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Attack of the Jack-O'-Lanterns (Goosebumps #48) 15 Oct 2015 5:14 AM (9 years ago)

Ghosts of Fear Street #10 - The Bugman Lives! 26 Sep 2014 2:56 PM (10 years ago)

- I've only done two of the Ghosts of Fear Street books so far and I'm already embarrassed about beginning those reviews with farts. (But just in case you were wondering, The Bugman Farts! He's also 'Half man, half bug--all farts.' You needed to know that. You just didn't realize it.)

- I'm really into this cover. A giant fly man in an Hawaiian shirt offering you a tarantula. What's not to love?!?

- Confession: this was one of my favorite Ghosts of Fear Street as a kid. I was just a girl...in love with a Bugman.

- The plot AGAIN involves a kid (Janet, in this case) doing something kind of stupid which results in a whole lot of havoc. Janet wakes the Bugman and, baby, that just ain't no good. Especially if you hate bugs (or giant bug-human hybrids)...

- This one was written by Carol Gorman who has written tons of books for kids including a book from 1998 titled "Lizard Flanagan, Supermodel??" and one from 1988 called "Pornography" which is not for children at all. But I think we can all agree: Carol is strange and we must love her for it.

- This sordid tale begins with a kid named Carl Beemer trying to impress Janet by jumping a curb on Rollerblades. Janet is more interested in pulling weeds out of her yard because Janet is smart and knows that Carl Beemer is a total tool.

- Dude, his name is CARL BEEMER.

- Carl Beemer makes fat stacks mowing lawns so Janet wants to do it, too. FORESHADOWING ALERT!

- Janet has a friend named Toad who is away at summer camp. What kind of camp do toads attend?

- OF COURSE Janet finds an overgrown lawn to mow on Fear Street. Because Fear Street is total crap, remember?

- Janet mows the jungle of a lawn and accidentally runs over the Bugman's gravestone which lovingly reads 'Here Lies The Bugman. Woe To Anyone Who Wakes Him'. I love that the Bugman is buried in a yard on a residential street. It's like someone found his corpse and just tossed in the first hole they could find.

- "He was odd--didn't go out much or talk to his neighbors. People said he eventually turned into a bug himself." Fear Street logic: a man is interested in insects (and hates his dumbass neighbors) so he's doomed to become a giant fly man.

He was part grasshopper.

Ghosts of Fear Street #12: Night of the Werecat 29 Jul 2014 3:12 PM (10 years ago)

- You know what's coming: Fart of the Werecat

- You know what else is coming: "Beware of the Cat!" is now "Beware of the Fart!"

- Sometimes I really hate myself. Oh well.

Farts For Everyone!

- This cover is COATED in feline. The wallpaper and bed clothes are covered in cats. There's a shelf of kitty figurines and I think there's a kitty rug on the floor. Oh, and the kid is transforming into a giant freak of nature. The items on her desk are odd. A book titled "Cat O' Nine Tails" and a sheet of paper that reads 'Debbie was here laughing'. Okay then.

- This one was written by Katherine Lance who has written a ton of children's/young adult stuff under her own name and under pseudonyms. Anyone heard of the Phantom Valley books by Lynn Beach? They were written in the early '90s and the covers remind me A LOT of stuff by Christopher Pike and our master R.L. Stine.

- The plot of this book once again involves  a kid doing something really stupid and paying dearly for it later. In this case, we have Wendy who has a feverish obsession with cats. She finds a cat charm for sale, but the owner doesn't wanna sell because it's a WERECAT charm and it's dangerous which is why it was just lying around where anyone could grab it which Wendy does after throwing down some dollars. (But that comes a little later.)

- Wendy is into gymnastics but has "never been very sure-footed." Hmm...that doesn't bode well for a future werecat.

-Wendy has a bully named Nancy who enjoys making fun of Wendy's love of cats. A few gems: "Maybe your little cat friends can give you [gymnastic] lessons, Wendy." and "I thought you'd love to be more like a precious kittycat." May you feel the sting of werecat claws in your flesh and acrid werecat urine in your face, Nancy.

- Shadyside has a Cat Circle Breeders' Show.

- A white star shape on a cat's forehead is the mark of the werecat.

- The lady who owns the werecat charm necklace, Mrs. Bast, tells Wendy that werecats are like werewolves except they transform every night and apparently the Fear Street Woods are positively infested with them. Is there anything that Fear Street Woods ISN'T infested with?

- Wendy is shocked when she transforms into a giant orange cat, but everything is immediately made okay by the scent of some nasty ass fish in a garbage can and a mouse murder. The simple life of a cat...I envy it.

- Nancy's back! She takes Wendy's cat shirt and throws it in a puddle in the gym showers. "Too bad. I hear cats hate water." ME-OW.

- Wendy and her friend Tina are so obsessed with cats they watch a nature video about big cats at their sleepover.

- Nancy hates cats so while she's sleeping, Wendy the Werecat sneaks into her room and rubs cat hair all over her school clothes. She also creeps onto Nancy's bed and rubs her furry body all over one of Nancy's pillows. Unfortunately, Nancy wakes up, Wendy hides instead of running, and Nancy slams the window shut so Wendy is trapped inside. Smooth move, were-lax.

- I like cats and everything, but this book is incredibly boring...

- Wendy has a street rumble with another werecat. No-one wins.

- Wendy is kind of an idiot. She totally forgot about the werecat charm. So...I don't really know what her reasoning was behind the fact that she TRANSFORMED INTO A FRIGGING ANIMAL. Did she think if you obsess about cats enough you'll eventually become one? She only got the charm like two days ago!

- Wendy wears a black turtleneck with white kittens all over it. Sounds like something I wore as a kid except my shirt was a pale yellow button down with white shaggy dogs all over it. You can't measure that level of cool. (HAHAHAHA)

- Nancy is allergic to (were)cats and now she's all red and lumpy looking.

- Wendy watches the movie Bell, Book, and Candle which has a cat in it. Because this book is about cats. In case anyone forgot.

- Noises angry cats make: "Mowwwrrr!" and "Ssssttt!"

- Wendy trying to convince Tina she's a werecat: "I'm serious. I turn into a werecat at night. I-I'm covered with fur! I prowl the alleys!" You just described my brother. Does that mean he's a werecat? I always pictured him as more of a werebear.

- Wendy licks a canary. Do whatever you want with that because I sure as hell don't know what to do with it.

- Mrs. Bast steals Tina's cat Shalimar so the girls follow her home, and, predictably, she lives in a shit heap on Fear Street. Oh yeah, it turns out the cat wasn't even Shalimar so they just broke into this old lady's house for no reason.

- The charm is now off Wendy's person (Mrs. Bast showed her "the secret clasp") and yet there are 20 pages left. Ssssttt!

- Cornstarch absorbs dirt. Since when?

- Wendy becomes a werecat AGAIN and tries to kill her reflection. *sigh* Stupid cat.

- A gang of werecats surrounds Wendy the Werecat, but before they can claw her to death or choke her with hairballs, the sun comes up and they all begin to change. Who are the werecats? Her mother, father, and brother. Yes, this crap is hereditary.

Conclusion? - Cats cats cats cats cats. Did I mention cats? Because this book sure as hell did, about 5,678,355 times.

Ghosts of Fear Street #3 - Attack of the Aqua Apes 4 May 2014 2:11 PM (10 years ago)

Beach Party 14 Sep 2012 5:43 PM (12 years ago)

Book Description:


Life is a beach...until you die

It's the ultimate party beach in California, summer fun in the sun to the max. And Karen, who's just broken up with her old boyfriend, means to enjoy every minute of it--especially having two new guys to choose between: one so handsome and one so deliciously dangerous. But the party summer takes a nasty turn when Karen realizes that someone is out to spoil all the fun. As the beach party gets wilder and wilder, Karen realizes that someone very close to her is too close--close enough to kill. Will the next beach party be her last?

My Description:


We begin this tale of hot summer woe with Karen driving like a maniac to pick up her friend Ann-Marie at LAX. Karen thinks she looks pretty good in her blue sleeveless shirt and white tennis shorts. "Not as pretty as Ann-Marie, but okay." Boo hoo. The problems of beautiful people! Karen arrives just as Ann-Marie is stepping through the gate. She's wearing jeans and a sweater even though it's presumably a thousand degrees outside. We get a short description of how beautiful and thin Ann-Marie is. She's like a model and Karen is like a turnip or something. Ann-Marie notices that Karen is wearing a necklace with a crystal on the end. Karen says that Mike gave it to her just before she broke up with him. Ann-Marie makes a smart ass comment about it and apologizes by saying "Sorry. It always takes me a while to lose my New York edge." New York is not to blame for your BITCH Ann-Marie. Now get in the trunk like a good girl and keep your yapper shut until the car stops. The girls talk about Karen's parents who are newly divorced. Mom dealt with it by sobbing while listening to The Beatles for months and Dad entered into a mid-life crisis of sorts. "He's driving a Corvette, for one thing. And he's blow-drying his hair." Horrible! When a man suddenly starts caring about his luscious locks, you know he's lost his damn mind! Anyway, Karen got a Mustang convertible out of the ordeal, probably because a certain someone with incredible Breck hair felt guilty. Karen tells Ann-Marie that Dad has a girlfriend who looks young enough to be Karen's sister who lives with him in an apartment in Venice. Dad and Girl are gone for a few days so the girls will have the apartment to themselves.

That night, the girls go for a walk on the beach which is deserted because of peoples' fear of gangs, according to Karen. Roving sand gangs are the worst. Do you know how hard it is to get sand out of your hair?!



