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| This scene would be a lot better if the hand wasn't cartoonishly three-fingered. Or if this actually happened in the book. |
Matt wants things to change. He hates his brother and sister. He hates their dog. But most of all he hates his tiny bedroom. If only Mum would let him move to the guest room...
Then Matt makes up his mind. He sneaks into the guest room. Late one night, When everyone else is asleep.
Poor Matt. He really shouldn't have done that. Because now his life is going to change. But not for the better...
A Brief Tangent on Parallel Universe Stories
Most of you probably don't care, but I like this subgenre of sci-fi, and therefore I need to explain why this book's version of it doesn't work. The key is primarily in the setting. The new universe must be normal enough so that one can recognise as a parallel universe to help muddy the waters for the protagonist, but it also needs to be different enough to be both exciting and to establish that this is a different world. Good examples of this are the Star Trek episode 'Mirror Mirror,' and the Doctor Who story 'Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel.' A bad example is... well, read on.
Plot
We open with our protagonist, Matt Amsterdam, getting into a fight with a cardboard cut-out of a Klingon, clearly in an attempt to portray him as a likeable, relatable character. Matt's brother, Greg, is filming a documentary about Matt, because a book having an unrealistic premise is a believable excuse for not writing realistic characters. This logic is reinforced by Matt's current life goal - to move into the spare bedroom. Speaking as someone with a house that does indeed have a spare bedroom, I can inform you that they normally get used 3 times a year at most, so Mum can be added to the 'unrealistic characters' counter when she claims that it would be impractical for such a room change to take place. Dad, on the other hand... is dead. Naturally, this is an integral part of Matt's character, and over the course of the book, he will be able to this never gets brought up again. There's also Pam, Matt's other generic contractually obligated annoying sibling, who is actually not completely unrealistic, but is still generic and unentertaining, so I'm calling this four for four.
At tea time that night, Mum claims that Greg and Pam aren't completely horrible people to Matt despite seeing Greg making his Matt documentary not 2 minutes ago. Matt gets sent to his room without being able to finish tea after trying to call out Greg and Pam, who promptly try to sick their nondescript dachsund, Biggie, on Matt. Whoops, I appear to have selected a meaningless scene. I'm going to just skip ahead 24 hours to when Mum has gone out for her night job (wow, I wasn't expecting realism at any point, so kudos there). Matt sneaks into the guest room and goes to sleep. With Matt having achieved his initial goal, surely the rest of the book will see him work towards his larger goals of escaping his siblings' I'm not fooling any of you, am I.
Matt wakes up the next morning to find that he's 16 years old, and that Greg and Pam are now 12 and 11 respectively. Oh God, they've gotten worse. Matt does what any reasonable person would do in this situation - obnoxiously insist that he's 12 and Greg and Pam are 16 and 15. I can see why nobody ever does what this kid wants. Matt heads off to school, where the one thing Matt was missing from his life awaits him - a bully. The nondescript bully says that he's going to get Matt for the nondescript wrongdoing he inflicted on him after school, despite the fact that nobody else has needed an excuse to pick on Matt. Matt heads off to the most terrifying scene in the book - an English Lit lesson! Oh God, I thought I'd escaped those things forever! Everyone acts as though this lesson is serious business, as Matt's incompetence is treated as thoroughly heinous instead of par for the course. Then again, this is a parallel universe, but I have a hard time believing any of this could be intentional.
Matt's incompetence eventually gets him sent to the Head's office, wherein he does the logical thing of telling her he's actually a 12 year old boy. Shock of all shocks, she doesn't believe him. After Matt gets knocked around in PE for a bit, he bumps into a 12 year old girl named Lacie. Lacie doesn't do anything at the moment, but she is actually important to the plot. They just had to shoehorn her in somehow.
Matt wakes up the next day as a 12 year old once more, but his Mum has been replaced by a Nu!Mum and a Nu!Dad, and Pam and Greg have ceased to exist. Because it's worked out for him amazingly so far, Matt proceeds to have another denial-filled hissy fit. For 4 bloody pages. Matt arrives at his new school, where he bumps into Lacie once more. Thankfully, this is much less forced. Matt prepares to bottle up his feelings and just hope she laughs at his jokes as she explains that she has to have lunch at 8:30 because too many people go to this school. Honestly, as someone who can relate to that, I'd say that's actually pretty good. Matt tells her that he also has lunch, because he doesn't know his timetable and, you know, vague hinting that she'll never take because it's too vague. Suddenly, 2 men in black (well, teens in black jeans and t-shirts) teleport into the corridor and chase after Matt, but he escapes to go pad out the book by trying to ring his aunt and uncle, who don't exist. How is school so overpopulated if nobody has any siblings? Oh wait, China.
