A lot of stuff just doesn’t make sense, especially small errors like the snake bite being poisonous, the hermit is the most obvious red herring, and Grady is probably the protagonist with the least personality so far.

Also, once you eliminate the hermit as the werewolf, the only reasonable answer would be Will as the werewolf, since the only other option would be Cassie, and she’s the exposition machine, which is usually the only purpose for characters who provide exposition in these books. Not to mention this book is boring with almost no werewolf action.

There are some good aspects of this Goosebumps book. The werewolf reveal is pretty cool, the book has real stakes, and there are interesting parts such as the hermit and general plot, and the swamp is a cool setting. Outside of that, the story is pretty barebones and focuses too much on nothing happening or just characters walking in a swamp.

Finally, I think Will is still alive, since there’s no evidence or any suggestions he died, so werewolf Will is still running around.

My rating for this Goosebumps entry is a 5/10, which is generous. The only reason I’m giving this book such a high rating is because of the last 7 pages.

Twist ending:

Will is a werewolf and Grady is also now a werewolf. Soon this will be an American sequel to Dog Soldiers.

Memorable line:

“Waiting for a love letter from a Martian?” That sounds more enjoyable than 94% of this book.

Memorable moment, cliffhanger, etc:

The time where Will turned into a werewolf and went full werewolf mode on Grady.

Bad parenting:

It will come as no surprise but blaming the dog for everything and then planning to get rid of the dog, when the dog has done nothing wrong. Wolf is a good boy.

Random references:

Bambi, Football, Tennis, Orlando Magic, and Discovery Channel. I wonder if they have any documentaries on the often-misrepresented location of swamp deer?

Tropes in book:

Just moved, character is 12, sibling pair, Cassie jump scare, nobody believes a character’s crazy story, crazy cliffhanger, dark ending, animal abuse, a character stays up all night, and pranks.

TV tie-in:

This is the first case of an episode being better than the Goosebumps book. This episode of Goosebumps is mostly the same, at least for the first half, with a few changes.

The biggest change, Will is actually set up to be the villain. The hermit’s story is fleshed out more. The stakes are increased, with most of the family being in danger from the werewolf. The werewolf is in the episode way more and is around for almost half of the second episode.

These are all great changes and make improvements over the book. The only cons being some cheesy and bad acting, and Wolf’s name being changed Vandal. However, Don Francks gives a great performance as the hermit, which helps out quite a bit.

This episode is what I wanted from the book. The episode also keeps its edge by having the animals killed and characters in peril, however Grady isn’t bit in this story.

Also, the ending is almost the same with the werewolf not really being killed, but it does have a really dumb fake out at the end with Grady howling.

My rating for this Goosebumps episode is a 7/10. Literally feels more like a Goosebumps book than the actual book. It’s also pretty good.

Memorable episode line:

“Get away!” I’m overacting over here, Grady.

Famous cast:

Don Francks, Brendan Fletcher, and R. L. Stine.

Come back soon for more Goosebumps fun and reviews.

To read the last Goosebumps review: https://goosebumpsblogger.com/goosebumps-13-piano-lessons-can-be-murder/