At the mention of gangs, one magically shows up. Five guys decked out in heavy metal T-shirts and jeans (a few even have earrings! NOOO!) with greasy hair and tattoos come out of nowhere. Why does Stine refuse to believe that hoodlums can indeed have good hygiene? His villains are always greasy. Did Patrick Bateman teach him nothing? Anyway, the leader, Vince, starts freaking them out, but they're rescued by two handsome strangers who pretend they've been looking for the girls. The greasers back off and walk away. What a disappointment. The guys, Jerry and Marty, take Karen and Ann-Marie to RayJay's, a coffee shop/pizza place because if you're under the age of 18, it's a requirement to eat pizza at least once a week. BY FEDERAL LAW. These assholes already have dates, though, who are waiting for them at the restaurant. The girls, Stephanie and Renee, warm up to the other girls when they hear about what happened on the beach. Later, everyone leaves and Renee grabs Karen's arm in the parking lot to tell her to stay away from Jerry. "I really mean it. Stay away from Jerry." Heard you the first time, pizza breath.

The next day, Jerry and Vince run into each other on the beach, but there's no conflict because Vince is actually a whiny bitch and Jerry is a muscular surfer dude. Renee is sunning herself on a blanket and complaining about how bored she is. Did I mention Renee is a rich, stuck up brat? Because she is. Jerry doesn't want to deal with her bullshit and they have a little argument before Karen and Ann-Marie randomly show up which Renee doesn't like. Karen gushes about Renee's snorkel stuff and that breaks the ice a little. Renee lets Karen use it and they both decide to swim out to a sandbar. When they're pretty far out, Karen surfaces and realizes Renee is far ahead. Then Karen feels something pushing her. It's the current which pushes her into some rocks and slices a hole in her wet suit. She calls for help and Renee, who has surfaced and is only a few yards away, ignores her. Karen realizes Renee probably knew this would happen and deliberately led her out here. The current tosses her into the rocks and she hits her head. Eventually Jerry sees her and swims out. Renee acts shocked when she sees Karen and swims over with Jerry. They drag a now unconscious Karen to the sand where Jerry gives her mouth-to-mouth. This whole thing is like a "very special" episode of Baywatch (minus the heaving jugs). Two Venice policemen show up and Karen explains what happened. Renee is stared at SUSPICIOUSLY but she's only guilty of being a major bitch and that's not in these cops' jurisdiction. A little later, Jerry invites Karen to come to a beach party (some come to party, some come to die...don't forget it!) on Friday night. She agrees, Jerry walks off, and Renee stares at Karen with a creepy grin on her face that can only mean one thing: DEATH BEACH!

That night, Karen whines to Ann-Marie about Renee and how she knows Renee could hear her yelling in the ocean. After they finish eating ice cream, Ann-Marie leaves to buy some milk because ice cream makes her crave milk. Yeah. Anyway, the moment she leaves, Karen gets the obligatory "threatening" phone call: "Stay away from Jerry." Or what? The caller is obviously new at this because they fucking forgot the threat! There must be consequences, creepy caller, if Karen disobeys your stupid commands! Ann-Marie returns a few minutes later and Karen tells her all about the call. Karen thinks it sounded vaguely like her ex-boyfriend Mike. She thinks she saw him on the beach yesterday, but why the hell would he call her about Jerry? The phone rings again and Karen answers it by screaming "Just leave me alone!" into the receiver. The caller turns out to be her dad. Oops. He called to tell her that he and his woman friend won't be back for another week which means Karen and Ann-Marie will be alone and completely vulnerable to the murder that is almost certainly coming their way. Nice timing, Father.

On Thursday afternoon, Ann-Marie is visiting relatives in Burbank so karen goes shopping. She runs into Mike on the sidewalk. "He was wearing white tennis shorts and a T-shirt that proclaimed in big green letters: GUMBY LIVES." Apparently Mike isn't aware that Pokey killed Gumby in a crack-fueled rage before turning his lethal hooves on himself...the day he found out this book was being published.

Mike is described as looking like Jim Belushi which is just so very unfortunate. Mike says he got a job selling T-shirts on the boardwalk. Karen's first thought is that Mike followed her here, but then thinks that's ridiculous. They talk a little and Mike asks her out. She says they're broken up, Mike replies that he thought they were friends, and Karen says that's just something people say. "But no-one ever really stays friends." Mike won't let it drop, but before he can say more, Vince pulls up on his motorcycle and tells Karen to get on. She does and Mike is, of course, furious.

Vince skids to a stop at the Promenade in Santa Monica. Karen says she wants to go home, Vince gets pissed because Karen isn't into him, and they leave. He drives like a maniac until he reaches her apartment where he lets her off with some parting words: "Say hello to your brother." Uhhhh...I'm guessing that's what he thinks Jerry is. Karen goes inside and is shocked to see words spray painted on the door to her apartment. "STAY AWAY FROM JERRY" The paint is fresh so the culprit is nearby...maybe. I don't care about who's doing these things because this person is lame. No originality, no murderous threats. I bet their lips aren't even dry! And that, my friends, is a crime against humanity. Karen enters the apartment and finds Ann-Marie inside. She didn't go see Aunt Freda after all and is blissfully unaware that someone spray painted the door. Karen shows her and says someone really wants to scare her. Ann-Marie's response: "Is it working?" Well, miss, you just shot to the top of the suspect list. And YES, it IS working!

It's now Friday night and Karen is telling Ann-Marie about her wild ride with Vince. Karen is strangely attracted to him even though he's kind of an a-hole. She wants to know why Ann-Marie isn't going to the beach party and Ann-Marie says she's too tired. "Aunt Freda wore me out." Wow. Just...wow. Then Ann-Marie gets all snippy about how Jerry seems into Karen and blah blah blah. Jerry shows up in a van with some other people and Karen leaves with them for the party. They build a fire on the beach and Karen and Jerry enjoy an intimate moment that I didn't want to be privy to. When they come up for air, Karen is shocked to see Renee watching them. Jerry calls Renee over and Karen actually says "We were looking for firewood." Oh Karen. You are truly a comedian...and kind of incredibly stupid. They all walk back to the fire, Renee clinging to Jerry's arm like the bloody little leech she is. A little later, Renee takes Karen aside to tell her an interesting tidbit about Jerry. "He needs special care." Jerry's brother Todd drowned last summer and something in Jerry's brain pan broke a little because he blames himself for Todd's death. Renee says she's only telling Karen this because she and Jerry have been through some hard times and she's not going to let Karen have him that easily.

Later, Karen goes home and Ann-Marie is out. Karen thinks that's a little weird because it's after 1 AM and Ann-Marie was whining about being tired earlier. Karen picks up some of Ann-Marie's laundry off the floor to put in her dresser where she discovers something strange. "It was a can of black spray paint." GASP...and such.

That night, Karen has a nightmare about getting her skin split open on some beach rocks. She wakes soaked in sweat at 7:30 AM and walks to Ann-Marie's room. Ann-Marie wakes up and tells Karen she hung out on Main Street with some people she somehow knows. Then Karen brings up the paint can and Ann-Marie predictably denies that the paint is hers and says she has no idea how it got in her dresser. She changes the subject and asks what they're going to do today. Karen made plans to rollerskate with Jerry so Ann-Marie rolls over and goes back to sleep because she's being ditched by her best friend for a guy they've known for a day. Good times.

Karen is now hanging out on the boardwalk waiting for Jerry who's over half an hour late. Then she sees Mike who hides behind a rack of shirts when he spots her. Jerry shows up a moment later and they skate off into the sun. Goodbye, Mike. You know we can see you, right?

At 9 PM, Karen says she should get home to Ann-Marie, but Jerry doesn't want her to go so they make out instead. FINALLY she goes home. Ann-Marie is gone and left a note saying she's out with friends. Karen crawls into bed...and jumps out screaming. She turns on the light and sees that the bed is full of jellyfish. "When Ann-Marie walked in a few seconds later, Karen was still screaming." The girls stay up all night. Ann-Marie keeps saying Renee has to be doing all these things even though all signs point to ANN-MARIE, JELLY LOVER.

In the morning, Karen walks to Renee's house to confront her. Except she can't because Renee is lying on the kitchen floor, dead as a doornail. Karen ends up at the police station waiting to be questioned. She called the LAPD immediately after finding Renee. Jerry has already been questioned and it's currently Ann-Marie's turn. Karen's mom is also there. Finally Karen is questioned and she keeps the jellyfish and black paint to herself. 20 minutes later, it's all over and Karen's mom wants Karen to come home with her. Karen refuses because she wants to make sure Jerry is ok. Barf. Karen and Ann-Marie are walking home when a girl claiming to be Jerry's sister pops out of nowhere, asks "Are you Karen?", and proceeds to beg Karen to stay away from Jerry before running away. Since Karen is an imbecile, she will do no such thing. Once they reach the apartment building, Jerry appears out of nowhere (are he and his sister magicians?). Karen mentions his sister and he says he doesn't have a sister. Of course. OF COURSE he doesn't! Why? Because it's Stine's way to make things as unnecessarily complicated as possible. The madness has descended!

On Sunday night, Jerry, Karen, and Ann-Marie are at RayJay's. They're eating pizza (do I even need to say it?) and talking about Renee. Jerry admits he intially thought Renee killed herself instead of being brutally murdered because she knew he was going to break up with her. Because you're so great, eh, Jerry? I spit on you and the ancestors from whose loins you were spawned, you self-absorbed twat. Anyway, Karen notices Mike looking through the window at them. Karen goes outside and Mike runs away because apparently that's literally the only thing he knows how to do.

