YMMV / Give Yourself Goosebumps

• Ass Pull: 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 the most gullible idiot to ever exist, ever, and 2. the adults are shockingly ignorant and irresponsible to the point where they really have no business being near children.
  • The scavenger hunt in Shop Till You Drop ... Dead! requires you to find the "Poison Perfume" in a stack of identical bottles. You have the choice of being lazy and just picking up any old bottle, but then at the point when you need the Poison Perfume to survive, the book gives you the option of using an alternative item if you don't have the real perfume (and still gives you the chance of a good ending, albeit not the best ending that you reach if you do the scavenger hunt right.)
• Complete Monster: See here or here.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • "Night in Werewolf Woods" contains 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!
  • Danger Time is known for an annoying storyline involving manifestations of the zodiac signs (a bull for Taurus, a lion for Leo, etc.) where several choices are determined by the reader's own star sign. If it's "wrong", you get a bad ending, forcing the reader to cheat in order to finish the storyline.
  • Certain bad endings are determined by factors entirely outside of the reader's control. In one Goosebumps book (Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter), you are shrunken to a tiny size and have to deal with a (to you) enormous rat. Your decision in the matter is determined by how many letters are in your first name. If your first name has an odd number, you successfully evade the rat and can continue onward. If your first name has an even number? Your attempt to make friends with the rat works a little too well and it takes you back to its nest where you spend the rest of your days raised by a small furry mammal. Game Over. In another book, getting one of the good endings is determined by your height. In the same book, on the path to another ending, you die if you're not left-handed. In some other absurd scenarios, you will be led to a Game Over page if you are not left-handed, if you are reading the book while the weather is rainy outside, or if you are not wearing blue-colored clothes while reading the book. Basically, many GYG books are either Luck-Based Mission or Unwinnable by Design, unless the readers are prepared to cheat.
• That One Book: Into the Jaws of Doom and One Night in Payne House are proudly advertised as having only one good ending. The other ones involve 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. (Which, ironically, had a guide for Into the Jaws of Doom inside it.)
  • Thankfully, "Into the Jaws of Doom" has at least one good ending, but "One Night in Payne House" has only an ambiguous ending neither good nor bad, because even though, you and your friend survive, the two of you foolishly decide to go back into the house just for the sake of proving you were there, but chances are, no one would still believe you, and you might not even make it out next time.
• Spiritual Successor: It's been observed that Alone in Snakebite Canyon is a better Animorphs gamebook than the actual Animorphs gamebooks.

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