Camp book time. A positive for the majority of Goosebumps is that most of the camp books are usually the strongest in the series. If you know me, you know Welcome to Camp Nightmare is my personal favorite book (though there's a couple that come close at times). It also surprises me that it took so long for another camp-themed book since then. But here we are at book 33 and it's time to get sporty with The Horror at Camp Jellyjam
THE HORROR AT CAMP JELLYJAM
FRONT TAGLINE: Tennis... Ping Pong... Monsters anyone?
This is a freaky cover, while also one of the strangest covers in the series. You have Counselor Buddy front and center, grinning with his large, freakish smile and intense, bloodshot eyes. The kind of eyes that leave you wondering what this guy's deal is. That aside, I love the colors used, particularly with the orange-blue sky, giving off an even greater sense that something sinister is going down at this camp. A plus to this book's favor in not straight up telling you what the horror is at Camp Jellyjam. One of Tim's best.
IT'S NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE–IT'S HOW YOU STAY ALIVE!
Swimming, basketball, archery. King Jellyjam's sports camp has it all. Too bad Wendy isn't a total sports freak like her brother, Elliot. But how excited can you get over a game of Softball. It's just a game, right?
WRONG!
Because Came Jellyjam is no ordinary sports camp. And Wendy's about to find out why. Why the counselors seem a little too happy. A little too obsessed with winning. And why the ground is always rumbling at night...
STORY
Wendy and her brother Elliot are bored as their family are taking a long drive through farmlands and into the mountains for their family vacation. Let's just say seeing your first cow is neat, your fortieth not so much. They ask their parents if they can go into the trailer hitched in the back and after some concerns, the parents agree to let them. Doesn't take long after entering the trailer however that a bump causes it to detach and fall off the mountain with a crash. The kids are fine, but shaky after such a fall. As they gather their bearings, they hear a knock at the door. It's not their parents, but a strange blond man wearing a shirt that says "Only The Best".
This is Buddy and he's head counselor for King Jellyjam's Sports Camp. And the sports part isn't hyperbole. If there's a sport, it's available to play. Tennis, swimming, archery, lawn bowling. Thankfully no hot-oil wrestling, foxy boxing or such and such. The camp also has a strange mascot in a weird purple blob that Buddy calls King Jellyjam. Wendy and Elliot are more concerned with contacting their parents, but the allure of all the sports is enough for Elliot to want to stay. Buddy tells the kids they're free to play any sport, but they must always play at their best level. Only the best. As Elliot leaves with Buddy, Wendy sees a girl in the bushes trying to warn her to get out while she still can.
As Buddy shows the kids the dorms, Wendy asks about where Buddy's from, but Buddy has no idea. He's been at Camp Jellyjam for such a long time he really lost much thought of his origins. Wendy also runs into a counselor with purple lipstick named Holly before meeting her dormmates for the time being. Dierdre, Ivy and Jan all scare Wendy at first before introducing themselves. Well, it's not attempted strangulation like our last book. They invite Wendy to compete in the swimming contest. Wendy opts to just relax, but the girls repeat the mantra of the camp. "Only the best".
So Wendy competes in the swimming contest, but doesn't try that hard. Dierdre wins and gets a coin with King Jellyjam's face on it. This is a "King Coin" and campers who get six compete on a winner's walk. Wendy also gets confronted by Holly who pressures her for not competing at her best. As Wendy leaves, she sees Elliot on the ground unconscious. Our stock "gotcha" prank, obviously. But Elliot is showing great prowess as he wins a ping pong match that earns him a King Coin. Suddenly the ground shakes violently. Wendy freaks out, but Buddy assures her that it's all normal. Sure enough, nobody reacts to them.
Dierdre wins her sixth coin and goes on her winner's walk. It's an event that happens after curfew, so the other girls can't see where she's headed. They plan a victory party for Dierdre, but she never comes back. Concerned, the girls leave the dorm after curfew, but just run into some bats and see some counselors acting strange. Well stranger then they have so far. They also run into the little girl that Wendy saw earlier named Alicia. She saw something awful and is trying to leave the camp. She then runs off on them as the girls retire back to the dorm for the evening. However, they see that all of Dierdre's belongings have disappeared.