The next afternoon, Ann-Marie goes for a walk and Karen suns herself on the beach. Vince shows up and he and Karen take a walk together. She asks questions about the police questioning him and blah blah. Then Vince grabs her and kisses her hard. She's confused and torn because of her feelings for both Vince and Jerry so she just walks back to her blanket. She finds a piece of paper stuck inside the blanket that has the words "STAY AWAY FROM JERRY" typed on it over and over. Seriously? Are we STILL doing this? Obviously the passive aggressive bullshit doesn't work with this chick, mysterious weirdo. Get a new M.O. or please feel free to fall off the face of the earth.  A second later, Karen applies some sunscreen and screams in horrible pain at the burning sensation.

At the doctor's office, Karen is treated for burns that resulted from the hydrochloric acid someone dumped in her bottle of sunscreen. She doesn't want the doctor to call the police or her parents because that would be the SMART thing to do and Karen is an idiot with a death wish. So she flees the doctor's office and once outside, comes upon Vince who waited after dropping her off on his motorcycle. As he drives her home, Karen wonders if Ann-Marie could be behind all this. HMM! When they arrive at the apartment, she sees Mike running out the door and away. Are you kidding me? Karen goes inside and finds Ann-Marie behind a chair. She says she was looking for her necklace, but she's bright red and looks like a liar. Karen brings up Mike and Ann-Marie looks embarrassed and says they've been seeing each other. She was never with "friends", she was always with Mike. Karen finds this hilarious because she was beginning to suspect them both of being psychotic maniacs! What a hoot! The phone rings a moment later and Karen answers. It's the girl who claims to be Jerry's sister so Karen hangs up on her.

It's now Friday afternoon and Karen is with Jerry at the beach. They're about to go snorkeling since that worked out so well last time. There are a ton of people around because it's a beach party. Yes, a BEACH PARTY so someone is gonna die. Right? Just let me believe. Karen and Jerry swim out a few yards, but Karen's burnt shoulder and hand start to hurt so she asks Jerry to help her to shore. "I'm not Jerry. I'm Todd." Aaaand we come to the end of the fuckery maze. Jerry is completely insane because he blames himself for Todd's death. He killed Renee because she was too close to Jerry (who now thinks he is Todd) and now he has to kill Karen for the same reason. He says "Jerry is bad." before grabbing Karen's snorkel mask and throwing it away. He swims off as Karen starts to go under.

Somehow Karen manages to get back to shore, though, where Vince helps her out the water. Jerry's sister runs up and asks where Jerry is. She explains that Jerry shut the rest of his family out and thinks he has no family. The three run off to search for Jerry who is close by. He's behaving normally now and allows his sister to lead him away. He tells Karen he'll call her later. Karen asks Vince if he's really someone she can lean on and he picks her up and carries her across the sand like a hero in a movie no-one ever wanted to see.

Conclusion?: This has got to be the dullest thing R.L. Stine has ever written. EVER. My brain cells are dropping like flies...

Next time: "Trapped" Shadyside High's nutty answer to The Breakfast Club.

Guest Post #5: Drucilla (Redux) 10 Jul 2012 10:53 PM (12 years ago)

Hello again! Thanks for the comments on my last guest post. While I was writing my first post, I kept getting ideas of other articles I wanted to write. This is one of them. These are my opinions not this website’s. Do not bash this blog if you don’t agree with me. With this guest post rather than my last one, I’m hoping to encourage more discussion. It would be awesome if someone else did a guest post agreeing or disagreeing with me. As before, my guest blog won’t be hilarious or awesome, but the real blog is and I can’t wait to read more of it.

R.L. Stine’s Fear Street Favs VS. Reader’s Reality…Ding, Ding!

Towards the beginning of this year, R. L. Stine created a Fear Street section on his website. On the page, he added his top eight favorite Fear Street books. Here’s the link to the page in question: http://rlstine.com/fear-street/. I was especially excited to see his favorites as I had been reading and re-reading the original Fear Street series over the past couple of months. For this guest blog post, I will look at each of his favorites, why they’re his favorites, and compare them to a reader’s perspective. There will probably be spoilers and I’m going to assume you know the basic story. I’m linking to this blog’s review/recap when I can so you can refresh your memory if you want. One more thing, if a book has sequels or is part of a trilogy, I’m assuming, for the most part, that Stine is referring to all of them. However, I will address the first book vs. its series in my analysis (yeah, right. Like any of this was done in an analytical way). As I said previously, I hope you guys will join me and discuss whether you agree with his favorites or not.

Silent Night
Silent Night 2
Silent Night 3

Silent Night chronicles ultimate mean girl Reva Dalby. Stine says that he loved writing this character because of her biting dialogue and mean attitude. As an author, it may be fun to write, but as a reader, it is annoying and frustrating to read. Main characters are supposed to be likable and if they’re not, they usually become so over the course of the book. Normally when we have a character as mean spirited as Reva, something bad happens to them as punishment. Throughout this book, we as readers are hoping and praying that Reva is killed or at least punished severely. This is one of only a few Fear Street books where we actually cheer the killer on. Well, I guess you can’t accuse Stine of following the masses. We are subsequently disappointed not once, but three times! Not only are we disappointed in that respect, but we end up reading the same book three times because, even though Reva says she’ll change, she never does. You’ve had at least three people try to kill you because you’re a bitch, maybe you should examine your life (again).

However, if we assume that Stine just meant the first Silent Night and not any of its sequels, I can see why it might be a favorite of his. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. He can write a horribly mean character and have her survive, but, at the end, it’s ok because she said she’ll change. And if we ignore the sequels, who’s to say she doesn’t?

The New Girl

There’s really not much to say for this book. The New Girl has the distinction of being the first published Fear Street novel. It’s interesting looking back because, nowadays, Cory would be considered a stalker and a dangerous one at that. I would have preferred it to actually be a paranormal story and not the same old crazy chick story, but it’s a decent, if somewhat repeated, Fear Street cliché. Stine says he loved the story, though, and I can see why he chose it to inaugurate the Fear Street series.

Switched

In an interesting turn of events, while Switched is this blog’s favorite Fear Street book, it’s probably my least favorite. This should be interesting. Stine says on his site that not many people mention this book to him…that’s probably because this book is TERRIBLE! He says he’s proud of the twisty and clever plot. Stine may be proud of it, but from where I’m standing it looks like he threw every plot device and writers convenience into it (everything but the kitchen sink, of course). While keeping your readers guessing isn’t a bad thing, keeping them guessing for the sake of keeping them guessing is. This book is just one of the (quite a) few Fear Street books where the ending twist actually makes the book worse. If it had just stuck to what the plot appeared to be, it would have been a much better and interesting book.

Fear Street Saga: The Betrayal- review/recap coming soon (I’m sure)


The original Fear Street Saga is great. I agree with Stine on this. Every reader loves back story and I love that we get an explanation why all of this stuff happens on Fear street. The trilogy is consistent and, frankly, is a good story. It’s horror, but underscored with a profound sense of tragedy. He says he loved going back to witch burning times and I think he nailed it. If Stine only considers The Betrayal one of his favorites, then I can only guess that it’s because the first one in the series has sentimental value, because the other books in the trilogy stand up to scrutiny as well. However, I can’t just let this examination end on a high note so let’s welcome Fear Street Sagas.

The Fear Street Sagas chronicle more of the Fear street curse and its repercussions down through the generations. I understand the idea behind the series and actually like that idea. It’s a way to give the readers more of what they want and to milk the Fear Street brand for all it’s worth. In the interest of full disclosure, I have actually only read two of the Sagas series, but, unfortunately, one of them was the VERY FIRST ONE. Now, this series is on R.L. Stine’s complete book list so one would assume he wrote it, but the savvy Stine fan knows that he (or more likely the publishing company) employs ghost writers occasionally. However, it is my (perhaps naive) belief that R.L. Stine did write the original Fear Street and Super Chiller books and if he didn’t, then I don’t want to know. *sticks tongue out* This favorites list actually helps me out because I don’t think he would pick a book he didn’t write and if Stine could write a terrible book like Switched and a really good book like The Betrayal, then who knows which books he wrote himself (besides the copyright page, of course)? Why do I bring this up? Because it’s clear from the VERY FIRST BOOK that whoever wrote it didn’t read the last book in the Fear Street Saga, The Burning. It clearly states that Nora and Daniel go to see Simon right after they are married. Unless they consummated their marriage on horseback or in the carriage, THERE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN A CHILD! I’d like to think that Stine would at least have re-read his work before starting on this new Sagas series so I’m going to say this series was ghost written.

Ok, now is the part where I apologize for that last part. I got extremely off topic and I’m sorry. I do want to say that not all of the Sagas are crap. The Awakening Evil tells the story of Sarah Fear of The Cheerleaders fame and it’s really good. Many of our questions about The Evil are answered and it stays in canon.

The Cheerleaders: The First Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Second Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Third Evil
The Cheerleaders: The New Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Evil Lives

Speaking of those crazy Shadyside High cheerleaders, guess who’s also one of R.L. Stine’s favorites? The Cheerleaders trilogy is probably one of the most recognized Fear Street titles. It attracted a myriad of readers and there’s really not much I can say about this series. It’s good. It’s consistent and, over the course of the series, presents some really interesting plot twists and shocks. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to gauge Stine’s thoughts on this series, though. He says he loved the reveal at the end, but that “reveal” seems to be in every Fear Street novel. Surprisingly, the original trilogy isn’t the only Cheerleaders to be good. The New Evil was good as well and actually was quite original. On the other hand, The Evil Lives was a hot mess. You could have been good, The Evil Lives! If only you had made good choices in life…mainly getting rid of the time travel and paradoxes that plagued your short, short life.

Again, if we were to assume that Stine only meant that the first was his favorite, it probably falls into the same category that The Betrayal does. The first in the series has sentimental value and so that’s why it was chosen above all the rest because the others are just as good.

