A class trip to Washington D.C. takes a scary turn when the car breaks down and "you" stop at a hotel for the night... but it turns out to be full of ghosts, and the only way to survive is to find the only human resident.
This book provides examples of:
- 13 Is Unlucky: Your room number in the hotel? 1313. There's also a bad ending where you get killed on the hotel's thirteenth floor.
- All Just a Dream: One of the (few) good endings have you waking up, realizing you're still in your friend's mother's car, having fallen asleep in the middle of a road trip and have arrived home safely. All that spooky stuff in the titular hotel? Just a bad dream from a tediously long journey (although you do actively wonder Or Was It a Dream?).
- And Then John Was a Zombie: There's more than one ending where you fail to escape the hotel's resident ghosts, dies and becomes one of them, though not all of them are bad.
- Bittersweet Ending: One of the endings have your friends survivng, but not you. Now that you're a ghost, you decide to play all sorts of pranks on Hotel Morte's resident ghosts until they became so fed up, they decide to leave, with you as the only resident ghost left. Eventually your friends took over ownership of the hotel, who became a roaring success, and you get to remain with your buddies, but, you're still a ghost.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Jenna says in her ending that you and your friend are in the wrong book and should be in her book Give Yourself Goosebumps: Scream of the Evil Genie and your friend wishes the two of you were in that book.
- Covers Always Lie: As usual, since this is, you know, GYG. Norman the clerk looks perfectly human, resembling nothing like the skeletal figure on the front cover, and at no point in the adventure do you encounter skeletal bellhops.
- Deadly Euphemism:
- Early in the book, you're left alone with your friends in Room 1313 after one of the staff "takes care" of your friend's mother and the sole adult caretaker.
- You find a pack of Sweet Dreams Mints in your room, a complimentary gift from the hotel, with a note saying "Sweet Dreams from Hotel Morte!"... said mints will kill you in your sleep and ensure your ghost remain in the hotel forever.
- Empty Swimming Pool Dive: One of the endings has you forced to do this by the ghosts, resulting in your death.
- Face–Heel Turn: One of the bad endings have you and your friend Jamie dying and becoming the hotel's residents, at which point Jamie decide to phone all your classmates to check into the hotel as well, so that you two would have company. And you agree to his decision, for some reason...
- Gainax Ending: The ending with Jenna the genie from Scream of the Evil Genie has her telling you and your friend that you're in the wrong book and you should be in her book instead because of a genie popping out of a coke bottle. The friend then makes a wish to be transported into that book and Jenna does so but warns you you have two wishes left.
- Gender-Blender Name: Drew Mortegarth. It's a plot point that you don't know Drew's gender and thus, which of two potential Drews is the right one.
- Ghostly Death Reveal: Several bad endings, after you chose to pull a Let's Split Up, Gang! in Hotel Morte to find Drew Mortgarth, have you rendezvous with your friends, only to realize they're dead and are now among the hotel's resident ghosts, and they want you to join them. In one of the bad endings, it's your friend's mother who is revealed to be a ghost.
- Haunted Technology: The television in your room is haunted by a ghost who gleefully tells you, you're screwed for checking in, and you will never leave.
- Hell Hotel: Hotel Morte, where the action takes place, is a hotel full of ghosts who are out to make "you" into a ghost too.
- Intercontinuity Crossover: Jenna from Scream of the Evil Genie has a cameo in one ending here. If you accept her help, she actually transports you into her book.
- Jacob Marley Apparel: You can encounter the ghost of an old woman with a knife embedded permanently to her chest, though you don't find out at any point what leads to her demise in the first place.
- Killed Offscreen: In more than one ending, you managed to rendezvous with your friends after splitting up, only to discover they're ghosts, having been killed by the hotel's ghostly residents, and they want you to join their numbers. One of these endings have this happening to B.J's mother and the sole adult caretaker.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Bafflingly, early in the book after you and your friends discover the hotel to be haunted, you then decide to split up to look for the unknown man named Drew, and meet up in an hour.
- Meaningful Name: Hotel "Morte" — it means Hotel "Death" in Italian and Portuguese. Lampshaded by "your" narration.
- Mood Whiplash: Picking the female Drew during the Spot the Imposter situation by saying Coke is her favorite drink leads to her opening it and white fog coming out. After you and your friend panic about not seeing anything, Jenna from Scream of the Evil Genie pops out and transports you into her book after your friend wishes to do so.
- Morton's Fork: Happens at least three times. If you choose to exit through the doggie door, not trust the teenage girl ghost, or find out who is hiding in the closet, you will lose no matter what you do afterward.
- Never Sleep Again: One of the only ways to survive the book is to never fall asleep, or else you would wake up a ghost.
- No Ending: Choosing to drink clam juice will lead to the book telling you that clam juice can cause strange effects on people, such as causing the books they're reading to have missing letters. The remainder of the page begins leaving out random letters itself, and then ends saying the book is now unreadable (even though this shouldn't affect the characters themselves).
- Plot-Driven Breakdown: What kicks off the story in the first place, when your friend B.J's mom have her car breaking down outside Hotel Morte while driving all of you back during a road trip.
- Razor Apples: The Sweet Dreams mints given by the hotel as a complimentary snack for visitors, that you receive right at the start of the book, has the side-effects of turning anyone who consumes them into ghosts, ensuring any guests in the hotel would never leave.
- Room Disservice: Right off the start of the story, a ghostly waiter brings dinner to your room, and informs you after your meal that the food is spiked with a "special ingredient" — you're about to die and become one of the hotel's resident ghosts.
- Shout-Out: Unsurprisingly, this book throws in a few nods to classic horror films involving that classic "checking into an evil hotel" plot.
- For starters, the moment you checked in, you're greeted by a desk clerk named Norman.
- The hotel itself is implied to be alive, and actively corrupts it's guests and prevents anyone who checked in from leaving, making anyone who enters their resident ghosts. So, the Overlook Hotel?
- Heck, there's a Room 402 which is stated that anyone who enters will never leave. And a possible encounter with the ghost of a spooky old woman, like in the movie.
- Spot the Imposter: A plot point is the reader having to decide which of two people is Drew Mortegarth, who has promised to help you escape. But because the reader has never met Drew (and Drew's name leaves their gender ambiguous), picking out the real one may prove difficult.
- Skeletons in the Coat Closet: The basement of the hotel is full of bones. Probably from the resident ghosts, before they were ghosts.
- Too Dumb to Live: Lampshaded in one of the endings where you decide to eat the Sweet Dreams mints as result of a dare from your friends, after you knew the mints to be harmful and can turn you into a ghost. The book reprimands your idiocy and tells you to come back when you're capable of making more sensible decisions.
