i have an appalling admission that is tantamount to a betrayal of my entire generation: prior to recently starting reading the whole series on a whim, i had never read a single main-line goosebumps book.
i mean, i did read and love the first two of their choose your own adventure knockoffs, give yourself goosebumps. so technically technically this isn’t my first venture into the series. and like every other nerdy kid from my generation the scholastic book fair was easily one of my favorite days of the school year in grade school, but i tended to leave loaded up with nonfiction books and (shamefully) garfield comics.
in spite of my relative inexperience i feel incredibly nostalgic for goosebumps because it had such a powerful presence in the popular culture of my childhood and is so up my alley that it’s actually kind of weird i didn’t get around to reading them until now? if i had i’m pretty sure i would’ve gotten hooked. but it was honestly kind of enough just having it around, seeing those iconic tim jacobus covers everywhere.
this series is so strongly associated with kids of my generation that it still feels like it’s mine, like it’s part of my childhood. so, yeah, there’s… a surprising amount of emotional investment and what i would go so far as to describe as a sense of ownership despite the mere technicality of me not having ever actually read any of these until now. so in spite of the rather mixed results (you’ll see), i’m super glad i’m finally making a point to read these.