The Secret Bedroom

R.L. Stine’s books are not very long. I think the longest book I’ve ever read by him hovered around the 300 page mark (Eye Candy anyone?). My point is that I wouldn’t have thought it would take very long to write one of his books. Indeed, if this blog is any indication he should probably spend more time writing his books. Nevertheless, Stine is particularly proud of The Secret Bedroom, a book that apparently only took him eight days to write. He says that the story moved really quickly and I’d argue that it moves too quickly. While the story is actually a really good story, I had so many unanswered questions at the end that I felt I must have missed some plot points (in case you were wondering, no, it turns out I didn’t). However, in all fairness had Stine actually answered those questions, it might have proved too gruesome for the YA crowd (wait…is there such a thing for a Fear Street reader?).

The Perfect Date

*Breathes deeply* Ok Drucilla, just like we rehearsed….R.L. Stine says that this book is special to him because his son Matt is on the cover. He doesn’t mention anything else….because….because….I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!! THIS BOOK IS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNOW I SAID SWITCHED WAS MY LEAST FAVORITE FEAR STREET BOOK, BUT THIS ONE FEELS ME WITH SO MUCH LOATHING I FEEL THE NEED TO LEAVE EARTH TO GET AWAY FROM IT! *thump* *crash* Ok, sorry about that. I think I got my anger under cont-IF WE THREATENED THE WORLD WITH READING THIS BOOK, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE WARS! *punch* *crash* *kick* Ok. *catches breath* I think that time it worked. So….The Perfect Date. While the story is decent and does have some potential, it’s full of Fear Street clichés (Fear Street hardly making an appearance, guys two-timing there girlfriends, etc.) and don’t even get me started on the ending. Nothing is explained and random crap happens. I mean, super strength, really!?!? Where did that come from!?!? The twist is completely redundant as well. It adds nothing to the story.

Haunted

Well, let me go ahead and say it…I think Haunted is one of the better Fear Street books. Granted, it does suffer from some paradoxical problems, but the concept is great. I definitely see Stine trying something different with this novel and while he may not have necessarily succeeded, it’s different enough to stand out in the sea of similar Fear Street titles. He says he’s proud of the plot and tension and I have to admit that this was one of the few Fear Street novels that had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.

So honestly, I don’t know what I was trying to do with this article. I agree with Stine sometimes, but more often than not, his choices baffle me. I’m curious as to whether you agree with Stine or not. I guess to be fair here are my favorite Fear Street titles in no particular order (none got a five star rating so here are my four star ratings from Goodreads):

Broken Hearts
The Prom Queen
Double Date  (Because I loved that a Fear Street cheater finally got his comeuppance.)
The Face
What Holly Heard
Trapped -  review/recap coming soon (I’m sure)
Fear Park: The First Scream -  (Just the first book.)

Guest Post #4: Sagan 5 Jul 2012 2:34 AM (12 years ago)

Hello! My name is Sagan, a reader of your blog for about a year now. I got rather excited at the prospect of writing about my own journey through Fear Street, so here we are. (Sorry if I ramble).

So, like many of us out there, I grew up with the Goosebumps and Fear Street Books. I don't remember too much about the Goosebumps books, except acquiring a permanent fear of dummies, becoming obsessed with mummies, and hating how every book ended. But Fear Street? That's where the real magic happened. I was consistently told by my mother that I was too young for Stephen King books, so I had to settle for the next best thing, Fear Street baby. While reading each book, I would picture myself as the heroine, and read their dialogue out loud to myself, (much to the chagrin of my siblings). Each book provided a source of inspiration. After reading Dead End, I tried to be like Natalie, and tried writing poetry. (Such good role models, R.L. Stine provides).

 
I also tried writing my own horror stories a la The Thrill Club, which usually ended in my mom thinking there was something wrong with me. Needless to say, these attempts at writing were thrown away pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure these books made me awfully suspicious. I would spy on my neighbors, positive that they were up to something heinous. Also, I would get so thrilled for no apparent reason, when one book would mention a main character from another Fear Street novel. I guess I thought Shadyside High was just one big happy family. (Sob).

Though, I have to say, my favorite memory is from 7th grade, when I auditioned for Bridge to Terabithia, with April's "Why I Killed So and So" speech from Truth or Dare. By the time I was done, the director was in tears (from laughing so hard). But I got the last laugh, I was cast as Girl #2, thank you very much. As a freshman in high school, in theatre class, one assignment was to perform one serious monologue, and one comedic one. For my serious monologue I chose Alison's "Why I Killed My Sister" speech from Sunburn. Once I finished that gem, there was silence, and my teacher finally said, "I thought I said one serious and one comedic, not TWO comedic monologues." OK, how dare you insinuate that Sunburn's monologue was comedic.




By the time I was in High School, my mother commanded me to throw away all of the Fear Street books. "Mom, nooo, you don't understand!" I pleaded. "Fine, you can keep 10, but the rest have to be thrown away!" She snapped, and so I chose my precious favorites, which were pretty much all of the "historical" Fear Street Sagas. (I can't tell you how much I love all the Fear Street Sagas, especially The Betrayal, The Secret, and The Burning. Nora Goode, and Daniel Fear = my preteen idea of real romance, how I hoped my future would hold something so beautiful as their relationship, except for, you know, one of them dying. Ditto Susannah Goode and Edward Fier).



Anyway, after that, I pretty much forgot about their existence for awhile, until one day I found myself straining to remember how the Cataluna Series ended, Googled it, and found myself at this wondrous blog, and here we are. R.L. Stine shall remain in my heart forever, regardless of the fact that his books are quite terrible, because when I was young, they were like Dickens to me.

Currently, for some reason, all of my Fear Street novels have disappeared. I suspect foul play.

I suppose that's it! My beautiful personal history involving Fear Street. I hope everyone is thrilled to have read it.


Oh Sagan, this was truly awesome. I especially love the fact that you actually recited a whole passage from Truth or Dare in front of people. THANK YOU.

Guest Post #3: Amanda 27 Jun 2012 9:03 PM (12 years ago)

Guest Post #2: Spongey 24 Jun 2012 3:24 PM (12 years ago)

*Note: I know I said I was only going to do these on Friday, but I'm not going by that. I'm just going to post these erratically because SCREW SCHEDULES. Now, I command that you enjoy Spongey's Fear thoughts.*

The New Girl 19 Jun 2012 11:28 PM (12 years ago)

Book Description:

Dying for a Kiss

She's pale as a ghost, blonde, and eerily beautiful--and she seems to need him as much as he wants her. Cory Brooks hungers for Anna Corwin's kisses, drowns in her light blue eyes. He can't get her out of his mind. And the trouble has only begun: Shadyside High's star gymnast is losing sleep, skipping practice, and acting weird. All the guys have noticed, but only Cory's friend Lisa knows the truth: Anna Corwin is dead and living on Fear Street. Now Cory must explore its menacing darkness to discover the truth. He has already been warned: come to Fear Street and you're dead!

My Description:

Prologue

Anna is lying dead and bloody on the ground. The killer didn't like how perfect Anna was so he/she pushed her...down the stairs? Out a window? Not sure, but it doesn't matter because the result remains the same: Anna = deceased. Her murderer is possibly Anna's brother or sister because they keep referring to 'Mom' as in ' "[speaking about Anna] My Diamond", Mom always said.' The sibling slaughterer is looking down at Anna's crumpled corpse and decides it's time to pretend to be shocked and horrified. "Anna's dead, Mom! Come quickly! It's all too horrible-but Anna's dead!" Smooth, kid. Real smooth.


He runs to the room where Lisa is trapped and lets her out. Brad used the hall monitor's desk to keep them inside. The hall monitor's desk. Why in the HELL would a hall monitor need a desk? Are the drawers full of the remains of kids who didn't have hall passes? Hall monitor's desk. Bullshit. Anyway, the two go to Lisa's house where she receives a phone call from a heavy breathing pervert who says nothing and hangs up. This scares her and Cory says he'll talk to Anna tomorrow and then they can go to the police about Brad who presumably made that sexy phone call. What are they gonna tell the police? They have absolutely no proof of anything. Oh well. The cops will believe them anyway because Shadyside cops don't give a shit about things like evidence.

The next morning, Cory drives to Fear Street and knocks on the Corwins' door. While he's waiting, the Ghostly Guard appears. "Don't ever see you much in the daytime." This guy gives me Deliverance vibes. He tells Cory that the Corwins left earlier, then he leaves, too.

The next day, Cory gets to school and searches for Anna. He doesn't find her until the end of the day. He tells her they've got to talk and she agrees. They go to the Pizza Oven in Division Street Mall which just sickens me. How dare they not support Pete's Pizza?!? Anyway, Cory tells Anna to tell him everything so she does. Here we go... Dad left, Mom is sickly, Brad is the head of the family, sister Willa FELL DOWN THE BASEMENT STAIRS, Brad always got the two sisters confused because his brain is no good (which explains the prologue) because his girlfriend Emily died in a plane crash and it really screwed him up, Brad tells everyone Anna is dead and sometimes won't let her out of the house, and the newspaper obituary that Cory and Lisa found that declared Anna dead was supposed to be Willa's, but Brad told the paper Anna was the one who died. So all this time there hasn't been a ghost at all. Just a broken family and a very disturbed young man in desperate need of psychiatric assistance. Son of a bitch. A few seconds later, they spot Brad at the window. Anna runs out a back door, but Brad just stands there staring at Cory. MENACINGLY!