The next morning, Matt is 8 years old and lives in the circus. Clearly a logical progression after the last 2 realities. Showing that some things never change, Matt's infinite siblings and their pet monkey attack him before breakfast. Getting it out of the way quickly, I see. Circus!Dad joins in the abuse by THROWING HIS 8 YEAR OLD SON INTO A CAGE WITH A LION. If I hadn't written about a parent who sold out the entire human race, I'd say this guy was the worst parent in Goosebumps. Apparently, Matt refusing to climb onto the back of a ravenous lion is cowardly and shameful, at least according to Circus!Dad. Matt eventually shoves the cage door open and escapes, because I guess Circus!Dad didn't bother to lock the lion cage. However, Matt bumps into Lacie again, who is the same as the last 2 realities. He is somehow not suspicious about this because part of bottling things up requires idealising someone and not acknowledging their flaws. No, I'm not going through anything, why do you ask? Suddenly, the Men In Black, galaxy defenders, and hides in the cage with the lion in it. Because he's very skilled with this. Somehow, he manages to set it on his pursuers, and escapes to be tormented by Circus!Dad some more. Oh joy. And I guess Lacie just teleports out or decides to go visit a less terrible universe.
Matt wakes up the next morning to what he describes as "the worst possible" change - he's an old man!
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| Oh hey, this was related to the TV adaptation of this book. |
Mattzilla eventually passes out and wakes up as the original Matt Amsterdam. Lacie and the Men in Black, Bruce and Wayne (Jesus Christ), are members of the Reality Police. Apparently, there's a hole in reality in Matt's guest room, and he's trapped there, constantly shifting through realities. Instead of trying to fix the hole and get Matt back to his reality, the Reality Police are going to just "put Matt to sleep forever," whatever that means, because his reality-shifting is illegal. This can only be a commentary on the agressive, shoot first and ask questions later of the American of course it's not, you probably saw this coming.
Matt makes himself fall asleep in the cell they've put him in, and wakes up as a squirrel. Honestly, at this point I've already gone numb to this nonsense. Matt escapes the bars, and luckily the Reality Police's prison is just in the suburbs near Matt's house instead of on it's own plain of reality, because this book gave up trying to be cool when Matt fought the Kardboard Kut-out Klingon. Squirrel!Matt arrives at his own house, where Pam (oh yeah, she's in this story) attempts to keep him as a pet. She succeeds (somehow), and shoves him in a hamster cage, which she just has, I guess.
Pam leaves the room because the phone downstairs is ringing (ah, 1997), so Squirrel!Matt leaves the cage which she casually left unlocked. Why did they even let her keep Biggie? He falls asleep once more, and wakes up, except now he's rather chubby. He goes to his house once more, but none of his family know who he is. Fat!Matt leaves, when suddenly the Reality Police catch up with him, leading to him hiding in a bush. And it works. This is why you don't give a 12 year old or 2 16 year olds in charge of affairs related to the instability of the multiverse.
Fat!Matt climbs up a drainpipe into his house's spare room, and goes to sleep once more. However, because I guess even the book's bored with this plot, Matt finds that everything is back to normal. And everything is horrible once again. Dreadful. And then Mum reveals she's moved Matt into the spare room.
Extra Toppings
Apparently, one of Circus!Matt's brothers had even less luck with the lion (whose name is Hercules, by the way). It's implied that Hercules took his arm off. I think Circus!Dad needs to pay a visit to Child Protective Services.
Conclusion
Don't Go to Sleep is an utter snoozefest. The book seems to follow an "And Then" plot, which isn't bad by default, but it is the way Goosebumps does it (See One Day at Horrorland, A Shocker on Shock Street, Weirdo Halloween Pt. II, etc.). Nothing is developed on, which is a shame, because, as I said at the beginning, I love stories about parallel universes, and the idea of the Reality Police could be cool if they were competent. And not 16. The final nail in the coffin is the last scene, in which the story kind of just grinds to a halt. Maybe just go watch Mirror Mirror again.
Next Time: 8 characters. 2 suspects. 1 surname.
The TV episode of this was wild. And the book exists too I guess.
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