Scary Birthday to You!

Give Yourself Goosebumps #39

by R.L. Stine

Your birthday surprise is a weird entertainer who throws a "horror birthday." If you choose to open your presents, you're chased by crazed motorized toys, and if you choose to eat your cake, watch out -- it's crawling with bugs!

Genres: Horror, Choose Your Own Adventure, Gamebooks, Fiction, Childrens

135 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

About the author

Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

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Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Scary Birthday to You! is the thirty-ninth Give Yourself Goosebumps book, and by this point it's obvious the series isn't what it once was. The story zigs and zags with abandon, offering no cohesive central narrative. Today is your birthday, and you're excited to host a party attended by several of your friends: Alex, Josh, Mickey, Sarah, and Virginia. Your parents aren't home, and your older brother Brian left the house even though he promised to supervise the party, but you're counting on having fun anyway. That changes when a man in gruesome clown makeup, speaking in a harsh, gravelly voice, shows up at your door, claiming your parents hired him to entertain at the party. Dr. MacDeath looks way scarier than a normal clown—blood drips from the fangs in his mouth—and he shows a predilection for violence. The clown locks you in the house and commands you to proceed with the party, but you and your friends feel more panicked than festive. How will you escape this lunatic?

It's your birthday, so MacDeath allows you some control over the sequence of events. Party games might be fun under ordinary circumstances, but MacDeath has no intention of letting you enjoy yourselves. Playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey unleashes a live "donkey" on your guests, one a lot more dangerous than a typical pack animal. Paintball becomes a lethal contest in which MacDeath pursues you with a gun loaded with acid; a direct hit will be the end of your party and your life. Can you and your friends gang up on your tormentor and beat him at his own ballistic game? Dodgeball isn't much better; MacDeath opens things up by tossing a bomb at you, but a bit of clever thinking can turn the tables on him with surprising ease. The scavenger hunt is the most interesting game you can choose. It gets you out of the house and creates distance from MacDeath, but he only allots one hour to find the objects on his list, and some seem impossible. A mouse's tongue? Blood from a turnip? A murderer's knife? Bones from a graveyard? You balk at collecting these macabre items, but time is running out to win MacDeath's game if you want to bid him a permanent adieu. You'll have to risk your life more than once to gather every item and make it back to the house before time expires, and even if you do, MacDeath still has a nasty trick or two up his sleeve.

Maybe you prefer opening presents over playing games. Dr. MacDeath has brought you three packages of various size, but your friends also gave you gifts. Opening his presents first can be a decent or disastrous experience, depending on if you go for the small, medium, or large package. MacDeath's present could be a mean-spirited prank that traps you in a loop forever, or a pair of tickets to an amusement park called Horror Place. It's odd that the story goes with a generic version of the well-known Horrorland theme park of Goosebumps lore, considering that at the park you come across a puddle of ooze that's referred to as monster blood, another notorious Goosebumps entity. MacDeath's medium-size present contains a human head that demands you find his body, but digging up the neighbor's flowerbed to retrieve it will only bring trouble. Is there any way to quiet the moaning head and defeat MacDeath once you've opened the medium box? You could take a pass on MacDeath's gifts and open ones from your friends instead, but the clown has used his magic to alter their presents in disturbing ways. MacDeath can be beaten with a combination of savvy and luck, but even that won't always free you from his deranged lineup of birthday activities.

With no internal consistency to speak of and almost nothing to surprise the reader, Scary Birthday to You! is among the lesser Give Yourself Goosebumps books. It lacks the quest-like structure and eerie feel of the better episodes in the series, and many endings are so over-the-top that it's hard to take the adventure seriously. I like the story concept, which the right author could have used to thrilling effect, but Scary Birthday to You! is not the book that fans of Escape from the Carnival of Horrors, Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter, or The Curse of the Creeping Coffin will be hoping for. It's an okay read for a lighthearted birthday gathering, but isn't an auspicious addition to the Goosebumps franchise.

[Alejandro Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard nothing but positive things about this book. And I’m glad to report that I really dug this one. Dr. MacDeath is a cool antagonist, having unknown capabilities and many crazy moments revolving around his idea of fun. The book has some really unnerving stuff in it; the human swan scene, paintballs not being paintballs (to keep it vague), and MacDeath’s design. Both storylines were equally fun, I prefer the party games storyline since there was a lot more to offer from that. There were a fair share of good and great endings. And if I had to say anything else positive, it’s the more creative feel of the book. It’s not as limited as you might expect. It goes places, literally and figuratively. Still, it is like semi-limited to the house and the surrounding yard for the majority of its page count. The only thing I don’t like—as per usual—are some of the endings. Few and far between this time around; I really only disliked the ‘see you tomorrow’ ending. Super random. And also, the Horror Place is the weakest part of the book, and sadly the last area I read about. It had a shittily executed reference and two bland endings. Still, a great book at the end of the day. 9/10, this was one of the most obviously ghost-written Goosebumps books I’ve ever read. Just read the endings, they’re weirdly different from other GYGs in some ways. Not that it’s a bad thing, though! I highly recommend this one.

[Colton · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was strange. I felt like the author couldn't decide on a tone. A couple of the endings were just kind of lame and corny, even for this series. I liked the idea a bit, but the execution was a little off and it felt like it was just borrowing ideas from its better predecessors. Nothing too bad, but not too special. In other words - mediocre.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

I used to love the "Choose Your Adventure" Goosebumps as a kid and i still do!

[Willen P · Rating 2 out of 5]

I finally read this for my birthday (though 3 days late). It wasn't that great, some of the endings were a bit rushed, making some of the storylines too short (such as opening the presents or going to the amusement park).

Some endings were just repeats of other ones (like the school principal, and the new entertainer with the magician's hat).

Not one I'd recommend but glad I finally read it.

btw you get called 'wise guy' on page 36 even if your female.

[Pulp_Fiction_Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one's pretty fun and has a great villain in Dr. McDeath. There's a great story arc in here if you choose the 'games' path. The deduction of a star in my rating comes from the other main path in here, the 'presents' path, while it has plenty going for it, I just found some of it a bit goofy and cringy. This book overall though has plenty of dark and scary imagery throughout.

[Griffin C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the more well-liked GYG books and it's easy to tell why. The main story of this book is that your parents hire a guy named Dr. MacDeath to be an entertainer at your birthday party and you have the choice between games or presents. I prefer the games storyline but the presents storyline is also fun. Cool HorrorLand reference. 10/10

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprising and questinable scenes but still fun !

[fanboyriot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked the vibes to this and while I’m still not liking the newer covers to these, this one was kinda cool.

[Ahmed Bahaa]

i still didnt read

[Sammi Mancil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty cool book... you choose the story and then read it as another!