At home, Cory burns up the phone lines repeatedly trying to call Anna. No answer. Finally Brad picks up and tells Cory "Anna isn't anywhere. Anna is dead." before hanging up. Cory is afraid Brad did kill Anna so he immediately leaves for Fear Street. He arrives at their house, knocks, and hears Anna scream "He's come for me! Let me go!!" Cory rushes inside and finds the two fighting. Obviously. Cory runs in and he and Brad wrestle. Brad tries to choke Cory, but Cory bashes his head with a vase. With Brad unconscious, Anna pulls out a letter opener to stab him, but Cory won't let her so she turns on him after leading him up the stairs and into the hallway. He falls out an open window trying to get away from her, but since this is the poor man's Spider Man, he swings himself back through the window and hears Brad coming up the stairs. He tells Cory, who is gripping the struggling Anna, that he tried to keep him away from Anna for his safety. Ready for more insanity? Anna is actually Willa. Willa lost her damn mind after Anna died because she's probably the one that killed her. She was insanely jealous of the perfect Anna (which explains the prologue, for real this time) and Brad wishes he had gotten her help sooner, before she started pretending to be Anna and trying to kill everybody. Cory asks why he pushed Lisa down the stairs at the dance and he says he thought it was Willa and tried to grab at her, but she fell. A likely story. Brad tells Cory to call the cops. "We've got to get her some help."

Flash forward to Cory eating chocolate cake with Lisa and explaining the whole Anna/Brad/Willa thing. "Another horror story from the folks on Fear Street." Then they kiss. Two thumbs DOWN.

Conclusion? - I liked this one until it started going off the rails like so many of these books do. This one should have been titled "The Ghostly Guards" and been all about Voltaire and Strange Neighbor Guy solving crime and patrolling Fear Street for evil ghosts. *sigh* What could've been!

Next time: "Beach Party" A beach. A party. Death. What more do you need to know?

Fear's First Guest Post 12 Jun 2012 9:55 AM (12 years ago)

Remember that time when I asked you ghouls to send me your Fear-y memories, etc.? Well, someone finally took me up on it. Introducing Drucilla (how awesome is that name?) and her first piece for Fear Street.

Twisted 13 May 2012 8:07 PM (12 years ago)

Book Description:

Anything for a sister.

Abby would do anything to be in the school's most exclusive sorority. And now she's got the chance. Because the sorority sisters have asked her to join them. All Abby has to do is get through the initiation. That might be a problem. Because this year, the initiation is going to be.... Murder.

My Description:

Abby is totally disgusted by her sister Gabriella's refusal to join the Tri Gammas, Rockland State's most EXCLUSIVE sorority. Aren't you impressed?! Don't you think Gabriella is a stupid slut for not joining?! Let's all hold hands and jump off a cliff! HUZZAH! Anyway, the girls fuss with each other over the stupid sorority thing. The fight ends with Abby calling Gabriella "inhuman". Tee hee. Gabriella leaves and Abby's mother enters the room. She doesn't want Abby to move to that silly old sorority house because she won't be cozy in mother's nest anymore. Lady, your daughter is unhinged. For the sake of your health, LET HER GO. Just before Abby leaves for the campus, her mother asks her if she'll be able to handle it if she doesn't get into the sorority. "Mother - stop. They're not going to reject me. I'm going to get in - no matter what." Uh-oh.

Abby takes a bus to the campus where she hurries to the Tri Gam house. She sees a girl named Leila Sherman enter before her. Abby is horrified because this chick stole her boyfriend Gordon last year. I think. Close enough. Abby enters the house and is disappointed to find that it looks more like a grandma's house than a "vibrant, sparkling new world." Is she serious? Yes. Yes, she is. One of the Tri Gams greets her at the door in a green jumpsuit and a chunk of green crap stuck in her teeth to match. Abby gets a name tag and goes upstairs to a room where the other pledges are. She talks to a girl she knows named Nina who used to be close friends with, but Abby decided Nina was too childish for her and they drifted apart. Abby finds out that Nina and Leila are roommates and Leila is still dating the magnificent Gordon who probably isn't worth the dirt he walks on. The conversation gets painfully awkward and Nina goes back to her seat. A few moments later, Leila comes over to Abby, all smiles. "Hey, Abby. What a shock! Hi!" Phony. As. Hell.

The group of pledges sit down to listen to Andrea Volner, the president of the Tri Gams, give a speech. Instead of paying attention to the perfect (and perfectly blond) Andrea, Abby thinks about Gordon and Leila. A year ago, Abby and Leila were actually best friends...and that's all we get. Just tell us what happened! Did Abby find Gordon the magical unicorn and Leila in a compromising position, creating flaming passion with their dry lips (literally--those things are like fucking matchsticks)? I almost don't want to know because the truth will be much less interesting than what I've conjured in my sordid imagination. SORDID! Back to the meeting. A girl named Jessie comes running in late and Rebecca, the girl sitting next to Abby, says "I don't believe it. Look at her. She didn't exactly dress up. She's wearing jeans--and they're not even 501s!" Classic. Abby looks down her snooty nose to examine Jessie: red-framed glasses, messy hair, baggy jeans, and a sweatshirt that "only emphasized that she had a definite weight problem." Abby is absolutely shocked, SHOCKED I tell you, that this girl would even attempt to be a Tri Gam! Glasses and a weight problem? Why doesn't she just kill herself?!? Rebecca says that Jessie's older sister was a Tri Gam so Jessie was automatically pledged. Andrea tells the group that only 10 of them will pledge and only 5 will make it as full members. Then she gets all mysterious *cue the fog machine* and tells them the pledges will have to commit a crime to prove their loyalty to the Tri Gams. OoOo.

Later, Abby meets with Nina at a coffee shop and they talk about this crime business. Abby thinks it's bullshit, but Nina is taking it pretty seriously for whatever reason. Unfortunately, the conversation turns to the hideous ones, Gordon and Leila. Nina seems unaware of how sick Leila makes Abby. She says Gordon is bad for Leila because he likes to make sweet love to her in his car where just anyone could see them. Seriously. Just as Nina realizes that Abby doesn't want to hear this and starts apologizing profusely, Jessie bounds up like a bespectacled jackrabbit and takes a seat. She introduces herself and goes on about how excited she is about the big crime she'll have to commit. Jessie views the whole thing as a "wild adventure" and obviously has never heard the words "conviction" or "prison" or "Big Ugly Bertha has a shank with your name on it". Nina and Abby leave a moment later and laugh their skinny asses off at Jessie because she's weird and honestly thinks she'll become a Tri Gam. These two have the personalities of heaping piles of pig shit so I'm not really sure why they think they have the right to laugh at Jessie...

After leaving the coffee shop, Nina goes back to the dorm room she shares with Leila who is waiting for her and seems a little pissed because she's late. Nina tells her old lady where she was and that doesn't go over too well. Leila says Abby is her enemy because she (Leila) hurt her by stealing Gordon. "Abby was so upset when Gordon-when Gordon decided he liked me better-her mother had to take her out of school for a year." Are you kidding me? How could this Gordon douche be so incredible that Abby couldn't do anything for a year? Unless Gordon shits diamonds and can turns rocks into gold nuggets, I'm not seeing his allure. Anyway, Leila says she got Nina a present and tosses her a leather case. Leila tells her it's binoculars so she can better spy on Gordon and Leila. Leila accuses her of being jealous. "You're just jealous. Why don't you just admit it? You've never had a boyfriend, have you? Have you?!" Nina says she doesn't have to answer that and Leila replies that one of them has to leave because she isn't rooming with a spy. Nina wants to work it out, but Leila just slams out of the room like the crazy, whiny baby she is.

When Abby gets home, all the lights in her house are out. She flicks one on and finds Gabriella sitting there in the dark like some weirdo. She wants to know how the meeting went, but Abby just wants to go to bed. Gabriella asks about the crime, but Abby doesn't answer, goes to her room, and wonders how Gabriella knew about that. Unfortunately, Abby finds Gordon waiting in her room. He climbed through the window to visit the one girl who hates him more than anything. Supposedly. For some reason, I thought Gordon was going to be all preppy, but he's wearing ragged, torn jeans, a greasy sweatshirt, and has long dirty hair. "He still looks like Sean Penn, Abby decided. A big, unwashed Sean Penn." Yeah...if Sean Penn lived in a dumpster behind the 7-11. Gordon came through the window to apologize for leaving Abby for her former best friend. "Last year, I was just immature, I guess." You GUESS? Why wait until a year later to bring this up? In fact, why bring it up at all? Gordon's so-called "apology" is basically a way to rub salt in Abby's wounds. Abby responds by making out with him. DAMMIT.

A week later, the Tri Gams board a bus that takes them to their first stop on the way to becoming semi-hardened criminals. "The house, set back in the woods at the end of Dune Road, could have been the setting of The Amityville Horror or some other horror movie." Yes, it's an old, creepy, isolated house complete with gnarled trees, ghostly shadows, and some meddling kids who have been here since the '60s.


Abby notices how Leila keeps giving Nina really evil, hateful looks and she wonders if they're having roomate problems. She never thinks it might have something to do with that parasite Gordon. Anyway, the big house isn't so creepy on the inside. "It was well lit and cheerfully decorated with surprisingly modern, comfortable-looking furniture. And it was warm and dry." Warm-dry cheerful modern furniture won't stop the horror to come! (Please let there be horror.) Andrea pulls out a list of room assignments and in a twist we all saw coming, Abby and Leila will be roommates. Abby thinks it'll be ok because it's only for a few nights, but of course she's kidding herself. I hope...

The next day, Andrea takes the girls for a tour of the town and tells them "Memorize everything. Your life may depend on it." Such dramatics. They go into Driftwood Antiques for the first step in the crime they're going to be forced to commit. Andrea lies and tells the old lady minding the shop, Mrs. Driftwood (that's actually her name), that they're cheerleaders from Pennsylvania and they're here to admire the jewelry. When the woman goes in back to answer the phone, Andrea tells the girls "There's the side entrance. And there's the cash register. Memorize everything. Everything." She says they'll be coming back tomorrow for the jewelry and money in the register. So they're going to rob a little old lady who runs an antique store in a nearly dead town and probably has next to zero dollars in the register? Andrea, you are truly a piece of shit for coming up with this plan and forcing these feeble minded girls to go along with it. I hope the old lady meets them at the door with a fully loaded shotgun and I hope she's wearing ALL the jewels.

