Hello, Spongey here.

Our last few monthly Stine reviews have been either been of other works by him, or things with the Goosebumps name on it that didn’t quite involve him. So I think it’s time to return to a mainline Goosebumps entry, and we’re back with Series 2000 with this one. Don’t worry, this one is better.

When I thought of finally doing more Series 2000 stuff, this was one of the ones I wanted to cover. It would have been the one I came back with if Revenge R Us didn’t rear its ugly head. So I figured this is the one we’d do for the month. I don’t wanna say too much since I want ya’ll (who haven’t read it or don’t know much of it anyway) to go in somewhat blind.

I won’t say too much about my feelings since we’ll explore that as we go along. There’s also no interesting history, so I guess we can jump in. What will we be in store for with this one? How does it compare to the other Series 2000 stuff we’ve covered so far? Let’s see.

This, is I Am Your Evil Twin

This cover is great. Granted, the mirror thing would make more sense if this was Let’s Get Invisible but I like how this was done instead of the more standard split screen effect. Outside of the hair color being wrong, as you’ll see, I don’t have much to complain about here. Very striking.

The book starts with our protagonist Monty Adams arriving at the home of Uncle Leo. His mom of course is about to go off to parts unknown for a year, thus the need for her child to stay here. Well, technically she’s going to the jungles of Borneo to study orangutans. But yeah, standard set up here.

Less standard is that Monty’s father died a month before he was born, but don’t worry, he has red hair to make up for it. And Uncle Leo is a scientist! Because of course he is. At the moment, Monty is just making a quick visit and Mom won’t leave for her thing for a while, but this bit is still here to build up suspense for later.

That night, Monty is woken by a sound and sees a man with a scalpel! Oh wait, that was all a dream. Oh Stine, you and your fakeouts. The small visit ends the next day and we cut to a few months later where Monty comes over to Leo’s to stay for the full year. Here we meet his cousin Nan, who was off at music camp during that opening visit.

Unlike almost all the other cousins in this series, they actually get along very well. That’s rather nice to see. As a welcome present, Leo gives him this pin that he accidentally stabs Monty with. Then he gives him donuts which turn out to have peanut oil, which Monty is allergic to.

“First I stab you, than I poison you! What a beginning”

Oh, I’m sure nothing weird is up with you at all. But he, at least we got the obligatory Series 2000 violence out of the way, not to mention the vomit. That was an odd trend in the earlier ones.

Monty goes to find the bathroom and comes across a strange door. Before he can open it, Leo stops him and says that it is his lab, and Monty is not allowed there. Clearly he’s making evil plants in here. …Wait…It’s not in the basement so that clearly isn’t the case.

After more mysterious teasing, Monty starts his first day at Taft Middle School, and meets his teacher Mrs. Eckstat. He asks where he should sit, but she claims he should know because they talked a week ago. Okay, it’s safe to assume this is the work of an evil twin, but from what he hear all he did was meet with the staff. No mention of him being rude or bad. What kind of evil twin is this?!

After yet more foreshadowing involving Leo, it’s back to school as things are getting better with him getting more well liked. Plus, there’s a girl named Ashley that he likes that he hits it off with. And if it weren’t for something coming up, he would have lucked out with her, which is awesome in this world of straw loser heroes.

Sadly, that has to go south as she accidentally causes him to spill some paint while they’re working some project, and they are forced to stay behind after school to clean it all up, so she’s miffed at him. Well, that lasted about 5 seconds.

They do a bit of cleaning and go onto to their next class. But when Monty comes in after class, the messy room is now even worse, and Ashley thinks he did it. She even goes as far as to say she clearly saw him do it all on purpose, when he knows he wasn’t there to do it. Clearly that means the dummy is alive!

Wait…there’s too many books that amount to this kind of shitck. Anyway, Monty goes to the Principal, Mrs. William’s, who scolds Monty, as she comments that she told him this morning that his smart mouth will get him into trouble. Okay, at least that evil twin is actually taking advantage of being an evil twin now.

