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I admit, I'm a sucker for time-loop stories, though this is actually an inventive twist on the concept: time moving inexorably backwards. The details don't quite sum -- the protagonist wakes in prior days, but the actions of people and objects don't literally move in reverse -- but for the purposes of storytelling one must allow these small logical lapses. I did wonder, though, when the time warp took place after he lay his head on the pillow. 12:01 AM? And was he shifted to a new bed? I suppose he was asleep for the white flash that the book later shows.

The strength here, primarily, is the emotional response Stine was able to evoke towards his antagonist. Tara is the worst sibling imaginable. I particularly like the scene where it's shown she was a terror even as an infant. The fact that I remember her name but not the main character's is indicative of her centrality to the story. The reader wants justice; and in one of the most delightfully nasty and vindictive twists in Goosebumps history, justice is served on the last page. I think this story stood out to me as a kid because it was one of the few endings in which a Goosebumps protagonist actually won, instead of victory being flung back in their face at the final second. How I Learned to Fly is another in this mold, though in counterpoint, as the MC loses in a literal sense but gains in reality, getting both the girl and a simple, peaceful life -- a very sweet turn.

The Cuckoo Clock of Doom will always be a stand-out.