Camp books have always earned strong praise with me, especially in the original series. But I do recall liking this one the least, which is a shame when you look at that whopper of a cover. It's been a while, but let's get our feet wet with The Curse of Camp Cold Lake.
THE CURSE OF CAMP COLD LAKE
RELEASE MONTH: June, 1997
FRONT TAGLINE: Last one in is a rotten... ghost!
COVER STORY
Holy hell is this easily one of the best covers in all of Goosebumps. And one that did actually scare me when I was younger. Everything works in this one. Another amazing atmosphere with Camp Cold Lake. I love the color of the sunset skies, the trees, the blue-green hue of the lake as the fog fills up, the lone boat in the background. And then there's Della, with her skeletal face and piercing red eyes. While I wasn't crazy over eyes in Say Cheese and Die-Again's cover, they work incredibly here, adding an extra layer of fright. And the ripple effect of the reflection is icing on the cake. Easily in the top ten of best covers.
SINK OR... SINK
Camp is supposed to be fun, but Sarah hates Camp Cold Lake.
The lake is gross and slimy. And she's having a little trouble with her bunkmates. They hate her.
So Sarah comes up with a plan. She'll pretend to drown-then everyone will feel sorry for her.
But things don't go exactly the way Sarah planned. Because down by the cold, dark lake someone is watching her. Stalking her. Someone with pale blue eyes. And a see-through body...
STORY
Sarah Maas is not having a good summer. Made no better when she has to go to Camp Cold Lake with her younger brother Aaron, who is excited to go. Sarah isn't fond of much, be it being called "Grasshopper" by her dad, or, when she arrives in camp, getting a top bunk away from the window, because she wants a bottom bunk by the window so she can see the bugs and stuff outside, to, I guess kill off some of the ennui of this summer. One of her bunk mates, an African-American girl named Brianna, decides to give the baby her bottle. In fact, her first impressions to her bunkmates goes south fast. She's already on bad terms with Brianna, but quickly makes enemies of Jan, a girl with a blond ponytail, and Meg, who Stine refers to as chubby, having "squirrel cheeks" and looking like a bowling ball. Okay, now this has gone from simple whoopsies to holy hell Stine...
Sarah kind of starts to hit it off with the other girls, until she nearly immediately gets herself in big trouble. Be it saying she wouldn't want to look like Meg, or mistaking Jan's backpack for hers and dropping Jan's asthma medication, embarrassing Jan. And let's not forget the bunk incident with Brianna. If it was Sarah's plan to make enemies this summer, she's succeeding at record pace. The girls then prank her by saying that the boys threw fireworks in the campfire, which scares Sarah, while they get a good laugh, so really it seems like Sarah's not the only jerk at camp. Her brother Aaron tries to help, but Sarah tells him to get lost.
We then get introduced to one of the counselors named Liz, who Stine really seems to "get goosebumps" for as he describes her as provocatively as a kids book can, describing her as being in jean shorts with a midriff revealing shirt, and even has the boy campers wolf whistle at her. This would be removed in the 2000s reprint, but yikes. Liz talks a bit about the lake that Camp Cold Lake is named after, and gives rules to the other campers to abide by, particularly two. Don't swim at night, and don't swim without a counselor present. Meanwhile, Briana tries to patch things up with Sarah, just for her to put a snake down Sarah's shirt. Okay, granted, Sarah said some dumb stuff and the backpack incident, but this is just bullying. Though there might be a reason for Brianna to want to get Sarah bit by a snake, but I've said too much already. Although when Aaron tries to help and she tells him to get lost again, I don't really feel bad for Sarah either. Can we just follow Aaron instead? 26 pages in. Still plenty of time.
So, with motivation over the snake incident, Sarah decides to make this worse by throwing spiders at Briana and Meg. So, as retaliation for that, and the asthma thing, which AGAIN was a frigging accident, Jan leaves Sarah stuck in the middle of the lake during canoeing. Like, take aside the backpack/asthma thing, which again was an honest mistake, THEY ATTACKED HER WITH A SNAKE! All the girls have done since Sarah arrived is escalate this more and more by pranking her, instead of actually trying to call a truce and fix the issues and find common ground. Liz earns no points here, none of the three girls are in the moral right.
Well Sarah's had it with Camp Cold Lake. She plans to run away, but instead hatches a somehow stupider idea. What if she pretended to drown in the lake? Maybe seeing her in peril will make the other girls finally stop trying to prank her and they can actually clean slate this. Because there's nothing cooler than guilt tripping others with a fake death attempt. So, she does just that, only for nobody to show up to actually help her. When she finally rises her head out of the water, she sees things look weird. The camp is all covered in a strange fog, it's snowing, and there appears to be no sign of anyone. Sarah then hears singing and finds a girl with pale skin and curly white blonde hair.
The girl introduces herself as Della. She's very interested in having a buddy, and Sarah would be perfect for her. But Sarah then notices that Della's a ghost. She makes a run for it back to the lake as Della follows her. Sarah suddenly wakes up, back at the regular camp, being saved for her drowning act. While she's happy to be alive, the other girls saw through her attempt and are still awful to her, but at this point, who's surprised?
At the campfire that night, Sarah thinks she sees Della sitting on a log, She freaks out, but the other campers don't see any ghost girl. And it's not just at the campfire, Sarah's seeing Della everywhere, always wanting to be her buddy. But, the girls finally decide to cut Sarah some slack and go swimming with her. But suddenly, while swimming, Sarah sees Jan turn into Della, then Counselor Liz's face turn into Della's. This escalates until Della again gets a hold of Sarah and drags her into the water to either be run over by a boat or worse, chopped up by the motor. Sarah survives, but runs off again, while noticing Brianna seems strange.
Sarah tries to run, but soon finds Della, sitting on a tree branch. Della reveals that she died at Camp Cold Lake years ago, but not by drowning. By a snakebite. Suddenly, a snake arrives, just as Della grabs it and prepares to have it bite Sarah.
TWIST ENDING
Brianna shows up and saves Sarah just in time. She then reveals that she was killed by Della last year, but didn't accept her as a buddy. She stayed at the camp, ensuring that Della couldn't strike again. This infuriates Della who disappears. Sarah breathes a sigh of relief, until Brianna grabs the snake and tells her that she really needs a buddy.
CONCLUSION
My feelings on this book are about the same. It's probably the least fun camp book so far, which is such a shame. Sarah's a weird protagonist. You feel bad for her, but her terrible attitude towards others, even her brother who actually cares about her, makes her hard to root for. And then there's the trio of girls who aren't very likable in their own right for just how much worse they make things for Sarah. Again, the whole incident over the bunk and the spiders aside, escalating worse things on Sarah over a dumb comment and accidentally taking the wrong backpack. That really didn't seem worth going after her as hard as they did. Though, with the snake at least, that makes some sense if you consider Brianna at the end. But yeah, an innocuous comment about shape and the revelation of a puffer doesn't seem like grounds for a poisonous snakebite.
The scares are decent though and do keep the book from being bad. Della works as a villain. Constantly stalking Sarah, making her paranoid, making her see Della everywhere. And the bit involving Sarah nearly being killed by a boat is actually tense and delivers in the scares department. Climax works well too for tension and the twist at the end does feel foreboding. So, despite weak characters and annoying motivations, the book isn't a total flop. But it is definitely the weakest camp book of the original series, lacking in the energy that made those books more fun and creepy. In the running for worst book ever? Nah, but it could have fixed itself up a bit, made it feel less like a slog to get through and had more fun with its premise and it wouldn't leave me with such a cold reception. Sick cover though.
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