Later, Abby and Nina are at the house, hanging out in the living room. Nina tells Abby not to trust Leila who walks into the room a moment later and pretends not to see them, sitting next to two other girls instead. Nina tells Abby about her fight with Leila and Abby realizes that Leila is a piece of crap and she never wants to be friends with her again. Was that not obvious from the very beginning? Andrea enters the room and announces it's time for a meeting. She talks about the plan for tomorrow and Leila asks what will happen if they screw it up. Andrea says they won't because that has never happened before and the crimes always go unsolved. Just because other girls didn't muck up doesn't mean this batch won't. Andrea shows them a silver pistol to prove this shit is really happening. After she finishes describing what they'll do tomorrow, a girl named Ruby speaks up and says she's not doing it. She wants to call a friend to pick her up, but Andrea says there's no phone so Ruby will have to wait at the house until it's time for everybody to leave. They pull straws to see who will have to carry the pistol the next day and Nina gets the short one. "No! No!" YES.

A short while later, Abby and Leila are in their room when motherf*&!ing Gordon taps at the window. He climbs inside and Abby gets all excited and tries to hug him, but he walks right past her to Leila. Ouch. Leila is horrified that he's here and suspicious of the way Abby greeted him. Abby is embarrassed and just wants to die. Gordon is oblivious to everything because he's a moron.

The next morning, Nina is freaking out because she's the one who has to carry the gun and hold up an old woman. Nina seems to be the only girl who truly believes this is more than just an elaborate joke. All Abby cares about is Gordon and how she embarrassed herself the night before. WHO CARES? Gordon is a stupid creep and Leila is a piece of dried out dog shit. Why does Abby care what either of them think of her? Anyway, Andrea comes in and it's time to leave. On the bus, Abby overhears Andrea tell Nina that the gun is loaded with blanks which, to Nina, confirms all this is a joke...unless Andrea is lying. GASP! When they arrive at Driftwood Antiques, Andrea tells them it should only take a few minutes and she'll be waiting outside for them. She's not even going to watch the foolishness she's wrought? I really don't like you, Andrea. You should be forced to watch the look of horror on the old lady's face when she realizes she's being robbed at gunpoint. Maybe that would make you at least a little ashamed of your dumbass self. So the girls go inside, Nina points the gun at Mrs. Driftwood, and immediately chickens out. Jessie grabs the gun and takes charge. Shortly after, Mrs. Driftwood has a heart attack and dies. "She's dead. We've killed her." Have a nice guilt.

All Andrea can say is "This wasn't in the script. It wasn't in the script." Screw your script! They're back at the house and no-one called 911 at the shop because Andrea wants to "regroup" first. No-one gives a damn about Mrs. Driftwood. They're all too worried about getting caught. Andrea shocks them all by saying she never went inside so she won't be to blame even though the entire thing was HER idea. She says she's going to find a phone to call the police and she'll support the girls the best she can. Total bitch. Everyone starts arguing and Jessie ends up telling Andrea to sit her ass down because she isn't going anywhere. Andrea says they should all go to their rooms for now and they'll meet up again at 3PM to decide what to do. Ok, these people are truly idiotic. The woman died of a heart attack. She's not covered in stab wounds or full of bullet holes so no-one would ever think she was murdered. She wasn't murdered! What these fools did was cruel and ridiculous, but they didn't technically kill her. So why the hell won't anyone call 911?!?! GAHHHHH!

Abby takes the nearly hysterical Nina to her room where Leila tells Nina that the entire thing has to be a joke and Mrs. Driftwood is probably just acting. Nina feels better, but Jessie comes in and says it's NOT a joke and Mrs. Driftwood IS dead because she herself examined her. Thank you, Doctor Doofus. Nina goes to her own room to cry alone and Jessie leaves which means Abby is alone with Leila who has a bone to pick. "There's something going on between you and Gordon, isn't there!" You just watched a woman die and all you want to talk about is Gordon? Kill me now. Abby pretends she doesn't know what Leila is talking about, but Leila saw how she acted when Gordon showed up. Leila says she doesn't feel that bad about dating Gordon because it was his decision to leave Abby for her. I just...I just really don't care about any of this. Leila flips out two seconds later and screams "You stay away from Gordon!" I think it would be in everyone's best interest if Gordon would just go ahead and drop dead. Abby retaliates by screaming "Don't you threaten me! Don't you ever threaten me!" and throwing a container of blush at Leila. That pretty much takes the fight out of Leila and she leaves the room to check on Nina.

A few moments later, Abby is shocked when Gabriella enters the room. She says it wasn't too hard to figure out where the girls were staying and she's very vague about why she came at all. She leaves the room and Abby sits in front of the mirror to draw all over her face with red lipstick, one of the many habits of the truly insane.

Nina and Jessie are talking on the porch when they hear a gunshot and see a man running through the weeds. If you guessed it's Gordon, dear, you would be correct. But it's 3 PM and Jessie and Nina have to meet up with the other girls so they don't think anymore about it. A storm has blown in and two girls argue over who should close an open window against the rain. Because that's worthy of an argument. *sigh* Everyone realizes Andrea is nowhere to be seen. They go upstairs and she's lying on the floor in a pool of blood, dead. "She's been shot!" Bad little Gordon! They go back downstairs and the storm causes the lights to go out so the girls light candles and argue about whether to go out into the storm to find a phone. Then Abby announces that one of them must be a killer, but Nina speaks up, says it has to be Gordon, and explains what she saw and heard earlier. Then they hear someone banging on the door. OF COURSE it's Gordon and the moment he enters the house, Nina starts screaming that he killed Andrea. He says he didn't kill her and he was only running off because he didn't want anyone knowing he snuck in the night before. Abby says he was there to see her and was with her all night *wink wink*. Gordon says that's a lie and he was there to see Leila. Jessie finally interrupts and says she's locking Gordon in on the bedrooms upstairs just to be safe until they can get help.

Leila is now sitting in the kitchen drinking tea and thinking about what she always thinks about (rhymes with 'schmordon'). She decides she needs to go talk to Abby, but when she goes into their room, Abby turns and says "I'm not Abby. I'm Gabriella." According to Leila, Abby doesn't have a sister. Apparently this is what happened to Abby when Gordon broke up with her for Leila. She went completely and created another identity for herself. Gabriella is the bad side of Abby, the one who takes care of business if you know what I'm saying. Gabriella is not too happy with Leila. Gabriella thinks Leila should pay for hurting Abby. Gabriella has a gun...

Nina is in the living room bemoaning the shithole that her life has become and thinking about her home and how she doesn't wanna room with Leila anymore. A second later, she looks down and sees a phone cord. She tells the others and they find that the cord is plugged into a jack, but there's no phone to be found. Then they all hear a scream.

Gabriella has forced Leila into the basement at gunpoint. She's prepared to shoot her in the face, but Gordon interrupts. Gabriella says she has plenty of bullets, enough to kill both Leila AND Gordon. What a peach. Gordon leaps at Gabriella for the gun, a shot is fired, and Leila screams. The other girls come running at the sounds and find Gabriella and Gordon rolling on the floor and fighting to get the gun (while Leila stands by and does nothing), but Nina goes over and grabs the gun before either of them can. She tells Gordon to get away from Abby and he does. He runs to Leila and Abby looks at them and says with a smile on her face "I'll kill you, Leila. I'll kill you." And no-one would blame you, precious. "I killed Andrea. And I killed Mrs. Driftwood." Well, now, that's a different story. After she says that, Andrea and Mrs. Driftwood appear at the top of the stairs. They're very much alive and Andrea tells the girls the game is over and they're all Tri Gams now. I can't imagine any of them give a damn about that after all the crap they've been through. Nina tells Andrea that she is disappointed and ashamed about everything and her first task as a Tri Gam is to stop the horrible shit Andrea puts pledges through every year. Leila tells Andrea that Abby's mind is broken and someone needs to call for help. At this point, all Abby can do is repeat "I'm not Abby. I'm Gabriella." Leila cries and says it's all her fault that Abby is this way right after Jessie confesses that she was in on the whole thing. An ambulance arrives for Abby and Leila and Gordon go upstairs. She says she doesn't want to be a Tri Gam and Gordon thinks she's TWISTED for quitting after all this hell. Shut up, Gordon. I mean it, dammit. Anyway, Abby/Gabriella is taken away, presumably to be locked away in a padded cell for many months to come. The other girls will probably have a lifetime of therapy to look forward to. And all for a stupid sorority prank. I think I'm gonna puke...

Conclusion?: If I ever come across anyone named Gordon, I will kick him in the balls SO hard.

Next time: "The New Girl" The very first Fear Street book. 1989 was the year for Fear.

All-Night Party 17 Apr 2012 10:28 PM (13 years ago)

Book Description:

The night time is the right time - for murder.

Gretchen Davies and her friends all know Fear Island is an awesome place to have a party. You can dance all night, share secrets with your best friends, fall in love... Or die. Because there's a madman loose on the island. A killer who plans to spoil the party. The birthday girl gets to go first, of course. Who's next?

