History YMMV / GiveYourselfGoosebumps

* AuthorsSavingThrow: In books that require the reader to have a certain real life skill, for those who don't have it, the author handwaves your inability to do this skill, usually as a secret training session or [[AWizardDidIt magic.]]

* SpiritualAdaptation: It's been observed that ''Alone in Snakebite Canyon'' is a better ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' gamebook than the actual ''Animorphs'' gamebooks.
* SpiritualSuccessor: R.L. Stine previously wrote a {{Gamebook}} series called ''[[http://www.gamebooks.org/show_series.php?id=193 Hark]]''. The trademark randomness of the ''Give Yourself Goosebumps'' novels was also present on ''Hark''; perhaps even more so. The closest ''GYG'' came to reflecting ''Hark'''s game design was ''Into the Jaws of Doom''.

* AssPull: More than one of these books have a last-minute twist ending where your entire adventure turns out to be part of an elaborate prank played by your family members just to surprise you for... reasons, and you were ''never'' in any form of danger to begin with. In order for a twist as such to work, though, the story would need to rely on the fact that 1. Your player character is one of the most gullible idiot to exist, '''ever''', and 2. The adults are shockingly ignorant and irresponsible to the point where they really have no business being near children.

* CompleteMonster: See [[Monster/{{Goosebumps}} here]].

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!!"Moments" and "Fridge" tropes:
%%Editor's note: These need to be moved to the corresponding "Moments" and "Fridge" pages for the individual books, once those books get their own pages.

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: In ''The Little Comic Shop of Horrors'', one path takes you into a comic featuring the [[ComicBook/XMen Ys Guys]], a group of mutants led by Professor Y. Through them, Stine delivers a hilarious TakeThat at Jean Grey which is funny for all the right reasons. One of the Ys Guys is Jean Greene, and the reader's not sure what her power is except it involves coming back from the dead.

** ''Scary Birthday to You!'':
*** At the start, the mad magician Doctor [=MacDeath=] shows up at your house while you and your friends are planning your birthday party, and to show that he means business, [=MacDeath=] then turns one of your friends, Sarah, into a human-sized balloon poodle, threatening to do the same to you if you refuse to play any of his games. But in one of the twist endings it turns out Doctor [=MacDeath=] is actually Sarah's uncle, [[FriendlyScheming hired by your parents as an entertainer to surprise you on your birthday]], and Sarah just ''happens'' to be a really, really good contortionist. What?
*** In one twist ending, Doctor [=MacDeath=] is actually a madman who escaped an asylum, kidnapped the clown hired for your birthday, and crashed your party in his stead. The clown called the cops after escaping on his own, who then arrives to arrest Doctor [=MacDeath=], and the story ends right there. The doctor's ability to cast spells and whatnot which you witnessed prior to the story is never addressed and simply handwaved aside.
* AuthorsSavingThrow: In books that require the reader to have a certain real life skill, for those who don't have it, the author handwaves your inability to do this skill, usually as a secret training session or [[AWizardDidIt magic.]]

* HilariousInHindsight: ''Zapped in Space'''s premise, where in both story paths, you are trapped in a virtual reality fantasy world, and you can only escape by either beating the final boss of the game, or getting killed in it as well as in real life... which is also the premise of ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline''.

** In one twist ending, Doctor [=MacDeath=] is actually a madman who escaped an asylum, kidnapped the clown hired for your birthday, and crashed your party in his stead. The clown called the cops after escaping on his own, who then arrives to arrest Doctor [=MacDeath=], and the story ends right there. The doctor's ability to cast spells and whatnot which you witnessed prior to the story is never addressed and simply handwaved aside.

** At the start of ''Scary Birthday to You!'', the mad magician Doctor [=MacDeath=] shows up at your house while you and your friends are planning your birthday party, and to show that he means business, [=MacDeath=] then turns one of your friends, Sarah, into a human-sized balloon poodle, threatening to do the same to you if you refuse to play any of his games. But in one of the twist endings it turns out Doctor [=MacDeath=] is actually Sarah's uncle, [[FriendlyScheming hired by your parents as an entertainer to surprise you on your birthday]], and Sarah just ''happens'' to be a really, really good contortionist. What?
*** In another twist ending, Doctor [=MacDeath=] is actually a madman who escaped an asylum, kidnapped the clown hired for your birthday, and crashed your party in his stead. The clown called the cops after escaping on his own, who then arrives to arrest Doctor [=MacDeath=], and the story ends right there. The doctor's ability to cast spells and whatnot which you witnessed prior to the story is never addressed and simply handwaved aside.

