YMMV / The Cuckoo Clock of Doom

• Adorkable: Michael's The Un-Favourite status and attempts to impress Mona make him quite lovable in his own special way. Especially when he tries to climb up a tree, only to fall and break his arm.
• Catharsis Factor: Considering how much of a monster she is and how she has spent most of her time making Michael's life a living hell, it can be very satisfying to read about Tara getting erased from existence. It helps that the Twist Ending is a Happy Ending for once.
• Cult Classic: It's not the most popular book of the original Goosebumps series but, if all the comments on the Goosebumps wiki and the fanart is to be believed, it's slowly starting to gain a fanbase.
• Funny Moments: Regardless of how you feel about Tara, you gotta admit, she does provide quite a bit of the book's humor, such as showing Mona and her friends her big brother in his underwear. Michael is understandably embarrassed.
• Karmic Overkill: While nobody will argue that Tara is a brat, it's hard to argue that she deserved being erased from existence.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Michael's parents stand out as the most dislikable characters in the story, even against Tara and The Cuckoo Clock, as they are not only too stupid to notice Tara's true nature but treat Michael like garbage for no good reason, at one point displaying No Sympathy when he was brutally beat up by another person. Unlike Tara, who gets erased from existence, the parents receive no repercussions for their actions whatsoever.
• Moe: Michael as a six-year-old and (to a lesser extent) baby, especially when he's in preschool.
• Moral Event Horizon: You'd think she couldn't sink much lower than humiliating Michael on his own birthday, but by far the worst thing Tara does is stealing a Jerk Jock's baseball cap and putting it in Michael's backpack, making said jock think Michael stole it and give him a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. Considering he is badly bruised after and could easily have suffered permanent injuries (or even died), it's obvious after this point that Tara is completely vile and irredeemable.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Quite possibly the quintessential example for Goosebumps as a whole. Michael's antagonists are nothing more than ordinary people, both at school and, far worse, in the home with Tara. Worst of all, the adults appear to be aware of this but do absolutely nothing, which is also realistic.
• The Woobie: Michael is likely the most woobieish protagonist in all of Goosebumps. He's a nice, normal guy who's been tormented his entire life by his horrible little sister, and his parents never believe him and always take Tara's side. As if this weren't enough, he accidentally reverses time and has to re-experience every awful event she's put him through. At least the Twist Ending is a Happy Ending for once.

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