My Description:

Gretchen and her friends Hannah, Gil, Jackson, and Patrick are in Gretchen's blue minivan waiting for the light to turn green. I think we can all agree that minivans kick ass. Maybe this party won't be so bad after all! (It will.) They're on their way to "kidnap" their mopey friend Cindy who thinks they completely forgot about her birthday. Little does she know that she's about to be dragged off to Fear Island against her will for a party everyone will soon regret. Happy birthday, Cindy, you poor pathetic wretch. Gretchen looks at Jackson in the rear view mirror and thinks about how creepy he is and how she's only known him for a short time. She's been receiving weird calls where the caller immediately hangs up when she answers the phone. She thinks it's Jackson because of his creepy ways, mostly his shifty eyes. And yet she allowed him to enter the sacred realm of her blue minivan and tag along on a suicide mission to Fear Island. It must secretly be love...or something that doesn't even remotely resemble love. Either/or.

So they show up at Cindy's house in the middle of the night like sneaky bandits, let themselves into her house, and snatch her off her bed while she completely freaks out. Patrick pulls out a gun and points it at Cindy's head. Once she screams bloody murder, he starts laughing and says it isn't even loaded. Asshole. They blindfold Cindy and she calms down when they tell her they're taking her somewhere for her birthday. These people seriously SUCK. Couldn't they just take her bowling or something? Anything would be better than frigging Fear Island. They may as well shove her head in a toilet or make her eat dog food. Anyway, they all get in the van and Gretchen asks Patrick why he's carrying a gun. He says a prisoner escaped from upstate and was recently seen in the Fear Street Woods. Since Shadyside cops are absolutely useless, the guy is probably still wandering around. Hell, he could camp out in front of the police station and they still wouldn't catch him. They'd probably bring him coffee and crumpets. Patrick goes on to say the guy killed three teenage girls...just like the ones in the van right now! OOOO! The group considers going somewhere else just to be safe, but of course they decide to go to Fear Island anyway because they're not afraid of dying at the hands of a madman. Plus, they worked really hard at getting the cabin ready. Meaning they swept the floor and dusted for cobwebs.

The idiots take a rowboat across Fear Lake to the cabin. On the way, Patrick pretends they're being chased by Jaws (who would never lower himself to this) and the girls talk about Gretchen's boyfriend Marco who she didn't invite because she secretly can't stand him. They finally reach the shore and Gretchen gets to the cabin first, just as it starts to rain. The lights aren't working and as Gretchen enters the dark cabin, someone grabs her. It's Marco who decided to surprise everybody by butting in where he isn't wanted. Gretchen is pissed because he scared her--she thought he was the psycho killer. Don't we all wish?! Gretchen admires Marco's hot body and thinks about what an ass he is. Everybody else enters the cabin and no-one but Cindy (who's a little blonde harlot according to Gretchen) cares that Marco is there which she shows by running into his arms.

The group cook hot dogs in the fireplace. Hannah and Cindy are bitchy with each other over Gil who is currently dating Hannah but once dated Cindy for six months. Gil blatantly flirts with Cindy in front of Hannah. Instead of roasting Gil's chestnuts over the open fire, the girls just bicker with one another over stupid shit like whether Gil likes ketchup or mustard on his hot dog or if Gil prefers Coke (THE MASTER) or ginger ale. WHO THE HELL CARES?? Hannah flees to the kitchen and Gretchen follows. Hannah can't stand Cindy and hates her even more since she won a scholarship Hannah desperately wanted which is a bitch because Cindy's family is pretty rich and she probably doesn't need that scholarship like Hannah does. Hannah tells Gretchen that she wishes Cindy was dead. Good news! In a few hours, she probably will be!

Cindy decides it's time to open her presents which is a lesson in futility for all of us. No matter what you buy for a rich girl, she'll treat it like it's a steaming pile of dog doo because she's got better or can get better. Anyway, Gretchen bought her earrings ("Great earrings."), Hannah got her a bottle of perfume ("Too bad it makes me break out."), Gil and Jackson chipped in together and bought her two tickets to a rock concert ("Cool gift." She drops them to the floor like they're covered with boric acid.), and finally Marco's gift, a box full of slasher movies which sounds pretty good to me, but not to Cindy: "Ohhhh. Gross! Yuck! Ugh! How can any normal person watch that stuff?" Go to hell, Cindy. Patrick says he'll take them and Cindy gives them to him right in front of Marco who is rightly pissed. Almost everyone is appalled at how rude Cindy is being. Except for Patrick who said he didn't wrap her gift so he'll give it to her later. Just admit you didn't buy her anything. No-one will blame you, trust me.

Next, they all decide to put on a CD and dance instead of sitting around thinking about what a little shit Cindy is. Gretchen thinks for the 365866372th time that Jackson is acting creepy because he's staring at her again. Shut up, Gretchen. After dancing, Gretchen goes outside for more firewood and Gil and Hannah walk to the dock. Gretchen goes behind the cabin and overhears Jackson and Cindy talking in the kitchen. She can't make out what they're saying, but they sound pissed off. Then she hears a SLAP which can only mean Cindy finally got SERVED. Don't worry, Cindy. Your face will feel better when it stops hurting. Gretchen decides to ignore this because if it's serious, Patrick and Marco will break it up. And because everybody hates Cindy so who the hell cares if someone pops her in the mouth? Gretchen bumbles through the darkness until her flashlight goes out. Then she starts to panic, rushing back to the cabin. Some doucher pops out of the darkness and grabs her. It's Marco, but Gretchen was positive it was the escaped prisoner and she's angry at Marco all over again. Apparently the dummy didn't learn his lesson the first time he pulled this crap. Gretchen takes the opportunity to tell him she doesn't want to see him anymore. He responds by pulling out a switchblade and hacking at the bark of a tree. "I'm angry." You don't say! The two walk back to the cabin which is totally empty. It starts raining again so Gretchen assumes everyone will show up soon. She goes into the kitchen and finds the slashed body of Cindy on the floor. The party has begun, children.


Marco comes running at the sound of Gretchen puking all over the crime scene. Then Patrick enters with blood all over his shirt. He says he cut his hand and then wonders aloud how the escaped prisoner got in. They go into the living room just as Gil and Hannah come in. Gretchen tearfully tells them that Cindy is dead. They're shocked and Hannah starts crying. Why are these people acting so sad? We KNOW they're smiling on the inside. They discuss calling the police, but Patrick informs them that there are no phones on the island. How convenient. They decide they can't go home because the storm has gotten worse. Would you rather face a damn thunderstorm or a homicidal maniac who might make a lampshade out of your supple skin? Exactly. Jackson comes in with a load of firewood, then heads for the kitchen to make sure Cindy is really dead and it isn't just a joke. The girls insist that they all need to get help, but Patrick keeps contradicting them with excuses. He thinks they should stay in the cabin until morning because he has a gun and can defend them. No comment. Then they all scare themselves shitless with the idea that the killer could be inside with them. I get the impression that the cabin is pretty small so where would he be hiding, in the walls? Plus, Gretchen has been in here for a while. Wouldn't she have noticed if he were there? Wouldn't he have already killed her? Anyway, they search the house and find nothing. A few moments later, Gretchen sees movement on the porch. She steps out and it turns out to be Jackson who went out earlier to prowl around making sure the killer isn't close. As if he could do anything if he actually found a hardened killer in the bushes. Gretchen goes back inside with yet another reason to think Jackson is a weirdo. Marco and Jackson go into the kitchen to make sure the murderer isn't hovering about. They're gone for about 1.5 seconds when Gretchen gets worried, puts her ear to the kitchen door, hears nothing, and screams "The killer IS in there! He killed Marco and Jackson!" Is she completely insane? Silence doesn't automatically equal death. Maybe they're just sharing an intimate moment. Jackson and Marco come running and explain to the stupid Gretchen that they were just checking the cupboard. Gretchen asks Marco about the fight he had with Cindy earlier and he says he never fought with her. Gretchen never actually saw who it was. She heard them and thought it sounded like Jackson. So she assumes he's lying and he's the killer because he's a freaky creepy weirdo who keeps giving her LOOKS. Did she ever think that maybe she has something nasty stuck in her teeth and THAT'S what he keeps staring at? Never mind. Shut your rusty trap, Gretchen.

The night drags on a little longer. Gretchen continues to be paranoid. Hannah and Gil fight about Cindy. The fight ends with Gil screaming that he was going to break up with Hannah to date Cindy again to which Hannah screams "I hate you!" Then they both scream that they wish the other were dead. Gretchen finally tells them to stop. Then the wind blows the door open and EVERYBODY stops. Jackson accidentally left it ajar. They all talk more about killers and Cindy and Jackson tells them to follow him to the kitchen because he wants to examine Cindy's body closer. They follow and Gretchen notices that Cindy is (was?) clutching a baseball cap in one hand. Jackson asks who it belongs to and Patrick says it's his. KILLER! Patrick doesn't know how it got there. LIAR! Hannah cries some more. SOB FACE! Gretchen theorizes that maybe Cindy was going outside and grabbed Patrick's hat so her hair wouldn't get frizzy in the rain. IMBECILE! A few moments later, Gretchen finds a bootprint on the kitchen floor in some flour that Detective Gretchen assumes was spilled when the killer lunged for Cindy. She checks the bottoms of Patrick's boots which are by the door...they've got a coating of flour. KILLER!!! Patrick continues to swear up and down that he did not kill that teenage girl, but no-one believes him this time. They tie him to a chair and prepare to search his things for evidence. Gretchen finds a note from Cindy in Patrick's backpack that proves absolutely nothing: "Patrick, I can't keep our secret anymore. I'm going to tell my parents--no matter what happens. Don't try to stop me. Cindy" They're convinced that Patrick killed her over their little "secret". Then they find a big bloody knife in his sleeping bag. Well, damn. I guess Patrick killed her after all. This party sucks.

