It's time to HANG ON FOR DEAR LIFE as we enter yet another book series for the blog. Now if you want to be super duper ultra mega anal about this one, technically it's not a GB-like in the normal sense. It's not a book series focused around supernatural horror like most. This one is instead focused more on thrills and suspense, putting characters in real life danger and having them try to survive. So I'll count them here on a technicality. The series was written by Eric Weiner who I just know must have went through hell as a kid. He did a few different books, some standalone stuff, but notably did works for book series like Clue and Ghost Writer and a whole bunch of Dora the Explorer books apparently.
So let's see how Eric was able to translate a suspenseful thriller into a kids book. And if you got a fear of heights then maybe our book du jour will work this time around. Whatever you do, Don't Look Down!
So while you could play semantics on if these count as Goosebumps-like, then the covers don't help the argument much. They're some CA-RAY-ZAY warped perspectives. And while this one is pretty tame (though Denise's body looks so alien from this angle), trust me, there are some other ones that go wackier. And if you want to sell that these kids are way up on the thirteenth floor, that shot of the ground below will sell you on that. So it's a weird cover that does the trick for the most part...
Denise Alexander is in a state of constant paranoia on account of her six year old brother Charlie. They live in a large skyscraper apartment building, and well, she's just worried about him taking a tumble out the window anyway, or that a guy named Bobby on the 13th floor fills his head with stories of pigeons on the moon. But the important point is that Denise is very concerned about her brother's safety, especially after a year ago at the nearby park where he fell off the jungle gym face first. Oh, don't worry, the ground was rubber padded so he didn't just shatter his skull on concrete, but it's enough to turn Denise into a helicopter parent, which makes sense given their parents are always busy.
As they cross the street, Charlie notices a green coupon that he thinks is money just as an ambulance speeds towards him. Denise yanks him out of the way in time, but yeah, maybe she has a point about being so paranoid. The reason for the speedy ambulance is revealed shortly after as Denise and Charlie see a crowd of people watching as a man is about to jump from a fourteen-story building. And then he JUMP-oh, wait, his jacket fell off. But before we find out if he DID jump, Denise drags Charlie away from witnessing death at the tender age of six. They arrive at their apartment building, the Westholme where they talk to the doorman Fernando and an old woman named Mrs. Carmen, as well as a moving truck that's being loaded with furniture. Mrs. Carmen and Fernando are aware of Mr. Slocum, the attempted jumper, who is doing so because his wife left him and took their three kids. Well this got depressing. I mean, I guess it did since we're three chapters deep and there's attempted suicide but yeah, damn. Sorry bro.
But divorced dads on their last straw isn't a concern for Charlie, he just really wants to see if he'll jump, but Denise drags them inside their apartment, to which Charlie climbs out the window and jumps to his death-No, wait, they live on the first floor so he just dropped down three feet. Also the chapter of Charlie falling was like one paragraph and one page. Turns out the titles of the series might not be ironic. After talking with their mom on the phone (she's a failing actress who can't get any notable role), they go to Apartment 1-A to take care of Fluffy, the cat of Ms. Orson. But as Denise goes inside, someone follows behind her and points a GUN AT HER-oh, wait, it's Bobby Lawrence, the kid we learned about earlier who mentioned the pigeons on the moon. And he just finger gunned her, not using an actual gun, which given Denise mentions there actually was a robbery in the building before, kind of a screwed up joke.
Bobby is described by Denise as rich and twelve and fat... and white I'm guessing. Notably that he looks like a huge serving of mashed potatoes which if that's not the most workaround way to just call him a fat cracker then I don't know what is. Bobby lives on the 13th floor and his parents are both movie producers, which means they're in Hollywood a lot more than New York on most occasions. Bobby is also a prankster and a thief, which explains how he got in Ms. Orson's place before Denise. We learn that Ms. Orson wants to be an opera singer and is friends with Denise and Charlie's mom. As Denise and Bobby argue which is followed by Bobby play-wrestling with Charlie, Fluffy the cat suddenly darts out of the apartment and conveniently into the elevator that's going up. I know the elevator was called but the visual of the cat managing to hit the buttons is too silly not to imagine.
The cat ends up at the sixth floor just as Bobby makes his leave. Denise and Charlie go to use the service elevator, but get accosted by a mover named Pete who doesn't want them screwing with the elevator, or all the conveniently placed furniture inside said service elevator. The elevator returns to the first floor, but no Fluffy. Instead is a failed writer named Mr. Loomis and his wolfhound Boris, who Denise immediately thinks must have eaten Fluffy. I mean if he did this would be a quick book. The kids take the walk up the stairs to the sixth floor to get Fluffy. Denise mistakes painters for robbers given that disguising themselves as painters was how the robbers got in. They find Fluffy atop a large bookshelf which Denise climbs up to, but then freezes up because she's afraid of heights. She grabs Fluffy and is helped down, just as Bobby shows up and takes the elevator from them. Also since he was eating a tuna bagel, Fluffy got on the elevator as well, so up to the thirteenth floor goes the cat and up the stairs goes Denise and Charlie. So many flights of stairs you'd think it was Ghostbusters on the NES.
