The Reader is the main protagonist of the Give Yourself Goosebumps series, being the only character to appear in every book in the series. The reader is you, as the series is written in second person due to the series being a gamebook/choose-your-own-adventure series.
Biography[]
General[]
The reader’s backstory varies per book, but one thing in common throughout all the Give Yourself Goosebumps series is that they usually have friends or family that accompany them throughout their adventures, their main goal is to survive the adventures and achieve their goals with nothing wrong happening to them, and they are a self-proclaimed Goosebumps expert, having knowledge of every Goosebumps book.
Book-Exclusive Traits/Biographies[]
| Book | Friends/Family | Story | Goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Escape from the Carnival of Horrors | Patty and Brad (Friends) | The reader is bored with the same old corny carnival that comes to town every summer, but one day, a new, shiny carnival comes to town - and the reader and their friends, Patty and Brad, have it all to themselves after climbing the fence to get in! However, it’s not what it looks like, as they have to escape the carnival before midnight through the rides or midway or they’ll be trapped forever… | Escape the carnival before midnight. |
| Tick Tock, You’re Dead! | Unnamed Parents
Denny (Younger brother) |
The reader’s family goes to vacation to New York - and since the reader’s parents are history buffs, you are forced to visit the Museum of Natural History with your annoying younger brother, Denny. | Save Denny before he disappears into timelessness. |
Characteristics[]
Appearance[]
Human Form[]
The reader takes on the reader of the book’s appearance in real life in their human form.
Other Forms[]
The reader usually takes on other forms (both animate and inanimate) in the series due to transformations/discovering their true identity. These alternate forms do mostly retain physical characteristics of the reader’s human form. These forms include:
- Trapped in Bat Wing Hall: Vampire bat, monster, werewolf
- The Deadly Experiments of Dr, Eeek: German Shephard, dog/human/basketball hybrid
- The Curse of the Creeping Coffin
- Diary of a Mad Mummy: Mummy
- Deep in the Jungle of Doom: Abominable Fish Monster
- Scream of the Evil Genie: Painting
- The Creepy Creations of Professor Shock: Stone carving, cyborg, robot
- Please Don’t Feed the Vampire: Vampire, dog
- Secret Agent Grandma: Alien
- Little Comic Shop of Horrors: Super Duper, Ballistic Bug, King Jellyjam
- Attack of the Beastly Babysitter: Vampire, Frog, Rat/human hybrid
- Escape from Camp Run-For-Your-Life: Zombie
- Toy Terror: Batteries Included: Living Doll
- The Twisted Tale of Tiki Island: Octopus
- Return to the Carnival of Horrors: Robot, skeleton
- Lost in Stinkeye Swamp: Monkey
- Night of a Thousand Claws: Dog/human hybrid
- It’s Only a Nightmare: Bat, dragon, robot, french fry, plate of food, salamander
- It Came From the Internet: Web crawler
- Hocus-Pocus Horror: A green, furry, demented monster
- Ship of ghouls: Mutant shrimp/human hybrid
- Escape from Horror House: Poltergeist
- Into the Twister of Terror: Sentient tornado
- Zombie School: Ranewash Zombie
Personality[]
The reader takes on the reader of the book’s personality in real life. Most of the time, they are shown to have heroic intentions as they are the protagonist, but in some books, they are shown to be able to commit acts of evil as well.
In some books like All-Day Nightmare, the reader’s identity and personality can be permanently erased and replaced, such as the ending in where the memories and personality of an infamous bank robber take over your body.
Gallery[]
Human Form[]
.jpg "Attack of the Beastly Babysitter (Full Art).jpg (539 KB)")
Non Human-Forms[]
.jpg "Trapped in Bat Wing Hall (Full Art).jpg (700 KB)")
.jpg "Deep in the Jugle of Doom (Cover).jpg (322 KB)")
.jpg "The Twisted Tale of Tiki Island (Full Art).jpg (1.28 MB)")
Trivia[]
- The reader’s age, birthday, and gender are often left ambiguous to accomodate the reader of the book in real life, but in some books, the reader is implied or explicitly stated to have a fixed age, birthday, or gender.
- Beware of the Purple Peanut Butter and Scary Birthday to You explicitly state the reader is 12 years old.
- In Scary Birthday to You, the reader’s birthdate is implied to be September 6, 1987 due to the fact that the book takes place during 1999 and the day after the reader’s birthday is the first day of school.
- In several books, the reader is explicitly stated to be male as they are referred to he/him pronouns, possibly because most books in the series were written in a male perspective in mind.