He goes back to the room to clean things up, then sees his reflection. Except his “reflection” suddenly stops imitating his movements, dun dun dun. A teacher overseeing him scolds him for stopping his work, so the evil reflection will have to wait.

On his way home, he bumps into two boys from school who are pissed that their art project was a victim of Evil Monty’s art sabotage. Great, even this book has pointless bullies in it who do not show up after this. At least it’s brief and is a more violent way of showing the effects of the evil twin’s antics. Also, it causes more blood, lovely.

The next day at school, Monty spots himself staring back at him through an open window. After a failed attempt to chase after him, he is especially embarrassed and needs to take care of this twin who is giving him a bad name. Monty figures he must have a twin that neither Mom or Leo told him about, and the twin happens to be a huge prick.

Oh please, that’s silly, I mean for one, ho-

“Tell me the truth. Do I have a twin?”

“How did you find out?”

First off, way to not save face buddy. Second,damn, what are the odds?

It was established earlier that Monty’s father died two months before he was born, and Leo goes further into that. She was just a student in college at the time and was very poor, only having a tiny campus apartment. When she had two children, she was happy but she knew there was no way she could support two kids.

So she had no choice but to send one way and Monty got lucky by being slightly born first. Okay, first off: struggling college women has to give away one of her kids? So much for “no real issues”, eh Jovial Bob? Second, damn, this is huge. Too bad he got unlucky and got an evil twin.

“No, no. Your twin isn’t a boy, Montgomery. Nan is your twin!”

….Huh, what a twist. That’s right, it turns out that his “cousin” that happened to look quite like him, is actually his twin sister. “What the hell soap opera am I watching” aside, I love that all these evil twin antics are happening when he happens to have this as part of a backstory.

It’s almost as weird a coincidence as the fact that Leo’s wife/Nan’s “mother” had died a bit after she was born, so Monty and her had bonded over that in the past. Nan was given to Leo and the rest was history. They planned to tell Monty when he turned 13 but that clearly went out the window, along with the evil twin.

Nan pops over a minute later and everything is explained to her. Nan and Monty then have a surprisingly genuine and nice conversation about the whole thing, where they bond further. She even recounts a story from when they were 7, and they both happened to take a part of a kid named Evan Seymour’s train set. It’s cuter than it sounds.

“I never liked Evan”

…I get the feeling Stine doesn’t like that name. Jokes aside, this scene is genuinely really sweet scene and certainly not something I expected in a Goosebumps book. I love it.

Sadly, someone has to be a party pooper so a bit later Monty gets one in the form of a threatening phone call from his evil twin saying things are going to get tougher soon, dun dun dun. Wait, where is he calling from?

The following Friday, Nan and Monty are about to do their piano recital thing in the auditorium. Monty leaves to find something, but when he looks in a supply closet, someone locks him in. Some toxic fumes start leaking out of a thing but he’s able to just barely escape before he chokes to death. But don’t worry, he discovers that his double has kindly taken his place in the recital!

Monty doesn’t appreciate this nice gesture though, as he gets the jump on the other Monty. Monty 2 gets away, but not before giving us the back blurb, I mean declaring that he’s gonna take over Monty’s life. Monty stealthy follows him, and catches him going into the window of Leo’s house.

Nan shows up and is pissed that Monty seemingly got weird, because I guess things were framed in a way where she didn’t see both Monty’s on stage? At one point there, Monty 2 tried to hurt Monty by pushing a piano (geez, I thought piano LESSONS were murder) and I guess Monty was backstage during that. That kind of tracks but it wasn’t made clear at the time.

Nan naturally doesn’t believe his story about an evil twin, but since she just had one twin shock this week, she figures maybe she can fit in another into her schedule. They are about to go into Leo’s lab to see if they can anything useful, when they discover a conveniently placed paper by him about “the future of cloning”. Monty of course thinks this means the evil Monty is a clone.

He goes on to say it was quite interesting that this twin appeared just a few days after Leo pricked him with that pin, and believes that he used the resulting small blood as a DNA sample. Hey, a small, seemingly unimportant bit, came into play later. That’s nice.