** The moss-man scenario from ''Weekend at Poison Lake'' have you being stalked by a mysterious cryptid, the moss-man of Poison Lake, with an ending revealing that the moss-man is actually your cousin hired by your parents to surprise you on your birthday because "you liked scary things so much"... you know, the same moss-man who tried to drown your dog in front of you, and puts you through plenty of life-threatening situations?

** Not many readers were fond of ''Weekend at Poison Lake'', because its luck-based gameplay gimmick was extremely confusing and illogical.
** Some readers felt this way about the use of dice in ''Into the Jaws of Doom,'' mainly because it was a luck-based gimmick that wasn't balanced by character stats or something of a similar nature. The result was that it was very easy to get a bad ending simply because you got a bad roll, and there was nothing you could do about it (other than cheat).
** Both "Night in Werewolf Woods" and "The Knight in Screaming Armor" contain several choices that are based on things that the reader would not be in control of at all if the event was really happening (eg: Do you wake up alone or with your friends?). The result of this is that it is that you end up choosing what happens to you, rather than what you want to do - meaning the books practically want you to cheat!

* TechnologyMarchesOn: Some of the mentions of computers/the internet are now rather dated, even in ''It Came From the Internet'' (which was published in 1999.) Similarly, some situations in the books now seem redundant because of cell phones becoming common -- for example, a choice in ''Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum'' where you have to decide which button to press on a pay phone to call for help.

* ToughActToFollow: Even though its gameplay was unforgiving at times, and even though there were other good books in the series, none of them could match the complexity of ''Into the Jaws of Doom''. Its "gamebook" design was unparalleled to the rest of the series, and made the other ones feel simplistic in comparison.

* FridgeBrilliance: In ''Curse of the Cave Creatures'', the hunter path being "harder" makes a bit of sense -- the protagonist is implied to be a kid, and of course a kid won't know how to use weapons!
* FridgeLogic: It doesn't get anymore improbable than ''Into the Jaws of Doom''. Great book as it is, if there really was a murderous super computer in a science museum, you sure as hell wouldn't be fighting alone with a random computer avatar. Even without that plothole, that still doesn't explain the bizarre exhibits in the third floor, like the mirror maze with a spiky pendulum... Or the random giant magnet... Or the tiny germ that can't stop growing ... [[OverlyLongGag or the weird ending where you randomly ran into a group of people]]! And that faulty smoke bomb... that was just cheap.
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments: In ''The Little Comic Shop of Horrors'', one path takes you into a comic featuring the [[ComicBook/XMen Ys Guys]], a group of mutants led by Professor Y. Through them, Stine delivers a hilarious TakeThat at Jean Grey which is funny for all the right reasons. One of the Ys Guys is Jean Greene, and the reader's not sure what her power is except it involves coming back from the dead.
* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Getting the best endings. Especially in the special editions ''Into the Jaws of Doom'' and ''One Night in Payne House'', both of which only have '''one''' good ending (or at the very least, one ending where you are not dead).

** ''Diary of a Mad Mummy'' has a scenario where the titular mummy, who remains TheUnseen for most of the adventure until that point, follows you all the way from the museum to your hotel room, intending to hunt you down for stealing his ancient diary. All you can see from your room's peep-hole is a mummified hand reaching at your door. One of the plausible outcomes at that point is that the entire thing is actually a prank by your brother, Derek -- the "mummy" is actually the badly-bandaged hand of a hotel bellhop your parents told to check on you (which, trying to fight back against the "mummy" will have you beating down an unarmed man) while the supernatural diary is actually a homemade DIY project made by Derek by soaking paper in coffee. The only plausible way for this scenario to play out is that 1. You'll need to be so incredibly dumb to the point of being unable to tell the difference between a homemade DIY-project and a 5,000-year-old artifact, and 2. There apparently exists a hotel in San Francisco who is blatantly negligent towards employees, including making it's staff work with an entire bandaged hand.