They arrive at the thirteenth floor and find Bobby who has Fluffy in his apartment, along with an open window. When Denise looks outside, she sees Fluffy splattered on the ground below, dead. Actually, it's just a white bath mat smeared in ketchup that Bobby used to prank Denise because he's sick in the head. Even Denise worries about it. Anyone who treats animals so poorly might end up a serial killer or R.L. Stine. Bobby has the real Fluffy in a closet, but after letting the cat out, it sees a pigeon on the windowsill and leaps at it, tearing it apart in a manner so gruesome that a serial killer or R.L. Stine would really enjoy it. But now the cat is stuck on the ledge with no way out, and while Bobby offers to go get her, Denise decides that the cat's her responsibility so she has to go out and get her, even though she was a fear of heights and all.
With Bobby holding her legs, Denise leans out the window and tries to grab Fluffy. The cat almost falls but survives. Then Bobby jokes about sending Denise falling which even pisses Charlie off. And when you've lost the six year old, maybe you kind of really suck. With Fluffy stuck, they try to call the fire department to help. But there's just this itty bitty problem involving a guy planning to jump to his death, so cats on ledges are a lesser priority. Maybe six years olds would be because as Denise is on the phone, Charlie jumps to the ledge to grab the cat. He almost falls, but not really because it's another cliffhanger in the book called cliffhangers. But with a makeshift rope from bedsheets, Denise heads back out to the ledge to save her brother.
Denise manages to grab Charlie, but the sheet rope untangles and they almost fall, but grab on to a nearby cable TV wire belonging to Mrs. Carmen. They eventually manage to rescue Fluffy who made it to the fire escape and it's all wrapped up in a neat little package. Only we have some pages left so we don't. So remember the whole robbers thing, how they disguised themselves as painters? Well, turns out they were disguised as the movers this whole time. One of the robbers named Ray puts Denise in a headlock before she can make a run for it, but Bobby, Charlie and Fluffy manage to subdue Ray as they all rush out. But instead of going downstairs, they take the emergency stairs to the fourteenth floor. Why? Because there's 20 pages left that's why.
The kids make it to the roof of the building and jump over to the other nearby roofs, including the one where Mr. Slocum is still about to jump. Denise starts to slip and almost falls, but everyone including Mr. Slocum manage to save her. The nearby cops grab Ray and it's all finally ov-oh right, Denise has a fear of heights and falls off the roof to the ground below. Also, we literally have a chapter with the word "Bam" and like forty exclamation points. This book is either the dumbest book ever or secretly brilliant. The cops arrest the movers, but it turns out they had a woman on the inside the whole time. Mrs. Carmen. She is usually seated outside the building, and the book mentions how she can't pay the rent yet has a bunch of expensive furniture and like cable and stuff. All these add up just enough that it dawns on Denise that Mrs. Carmen's a crook. So Mrs. Carmen ends up arrested as well. The kids return to Bobby's apartment and Bobby says that Fluffy jumped out, but she didn't really. Because even after this whole harrowing affair, Bobby still sucks.
This book's intent is to sell itself as an action adventure disguised as a novel for kids. And I actually kind of like what it tries. We get a lot of chapters that are super quick and focused more on one big cliffhanger to the next, then we get ones that are like maybe a paragraph or in some cases just one word filling up a whole page. So in terms of feeling different than others like it, it does the trick. And the story itself is fine. We get enough time for the characters and plenty more time putting them in wild scenarios that do make you want to read on to see what's next. So if that was the book's intent, mission accomplished. I even don't mind the added mystery beats of the jumper and the robbers. And even doing a decent enough twist with Mrs. Carmen that does kind of work with her being so in the background yet believably part of this attempted robbery ring.
Denise is a decent protagonist. You can understand her frustration with Bobby, and her need to protect Charlie while also having her fear of heights which plays well into the story. I also like that it's not totally conquered either as the last bit of the book notes how she watches the elevator numbers go down and and is anticipating going down to the first floor. Charlie's one of the better younger sibling protagonists. Less of a brat, but still just bratty enough for a six year old. Bobby sucks, and doesn't really learn his lesson from being such a "bad timing" type jokester. To the point that yeah, maybe Denise is right to think he might end up messed up in his later years given his kind of sociopathic behavior. Most of the other characters aside from Mrs. Carmen and Mr. Slocum the jumper kind of exist or are here to be extra robbers.
So ultimately this book is fine. Nothing that will stand out as an underrated classic or anything, but it does a fine enough job in selling itself as a thriller for kids. Though granted I'd have wanted to see this more in motion than just read about it. Gives that feeling of reading the novelization of an action movie. Cool bits, but your imagination won't match what the movie offers. And I'll still say these count as GB-likes. They still feel like goofy kids horror trying to crib from Stine, but still smartly uses the thriller concept to stand out. Five other books in this series to see if that keeps up, but so far so decent. Though maybe using attempted suicide as a plot device might be tacky to some people. Could have been worse. He could have done a flip. Don't Look Down! gets a B.
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