They head into the lab and they are proven right as not only is Evil Monty there, but there’s also a few more. Great, that’ll be fun to keep track of for the rest of this recap. Also, Leo is there too.

“Why did you do this to Monty”

“I am a scientist”

Oh okay then, that totally justifies it. (I love that line so much)

The clones get into a fight with the twins, which results in them getting thrown into a supply closet. Here, they meet…another Leo! Yep, turns it that the Leo they just met is a clone. The real Leo explains that several months ago, he cloned himself for an experiment and tried to explain to Clone Leo that he needed to stay hidden.

But whoops, the clone was evil and did not listen, and ended up creating evil Monties. It then hits Monty that this explains his odd dream about the scalpel man, as it wasn’t a dream, it was actually Evil Leo getting more DNA stuff. Wait, so that actually wasn’t a standard fake out?

So an important creepy event was shown to us, but I brushed it off as it was presented as a standard fake out chapter ending that this series loves? …Did Goosebumps just use its fomrula against example? Damn, that’s amazing, kudos to whatever ghostwriter clearly did that one. Okay, that’s mean, lol.

Anyway, Leo also tells us that each clone has a tiny blue dot on their thumb to help tell them apart. The clones pop up and force Monty out of the closet (no comment), promptly stamping a blue dot on him so that people won’t tell him apart from the clones. I’m not sure if I should praise this since the villains are being smart or criticize this for basically making that plot point pointless. Hmm..

While this struggle is going on, Nan slips away to get help and thankfully the clones aren’t able to capture her before she can do this. They figure no adult will believe her, since this is Goosebumps after all, and just leave things alone while Clone Leo takes a nap.

The clones use this time to inform Monty that the clones don’t feel pain, and it is one of the reasons they have a huge superiority complex. There’s something about their whole superiority thing I find funny for some reason. And there’s something about the way the main Clone Monty from earlier tells Monty that he’s “Nothing” that I find creepy for some reason.

A few hours later, Monty makes a failed escape attempt but thankfully Nan has the best timing ever and shows up, with the extra help of two of Leo’s college friends. I’d comment on the weirdly convenient way this happened but we’re in the home stretch of this.

Anyway, they’re setting up a special lab in South America and they are hauling the clones into trucks to take them there. Makes ya wonder what they plan to even do with them but that’s none of my business. But whoops, Monty has the blue dot still so Nan can’t tell if this Monty is the real one.

Before get too deep into the basic shtick, that main Clone Monty tries to convince Nan with info no copy would possibly know. It turns out he overheard that sweet scene from earlier as he tells her that train story and this manages to convince her, and reject our Monty. Ouch, that’s what that nice scene was leading to? Harsh, but effective.

With that, Monty and the Monties (sounds like a band) are put into the truck and it leaves. The end! Just kidding, that’s surprisingly not the end. Mostly because we’re on page 108 and only Horrors of the Black Ring is that short. We’ve got like 20 or so left instead.

There’s a hatch at the top of the back of this truck, but Monty can’t reach it without a little help, so he hatches a plan. He rallies the clones, telling them it’s unfair that the “dumb original” is back there living their lives, as they are clones and they are superior. With that, he’s able to get them help get out of here.

And with that smart move, Monty has secured himself as one of my favorite protagonists.

They make a human ladder but before he can get out, Monty pricks himself and goes “ow!”, thus revealing he can feel pain. Whoops. Nice payoff but why didn’t you use that to convince Nan you were real?!

But don’t worry, he’s able to get the clones to fight over what their new name should be, since they hate his current name. Sure, why not. Side note, I love how Clone Leo acts like a father who is really ashamed of his stupid children.

Some guards show up to break up the fight, and Monty is able to slip away. After a long walk, he makes it back in time to see Clone Monty enjoying breakfast that should totally be his. As for what happens in the next chapter…uh…well..

“Was that the doorbell?” I asked.

“I didn’t hear anything, Nan” Monty replied.