** Inverted (or averted?) example in ''Please Don't Feed the Vampire!'' with an ending which reveals the whole thing to be a Halloween prank thrown by your family into tricking you into believing you're turning into a vampire; your missing reflection is caused by swapping your bedroom mirror with a Halloween prop that casts no reflection and your constant thirst for blood is the result of spiking your drink with a special but harmless chemical, and your parents actually planned all of these in advance to surprise you. Relieved, you then tuck yourself in for a delicious Halloween-themed dinner... [[DiabolusExMachina only for your family to reveal THEY are actual vampires, the whole time]].

** One of the good endings to ''Ship of Ghouls'' is that you make it off the ship safely, then you going to a restaurant with sushi. Aka, a 'plate of raw fish' when you expect something like a hamburger. [[http://www.kotaku.com.au/2016/11/japan-now-has-sushi-burgers/ Sushi hamburgers are now a thing.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: The third line of ''Tick Tock-You're Dead!'' book mentions visiting the World Trade Center. This was removed in the ebook version.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Getting the best endings. Especially in the special editions ''Into the Jaws of Doom'' and ''One Night in Payne House'', both of which only have '''one''' good ending (or at the very least, one ending where you are not dead).
* NightmareFuel: It's a Goosebumps book, what do you expect?
** A staple of the series. The deaths are often gruesome, though the bad endings that don't cause immediate death often involve [[FateWorseThanDeath slavery, being trapped in a horrific environment]], [[AndIMustScream paralysis]], or worse... even a realistic and mundane death like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_death being trapped in a refrigerator and suffocating]].
*** One of the endings in "Escape from the Carnival of Horrors" sees you falling off of a bridge and toward jagged rocks at the bottom. The way the ending is written is a little ''too'' ominous.
---->You're falling... falling... everything passes as if you're dropping in slow motion. Is this...
---->'''THE END?'''
---->[[spoiler:[-[[WhamLine Yes.]]-]]]
----

** In ''Under the Magician's Spell'', you are asked if you can juggle. If you can't, the book says that since the book is about magic, anything can happen, so you can now magically juggle.

* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** If you're a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fan, it's impossible not to laugh at the part of ''Revenge of the Body Squeezers'' when you take a pick axe to chip away Creator/LeonardNimoy's cemented star on Hollywood Boulevard.
** Pick an ending in ''The Curse Of The Creeping Coffins'', any ending. They are almost all fricking hilarious!
** In ''The Little Comic Shop of Horrors'', one path takes you into a comic featuring the [[ComicBook/XMen Ys Guys]], a group of mutants led by Professor Y. Through them, Stine delivers a hilarious TakeThat at Jean Grey which is funny for all the right reasons. One of the Ys Guys is Jean Greene, and the reader's not sure what her power is except it involves coming back from the dead.

** A staple of the series. The deaths are often gruesome, though the bad endings that don't cause immediate death often involve [[FateWorseThanDeath slavery, being trapped in a horrific environment]], [[AndIMustScream paralysis]], or worse... even a realistic and mundane death like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_death being trapped in a refrigerator and suffocating]]. [[http://www.qbd.com.au/products/l/4923/9780590934923.jpg This cover]] is really creepy for a children's horror series.

* FridgeHorror: One of the good endings in ''Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum'' shows you and Liz defeating the BigBad and be hailed as heroes by the press. Good Ending? Yeah, probably. Except this ending fails to tell you that [[spoiler:you don't get to save Jake as you and Liz are too busy saving yourselves from both Sybil and Axel. Jake is still in the museum, somewhere dark, and you don't get to know whether he is still alive or not]]. It is as if the book forgets what your initial mission is.

---->[[spoiler:[-[[WhamLine Yes.]]-]]]

* FridgeLogic: It doesn't get anymore improbable than ''Into the Jaws of Doom''. Great book as it is, if there really was a murderous super computer in a science museum, you sure as hell wouldn't be fighting alone with a random computer avatar. Even without that plothole, that still doesn't explain the bizarre exhibits in the third floor, like the mirror maze with a spiky pendulum... Or the random giant magnet... Or the tiny germ that can't stop growing ... [[OverlyLongGag or the weird ending where you randomly ran into a group of people]]! And that faulty smoke bomb... that was just cheap.
* FridgeHorror: One of the good endings in ''Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum'' shows you and Liz defeating the BigBad and be hailed as heroes by the press. Good Ending? Yeah, probably. Except this ending fails to tell you that [[spoiler:you don't get to save Jake as you and Liz are too busy saving yourselves from both Sybil and Axel. Jake is still in the museum, somewhere dark, and you don't get to know whether he is still alive or not]]. It is as if the book forgets what your initial mission is.
* SugarWiki/FunnyMoments:
** If you're a ''Franchise/StarTrek'' fan, it's impossible not to laugh at the part of ''Revenge of the Body Squeezers'' when you take a pick axe to chip away Creator/LeonardNimoy's cemented star on Hollywood Boulevard.
** Pick an ending in ''The Curse Of The Creeping Coffins'', any ending. They are almost all fricking hilarious!
** In ''The Little Comic Shop of Horrors'', one path takes you into a comic featuring the [[ComicBook/XMen Ys Guys]], a group of mutants led by Professor Y. Through them, Stine delivers a hilarious TakeThat at Jean Grey which is funny for all the right reasons. One of the Ys Guys is Jean Greene, and the reader's not sure what her power is except it involves coming back from the dead.

* SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome: Getting the best endings. Especially in the special editions ''Into the Jaws of Doom'' and ''One Night in Payne House'', both of which only have '''one''' good ending (or at the very least, one ending where you are not dead).
* NightmareFuel: It's a Goosebumps book, what do you expect?
** A staple of the series. The deaths are often gruesome, though the bad endings that don't cause immediate death often involve [[FateWorseThanDeath slavery, being trapped in a horrific environment]], [[AndIMustScream paralysis]], or worse...even a realistic and mundane death like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator_death being trapped in a refridgerator and suffocating]]. [[http://www.qbd.com.au/products/l/4923/9780590934923.jpg This cover]] is really creepy for a children's horror series.
*** One of the endings in "Escape from the Carnival of Horrors" sees you falling off of a bridge and toward jagged rocks at the bottom. The way the ending is written is a little ''too'' ominous.
---->You're falling... falling... everything passes as if you're dropping in slow motion. Is this...
---->'''THE END?'''
---->[[spoiler:[-[[WhamLine Yes.]]-]]]

----

** ''Diary of a Mad Mummy'' has a scenario where the titular mummy, who remains TheUnseen for most of the adventure until that point, follows you all the way from the museum to your hotel room, intending to hunt you down for stealing his ancient diary. All you see from the hotel's peep-hole is a mummified hand reaching at your door. One of the plausible outcomes at that point is that the entire thing is actually a prank by your brother, Derek -- the "mummy" is actually the badly-bandaged hand of a hotel bellhop your parents told to check on you (which, trying to fight back against the "mummy" will have you beating down an unarmed man) while the supernatural diary is actually a homemade DIY project made by Derek by soaking paper in coffee. The only plausible way for this scenario to play out is that 1. You'll need to be so incredibly dumb to the point of being unable to tell the difference between a homemade DIY-project and a 5,000-year-old artifact, and 2. There apparently exists a hotel in San Francisco who is blatantly negligent towards employees, including making it's staff work with an entire bandaged hand.

* FridgeHorror:
One of the good endings in ''Welcome to the Wicked Wax Museum'' shows you and Liz defeating the BigBad and be hailed as heroes by the press. Good Ending? Yeah, but this ending fails to tell you that [[spoiler:you don't get to save Jake as you and Liz are too busy saving yourselves from both Sybil and Axel. Jake is still in the museum, somewhere dark, and you don't get to know whether he is still alive or not]]. It is as if the book forgets what your initial mission is.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: In books that require the reader to have a certain real life skill, for those who don't have it, the author handwaves your inability to do this skill, usually as a secret training session or magic.

** Pick an ending in ''The Curse Of The Creeping Coffins'', any ending. They are almost all fricking hilarious!!

* [[ThatOneLevel That One Book]]: ''Into the Jaws of Doom'' and ''One Night in Payne House'' are advertised as having only one good ending. The other ones involve [[TheManyDeathsOfYou lots and lots of death]], and are next-to-impossible to figure out the first time reading through the novel (especially with ''Payne House''). ''Checkout Time at the Dead End Hotel'' was also surprisingly difficult, and might also qualify.

* [[ThatOneLevel That One Book]]: ''Into the Jaws of Doom'' and ''A Night in Payne House'' are advertised as having only one good ending. The other ones involve [[TheManyDeathsOfYou lots and lots of death]], and are next-to-impossible to figure out the first time reading through the novel (especially with ''Payne House''). ''Checkout Time at the Dead End Hotel'' was also surprisingly difficult, and might also qualify.