It's interesting. Fear Street and Ghosts of Fear Street feel so much more different than I expected. The main Fear Street, at least to the majority that I've covered so far, ground themselves in reality, even with evil twins and hypnotist creeps and such, while Ghosts gives me more of kind of what I was hoping with the main series. More of the bizarre and strange. And I can say there's few titles strangers than this one. It's always been one I've been at least curious about, but now we can check on just why you Don't Ever Get Sick at Granny's.
STORY
Corey's family is dragging him to the middle of Pennsylvania for her sister Meg to get enrolled in ballet school. While the three of them get to stay in a hotel with a pool, Corey's staying with his Granny Marsha. But, despite getting presents all the time from her, and even being at her place the previous year, Corey has no memory at all of a Granny Marsha. He also says he's feeling feverish, leaving his dad to warn him to [[TITLE OF THE BOOK]]. They arrive and we see that Granny Marsha looks normal, but wears high top sneakers, meaning that Tim Jacobus would just adore her. But despite still having no memory of her, Corey does eventually settles down. The parents and Meg leave with Corey being given an emergency number.
Granny Marsha's place is actually not that bad. She has a full entertainment center, a pool table, practically anything Corey could ever ask for. But she begins to question if Corey's feeling sick. She'll have to "take care of him" if he is. Corey tries to deny it, but he suddenly sneezes. He claims that it's anything but being sick, but Granny Marsha says she'll be watching him just to be sure. Things keep going well until lunch when he starts to look pale. He manages to run to the bathroom to fix his face, but he makes it look even more sickly. He's shown his bedroom when suddenly he makes a sniffling sound.
Granny Marsha shoves a thermometer in Corey's mouth and sure enough, he has a fever of 102. Corey tries to say he's fine, but Granny Marsha covers him in wool blankets to sweat it out. One problem: Corey's allergic to wool, so it's going to make him look even sicker. She covers him up with ten blankets and leaves the room, leaving him trapped underneath. She eventually returns and has him drink about a gallon of water. And with that, he has to urinate badly. But before he can go (to the bathroom that is), Granny Marsha makes him drink a gallon of orange juice. Reader beware, you're in for kidney failure!
Corey drinks the juice and is allowed into the bathroom where he thankfully makes it in time. Finally realizing that Granny Marsha's crazy, he decides he needs to call that emergency number. Problem is it's downstairs on the fridge. So getting past Granny Marsha to get it is going to be a problem. And that problem escalates when she has him exercise on "The Monster Machine", a bizarre treadmill/torture chamber. It goes fine at first, but of course, she continues to raise the speed higher and higher, making it harder for Corey to keep up. After she disappears again, Corey tries to escape to the kitchen, but is locked inside. And the windows are barred, so he's double screwed.
Granny Marsha arrives again and now thinks that maybe he's lying to her about not wanting to be better. So now she's being even more threatening. She puts him back on the treadmill, but when he looks weak, she decides it's time for him to rub some kind of lotion on his belly. She won't say what's in it, and she's wearing protective gloves, but she makes Corey rub it on regardless. She sends him to bed where suddenly fur starts to grow on him. I swear, if the twist is that he's a dog...
Also his body is starting to balloon up. This is the most Deviantart book I've read so far. After patting his stomach, it manages to make the fur and the swelling go away. Okay then. Corey makes his exit and heads to the kitchen. Unfortunately for him, the phone number is gone. But he finds it under the table, crumpled up, as if intentionally thrown away. He sneaks into Granny Marsha's room and uses the phone, but learns that his family never arrived at the hotel. His ailments have all vanished too, making him think that maybe he hallucinated. But weirder is he's hearing his name being called from inside the walls. He breaks through the drywall and finds his sister Meg, who ditched her chance at ballet school to save him. Turns out she knew about Granny Marsha's... erm... quirks. Something to do with being an army doctor and something bad happened, but that's all we get for right now.
So, now both Corey and Meg have to escape. They crawl through a tunnel, only to end up crawling on mice. But they plow through and exit... in Granny Marsha's room. So that was a bust. Granny Marsha arrives, now forcing both kids to drink fluids, but they try to make a run for it. She grabs Meg, so Corey throws water at Granny Marsha, thinking she's a wicked witch like in Wizard of Oz. But when he throws the water, she actually melts, turning into a hissing glob of goo. But when she finally dies, the house starts to heat up and melt. All seems lost...
Until Corey wakes up in his room with his family. Turns out that, yes, this was all a dream. He asks about Granny Marsha, but his dad is confused as there is no Granny Marsha in their family. But they suddenly disappear and Granny Marsha shows up again. Then suddenly everything disappears.
TWIST ENDING
Corey wakes up to his family, who wonder... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I WAS JOKING, I DIDN'T ACTUALLY THINK... wonder what dogs dream about.
CONCLUSION
Ghostwriter this time is Jahnna N. Malcolm, the writing duo of Jahna Beecham and Malcolm Hillgartner. They're a bit more prolific than most of our other ghostwriters, writing a book series called The Jewel Kingdom, along with some Clue books and many other works. And I mean, what is offered isn't bad, but it's also not good. This might be my least favorite Ghosts of Fear Street book ever. Another example of not to judge the book by its cover. And yes, it's mostly because of the twist. But mostly for how nonsensical in its writing it is to get to that twist. Aside from Corey growing fur, there's no other link to have him be a dog. Why would he dream he's a human? How would he know what a hotel is, let alone a famous chain? How does the dog know what ballet is, or a thermometer? HOW DOES A DOG KNOW WHAT THE WIZARD OF OZ IS? Not just the water part, but the whole Over the Rainbow reference later and everything. Like, My Hairiest Adventure at least sprinkled bits and pieces to the story that makes it make more sense that maybe these kids really are dogs turned into humans. This gave us nothing. The-the belly rub, was that it?
And other than that, the book's kind of uncomfortable, like giving off a very torture porn style story with how Corey suffers more and more. It's not a deterrent, that's kind of the point. And there's definitely an audience for that kind of writing, which is why I'm not as hard against it, but it also is still 100+ pages of a child, or supposed child, suffering. And the book really feels like it falls apart once Meg is brought back. The book kind of builds on some idea of Granny Marsha going insane from some medical experiment gone wrong during her time in the army, then scraps that idea to turn her into a water-weary witch. And when it has a strong enough twist to just have it be like a false dream and Granny Marsha returns, you could have ended it there. It's dark enough to leave you feeling frightened. But... like... I never imagined I'd have to do "they were dogs all along" again. So, I guess for a twist, it... works a little? I don't know. I just know this book was not for me. Don't Ever Get Sick at Granny's gets a C.
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