You may not be able to catch on from the excerpt but uh…we switch to Nan’s first person perspective. Without any warning and just randomly, for these last couple chapters. Why? Well, there is a dumb reason that will be apparent in a bit. But uh…this is really weird. I like the idea of having another POV, but the way it’s done is just clunky.

On the bright side, it’s cute that Nan still calls Leo “Dad”.

Her breakfast with Monty is interrupted by another Monty showing up at the door. The two Monties start fighting and well, we’ve got a problem. Of course, we know who is the real one so that kind of ruins any tension here.

Nan has an idea, thankfully. She brings out those peanut oil donuts from earlier and has the Monties eat them, since hey, the real Monty will likely have that allergy and not the perfect clone. Fair enough logic, and I love the setup and pay off here. But again, are we just forgetting the pain thing? (You can argue she wasn’t there when this was discovered but by that logic she has no reason to think the clones aren’t allergic too)

One Monty does indeed throw up, so the non-barfing Monty is hauled away for good, although he still goes on about how he’s the real one. That night, they are watching a movie when Monty reveals our totally not obvious twist:

“I switched the doughnuts before you woke up. I bought baked donuts instead of fried, so there was no peanut oil in them….I faked it, I’ve been practicing for weeks!”

Yep, this is a clone and the real Monty is off to South America. Also, I know the clones are smart but jesus, that is forced. Actually, they can’t be too smart because now that they know the truth, they can track down the truck and rescue him. Way to go.

“How could you do that to poor Monty?”

“Nan, I’m your evil twin!”

Roll cr-wait, this is actually the final line. So damn, they actually did roll the credits. Or the About the Author page, whatever. But yep, that’s the end. Yikes, what a downfall at the end there. But anyway…

Final Thoughts:

Man, this was so close to being one of my all time favorites. In some ways, it still is. It does borrow some concepts, especially from Stay Out of the Basement but the ideas that defined that book are more of a side element here and it manages to stand on its own.

The pacing can be a bit wonky, as we wait a bit to get to the full on clone mayhem and there’s a bit too much mysterious teasing at the start. But the solid qualities going on here make up for it. Monty is a strong protagonist who is mostly smart, resourceful and likable. The clones work as antagonists who are fun and sometimes smart, although a bit too much so in places.

Unlike a lot of entries, this book uses setup and payoff pretty well. Barely any information is wasted here, which is very refreshing. And then have that mid book twist that leads to one of the most genuine scenes I’ve read in this series. I would say it doesn’t add a ton to the story and honestly feels like a bit of a late addition but it does add dimension to the characters that makes them at least slightly less hollow than usual.

A few bumps aside, this book was really strong and especially towards the end was shaping up to be a favorite. But then the ending had to ruin all that. Conceptually, it’s not the worst, as basic as it is, it is really that execution that kills it. An important thing they setup is sort of forgotten even though it would be an easy way out of this, and we randomly mess with the conventions of the series by switching POV just to make that twist work.

It’s just so forced and it makes what already would have been an average twist worse. We’ve had twists ruin the story before, but not a story that this solid beforehand. That means I’m more forgiving since the book is good otherwise but I am a bit more pissed for that same reason.

But yeah, for the most part this is one of the stronger ones due to some solid story writing, a good protagonist, unexpectedly nice moments, and how they milk some fun stuff out of familiar ideas. It is brought down by a weak twist made worse by sloppy execution. The good stuff is good enough for it not turn down my rating a ton, but it’s still a pretty sour ending to an otherwise pretty strong Goosebumps book.

Rating: Very Good

Feels nice to finally give that one of these since properly starting these, even if the ending sucked. The only thing that sucks worse is the fact the book directly after this one was…Revenge R Us, Yikes, that’s a bigger downgrade than going from How I Learned to Fly to Chicken Chicken.

Anyway, covering Goosebumps stories is fun but just getting one “long” per book gets old. I wish we had, I don’t know, like 10 short ones instead. If only there was a Goosebumps side series that filled that niche that I haven’t covered any of yet. Oh, if only…

See ya.

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