Wendy runs into Buddy the next day and tries to get some answers, but he just says that she left. Alicia too. Now more worried, Wendy goes to use the camp phones, only to learn they're phony. Later, Wendy tries a few more sports, but fails at them. She's currently the only kid with no King Coins. Wendy tries some baseball and swings the bat, only to accidentally swing and hit Buddy in the chest with a sickening crack. But despite clearly having broken ribs, Buddy just shakes it off like nothing happened. This just continues to build up Wendy's growing paranoia. Doesn't help that more kids are disappearing after their winners walks and Elliot is already racking up his coin collection.
On the night of the next winner's walk, Wendy follows as she sees the winners and the counselors enter a strange igloo-shaped building. She enters and sees Buddy and the other counselors. They're hypnotizing themselves and talking about refreshing their minds and their servitude to their master. Wendy sneezes which catches the attention of Buddy and the others who chase her down a tunnel. The air inside is noxious and foul. She soon sees just what is causing the odor. A giant purple blob monster that is being mopped and cleaned by kids, including Dierdre and Alicia.
You see, this monster is King Jellyjam. A foul, putrid smelling monster that sweats snails. It's so rancid that it needs to be constantly cleaned or else it will die. That's what the camp means by "only the best". It needs only the best kids to clean it and those are the kids who won the right to the winners walk. And if they stop washing him, he will eat them, so they can't just escape. Wendy runs out of the building and finds Elliot just about to win his sixth coin. She stops him in time and takes him to King Jellyjam. Once back, she tells the kids to hit the ground, which they do. Because King Jellyjam is to fat to grab them, he begins to panic. However, he does manage to grab Wendy in time and tries to eat her, but he ends up dying before he can do so.
The kids make a run for it but get stopped by Buddy and the counselors. Before they can attack, the police show up. The smell from the camp could be smelled all the way into town and there appeared to be a commotion of some sort. Wendy and Elliot, along with the other kids are soon reunited with their parents.
TWIST ENDING
Wendy and Elliot are back home relaxing when they hear a knock at the door. It's counselor Buddy, now free from the spell of King Jellyjam. He awards Elliot with his sixth King Coin. After he leaves, the kids smell something foul. It's just mom making brussells sprouts.
CONCLUSION
The Horror at Camp Jellyjam is a surprisingly good book. Continuing the trend of great camp-based books in the series. But what makes it feel like such a strong book is that it feels like what you would think Goosebumps would be more of. Strong build on a mystery with a bizarre monster as the antagonist. And we get that in spades with this book. King Jellyjam is one of the best described creatures in the series. A giant purple blob monster that sweats snails and eats children. One that seems to have the power to control the minds of people like the counselors who lead the best kids from their camp to serve for the beast. Of course, there's the issue of how this creature survived long enough without dying from its own stench, but sometimes you don't need everything explained.
Since the last time I did this review I was made aware of the extra origin for King Jellyjam given in the 2009 reprint. Apparently King Jellyjam was just a normal blob of some kid's leftover Jell-O before radiation caused it to turn into a giant monster. Still a weird origin, but it at least is an explanation as to how this thing exists at all. As for the other antagonists, Buddy and the counselors are also great. Particularly Buddy who goes from friendly to a threatening presence in little to no time. Wendy works as a decent protagonist. And I even like the banter with the parents and kids early in the book, giving us a reprieve from Goosebumps Parents syndrome for at least one book. Don't worry, we're back to that next book.
So, not reading the book as a kid, what did I think it was about? Well, given the cover is just some really freaky man, I thought that maybe the book's twist wasn't a monster, but instead that the counselors were cannibals, who want "only the best" as in the best athletes that would taste the best. Of course, that would be too dark for this series, but it was always my thought. Given the actual story, I think I prefer what we got from Stine. I'll say the twist is bad, but still works for a silly stinger to the story. And while scares were minimal, they were still quite effective. So, in the end, this one's in the win column. Doesn't hit on that level that Camp Nightmare did, but is still a really enjoyable book from Goosebumps, especially as we get deeper into the 30s. This book isn't the only best, but definitely one of the best.
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