The Give Yourself Goosebumps Special Edition book where the Body Squeezers return.
You return from a trip, only to be informed by your friend Jack Archer that there was an alien invasion while you were gone. Specifically by a race called the Body Squeezers who steal human bodies. They were defeated but a new type that is blue has popped up. You don't buy it at first but soon one turns up and kidnaps Jack and his sister. You follow it and learn the aliens have planted a bomb that will explode the next day and turn everyone into black orbs. You have to decide what to do, stay to help your friends or try and stop the bomb.
The blue body squeezers would re-appear in the 2015 film Goosebumps as minor antagonists.
It was the first and only book of the GYB series to be a direct sequel to a book in the Series 2000 spinoff series.
Revenge of the Body Squeezers provides examples of:
- Aliens Are Bastards: Subverted, while the body squeezers - both green and blue - are hostile, you can befriend a third alien race which are on your side.
- Be the Ball: This is the fate of any unfortunate victims shot by the body squeezer's guns - getting forcibly converted into a bouncing black ball, roughly the size of a tennis ball. In more than one of the bad endings in which you get squeezed, you realize with horror that despite being shrank to a ball, you ARE well aware of your surroundings…
- Cursed with Awesome: In one ending, you get sent to the 1960s and have no way of returning to your own time; but you know you'll be able to use your knowledge of the future to your advantage.
- Demoted to Extra: Jack and his sister Billie, whom were the protagonists of Invasion of the Body Squeezers, are now supporting characters, Jack being your lancer.
- Dunking the Bomb: After finding out the float which contains the squeeze-bomb poised to transform the entire population of Los Angeles into human-sized tennis balls, one way of preventing the bomb from going off involves taking over the float's wheels and steering it into a nearby lake, which you got off in time as the float, bomb and all, crashes in the water. The subsequent underwater detonation allows the bomb to go off without harming anyone, leading to a good ending.
- Enemy Mine: In one of the better endings, you find out a group of band members the blue body squeezers are targeting and actively trying to kill, turns out to be members of another alien race, at war with the body squeezers. It turns out this third group of aliens are friendly, and helpfully evacuates you and your family to Colorado, where an alien-human alliance is possible to defeat the body squeezers.
- Failure Is the Only Option: If you end up on board the Body Squeezers' spaceship, you will get killed no matter what you do next.
- Fantastic Racism: A subtle example is used. A friend tries to convince you that the green aliens was in on the plan to use the squeeze bomb (proving this with, as it later turns out, fabricated evidence), while you try to convince her that you watched the blue aliens declare this plan in front of your own eyes when you snuck into their spaceship. Going with your gut turned out to be the better decision, as agreeing with your friend's "skin color doesn't matter" philosophy ended with both of you vandalizing Leonard Nimoy's cemented star with pick axes, and get you two thrown in jail, accomplishing nothing. As it turns out, this was part of your friend's plan, as she was a double agent for the blue aliens.
- Immediate Sequel: This begins exactly where Invasion of the Body Squeezers, part 2 from the Goosebumps 2000 series left off; and a main plot point is the conflict between the blue aliens that appeared right at the end of that book, vs the green aliens from the first one.
- It's a Wonderful Failure: Failing to prevent the squeeze bomb from going off and the book will go into detail on how badly you've screwed up, and that the whole of Los Angeles will pay the price for your failure.
- Latex Perfection: Yeah, your third friend, Maddy? She's another body squeezer alien herself, who disguises herself as a human using a latex suit.
- Race Against the Clock: At least three endings have you trying to stop the body squeezer's bomb from going off within a set time limit.
- Revenge of the Sequel: In a way, the "Revenge" is performed by the blue body squeezer aliens instead of the original green aliens.
- Sean Connery Is About to Shoot You: A blue body squeezer is about to squeeze you with his squeeze-ray.
- Telepathy: The blue body squeezer aliens communicates this way, which you found out if you tried posing as an alien disguised as a human.
- Time Travel: One ending in has a spaceship accidentally transporting you to the 1960s.
- Wrong Genre Savvy:
- Used in a mocking manner with the squeeze bomb scenario. You and a friend suspect the bomb is planted in a Rose Bowl float during New Year's Day. The two possible choices was a "Man on the Moon" float and a "Giant Clock" float. Regardless of the choice you make, neither float contains the bomb. However, in the story narrative, you insistently express that the former float has the bomb; with the logic that because aliens planted the bomb, the correct float has to be the one referencing outer space. If you act on that impulse, story "you" gloats about how your solid instincts won't betray you. Nope.
- With the "Giant Clock" choice, it's a subversion. Your friend thinks the aliens would plant a bomb on the float displaying how much time the bomb has to go off, but she only said that to throw you off track, because she's working for the aliens. However, the book rewards your open mindedness for the "Giant Clock" float, since you later notice another float passing by, which has black gumballs that resemble squeeze bomb victims. That clue guides you to the bomb's real location.
