The Haunting Returns
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This official YA novel based on the hit Disney Plus series includes an exclusive ending you won't see on the show! Discover what happens to all your favorite characters... if you dare. Thirty years ago, Harold Biddle died in a tragic accident -- but there's more to the story. Now, the teenage kids of Harold's classmates are determined to find out what happened to him all those years ago... as long as Harold's spirit doesn't exact his revenge first! But Harold Biddle isn't the only monster roaming the streets of Port Lawrence. From doppelgangers to haunted books and one creepy dummy, Isaiah, Margot, James, and the rest of their friends have to fight to stay alive or risk becoming monsters themselves! This official YA novel tells the story of season 1 of the hit Goosebumps series -- plus additional scenes and information not seen on the show, including resolving the show's cliffhanger ending!
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I have mixed feelings about this book.
This is a novelization of Season 1 of the Disney+ Goosebumps series. It also features an epilogue extending beyond the season's ending. That epilogue is great, easily, and makes me wish there was more story following it.
The rest of the book, though... varies.
Sometimes, the book does a good job of being a novelization, adapting scenes well. But a lot of the time, it just rushes through scenes and feels like a summary someone wrote of them. These parts end up rather tedious. There's also one part in the adaptation of episode 2 where important context is left out that explains something, even though it could've been put in there with a single sentence, easily.
Kate Howard had previously written photonovelizations for younger readers for both Goosebumps movies, and this kinda feels like that at times. Not QUITE that far, but still, similar.
Honestly, it might have just been too much to ask her to try to adapt the whole season into a reasonably sized book.
It was the longest Goosebumps book published upon release, only now beaten by the novelization of Season 2 by a few pages. (Confusingly, the actual season was SHORTER than Season 1.) But adapting 10 whole episodes is still a lot for this.
I can't really recommend this book overall, but if you liked Season 1 of the series (which I did), the epilogue's pretty cool. It's a shame a lot of the book prior to it struggles so much...