The group confronts Patrick with the evidence. Predictably, he denies being a stone cold killer. He says someone is trying to frame him and the killer must be one of them. The only solution is EVERYONE KILL THEMSELVES NOW. Please? Fine, be that way. Didn't know living was so important to you... Also, I thought the damn killer was supposed to be that "escaped prisoner". Patrick is a terrible liar. Anyway, these idiots are now unsure that Patrick murdered Cindy which is why Patrick is definitely the killer--he's smarter than them and can get away with it. He asks to see the note that Cindy wrote and he claims it's a fraud because the 'i' in 'Cindy' isn't dotted with a heart and Cindy always did that. Of course she did. I'm not going to bother with the rest of this unbearable and completely useless conversation because it solves nothing. They continue to question themselves and whether or not Cindy wrote the note and blah blah blah. They end up untying Patrick and then Hannah goes missing. She left...a note. "I can't stay here one more second with a killer. I'm too frightened." You have got to be kidding. Or shrooming. Gil, Marco, and Patrick run outside to look for her. Gretchen has to pull on her boots and Jackson stays behind with her. She considers bashing him the head with a log if he tries anything, but he speaks before she can make a move. "I guess you suspect..." Gretchen freaks out and flees before he can finish. She runs blindly through the forest and falls down a hill. Jackson falls on top of her. He helps her up, she confesses to being afraid of him because he looks at her too much, and he says he only does that because he really likes her. They hike back up the hill and suddenly hear Hannah screaming her head off. They run to the cabin where Gil, Marco, and Patrick are dragging Hannah inside. They accuse Hannah of being the killer and she *sigh* denies it. Gretchen decides all this is making her lips quite dry and she digs through her purse for some delicious Chap Stick. She spills the purse's contents and spots an old note. She reads it and is suddenly positive that she knows who the killer is. Obviously it's Patrick. Gretchen's note is an old one from Patrick and the handwriting matches the Cindy note. Patrick weakly attempts to deny it yet AGAIN which nearly causes my head to explode into bloody chunks, but he finally realizes this is pointless. He calmly pulls out his pistol and says he just might kill them all. He rambles crazily about how Cindy knew a secret about him and teased him over it, but that wasn't really why he killed her. He stabbed her to death because she didn't return his feelings about her and wouldn't date him. "I gave Cindy a birthday party to die for." Yeah...but why did you do it with so many people around, dumbass? And you left so much evidence. You are the worst murderer in Shadyside history, Patrick, and that, sir, is truly pathetic. Truly. Patrick killed Cindy after she slapped him for trying to kiss her.

A moment later, Patrick turns the gun on Gretchen, but he doesn't get the chance to shoot because a police officer magically appears in the doorway. He and his partner get the gun away from Patrick and cuff him. He asks why the cops are here and one of them tells him that Patrick's father told them that Patrick stole his gun and the cops came to get it. Patrick was in trouble once before for setting a fire in Waynesbridge. That was his BIG secret. Cindy didn't even know about it. She used to tell him he looked dangerous, though, and he assumed she was talking about the fire. The book ends with Jackson and Gretchen watching the sunrise and not thinking about the fact that if those cops hadn't shown up, their guts would be nothing but splatters on a wall right now. "Party's over." I hate you, Gretchen.

Conclusion?: This is just a fucking abomination. A plague. A disease. I'm pretty sure reading this thing has taken years off my life.

Next time: "Twisted" Sorority sisters + murder = a hell of a mess.

The Babysitter III 4 Apr 2012 10:49 PM (13 years ago)

Book Description:

Jenny just wants to forget the man who murdered all the babysitters. The man who almost murdered her. He's dead now. And Jenny's gone to visit her cousin Debra. But Debra has a babysitting job. And now she's getting those phone calls, too. Just like the ones Jenny used to get: Hi, Babes. I'm back. Company's coming...

My Description:

BABES. Just call me BABES. Anywho, Jenny has just taken a job at The Doughnut Hole in the mall for the summer even though she really doesn't wanna. Her mom just got laid off from her job as a legal secretary and Jenny will need to help out. Jenny, baby, $4 an hour just ain't enough...I don't think it was enough in 1993 (when this sucker was published) either. R.L. Stine has no concept of the working (wo)man's plight. Mr. Larson, Jenny's boss who resembles a big luscious doughnut himself, tells her to be there at 6:30 AM on Monday. Jenny practically vomits at the thought of having to be exposed to doughnuts all summer. "What a summer, Jenny thought unhappily. Staring at a wall of greasy doughnuts at six-thirty every morning." What the hell is wrong with her? I've got a heart full of doughnut love and I don't understand the repulsion.

As Jenny leaves the mall, she thinks about her horrifying past as a babysitter. To recap, a crazy man named Mr. Hagen tried to murder her, but he got his skull cracked open at the bottom of a rock quarry and died instantly. Anyway, Jenny comes across her friends Rick and Claire. Rick is pretending to be a bad ass in his METAL MANIACS T-shirt and Claire is a damn bumblebee (that's what you get when wear black leggings with a big yellow shirt. BUZZ.) Jenny whines about her new job and says the only good thing about it is that she's working morning shift so she'll be able to see Cal in the evenings. I'm assuming Cal is her crusty lipped flavor of the week. Rick runs off for an ice cream and as Claire and Jenny are waiting for him, Jenny spots a guy in a red windbreaker that looks an awful lot like Mr. Hagen even though he's supposed to be a mouldering corpse. Why the hell would a homicidal resurrected dead man wear a RED WINDBREAKER? Anyway, as Jenny stares on, the man pops the head off a baby doll. Jenny nearly soils her drawers because she thought it was a real baby. The guy actually stops to explain that the doll is defective so he's returning it to the toy store. Jenny is relieved to see that it isn't that dead guy that tried to kill her after all.

A few days later, Jenny stares in the mirror and thinks about how shitty she looks. Before she can annoy us any further, her mom pops in to tell her that Jenny won't be a doughnut handler this summer because she's going to stay with her cousin Debra and aunt Julia. Mom thinks Jenny is losing her damn mind and might need a little "rest". Jenny whines about how perfect and competitive Debra is and about how she won't be able to see Cal over the summer. MEMO: Shut the hell up.

Jenny agrees to go, though, and decides to gallop off to Cal's house to say goodbye (i.e. make out). She parks across the street from his house and as she's crossing, she hears someone lurking behind her. It's just some guy walking his dog and trying to give Jenny her bag which she dropped in the street in her rush to get away from this "murderer". A few moments later, Cal lets her in and Jenny tells him that she'll be gone for the summer. He says maybe he could come visit, but she shoots him down by claiming that she needs to be alone or something. And yet five seconds ago she was bitching about how to she wouldn't be able to see him for the whoooooole summer. This chick is daffy.

Meanwhile, cousin Debra is somewhere far away harassing some dude named Terry over the phone. I think she's attempting to be coy and cute, but she's coming across like a completely pathetic psycho. She keeps giggling and telling him to guess who it is. She also says she wants him, she's been watching him, and she's his secret admirer. After frustrating the hell out of the clueless Terry, she hangs up and laughs her ass off. Like her cousin, this girl has fudge for brains. Debra looks up and sees her creepy (is everyone in this book completely mental?) ex-boyfriend Don who apparently just can't get over her. Don politely let himself into her house so he could pout in the shadows and beg Debra to talk to him even though there's really nothing to say. Debra tells him to get out and he threatens to tell her new boyfriend Mark that she's been making weird and lusty phone calls to the forever confused Terry. After Debra throws a stuffed dog at him, Don grabs her and kisses her. Jenny show up, though, and Don quickly leaves. The girls catch up a little and Jenny is impressed that Debra has had three boyfriends since Jenny last visited. All of whom were worthless...their lips probably weren't even that dry. Then Debra's mother Julia comes in talking a mile a minute (but is she really saying anything? No.) Julia leaves and Debra says she's late for her job...as a babysitter. NOOOO! Jenny silently panics because Debra wants her to come along, but Debra insists it will be fun so Jenny puts her psychological issues aside to go with her stupid idiot cousin.

As Jenny and Debra walk to Mrs. Wagner's house, Debra complains about her annoying mother. She manages to shut up about that long enough to tell Jenny that Mrs. Wagner is divorced. So Jenny has no reason to be nervous about a Mr. Hagen look-a-like trying to cut her face off. Mrs. Wagner lets the girls inside and leaves for an evening class at the community college. "Don't get married too early. That's what I did. I never got to go to college. So now I have to do it two nights a week." Thank you, Mrs. Wagner. Debra is there to babysit little Peter who is asleep upstairs. The girls get Cokes (YES) and Debra flips on the porch light which is her signal to Mark that it's safe to come in. The girls sit in the living room (Mark is running a little late) and Debra coaxes Jenny to tell the story of Mr. Hagen. Jenny tells all including the plot of the second Babysitter book that I had completely forgotten about until now because it was so unbearably ridiculous. Jenny confesses that she still has nightmares about Mr. Hagen and sees him wherever she goes. She thinks he might still be alive. Apparently Jenny doesn't understand the mechanics of the human body. When your brains pour out of a gaping hole in your skull, YOU DIE. Jenny and Debra stop talking when they hear a cough and some scuffling in the kitchen. It's just some bloated old drunk chick named Maggie rather than a congested dead man. Maggie used to be Mrs. Wagner's housekeeper until she was fired. For some reason, Maggie still has a key to the house so she can come and stalk as she pleases. "I'm back." Yeah, you are. Now get the hell out. Maggie is too damn drunk to take my advice. Seriously, the old bag is wasted. "You can't just turn Maggie off like a faucet." Maggie eventually leaves after finding an old shopping bag she claims is hers and telling the girls that things disappear around here so they should probably get gone. Neither girl pays attention to Maggie (a most rusty faucet) and runs to answer the front door where Mark is waiting.

Mark is a hot, tanned lifeguard who doesn't take his job of GUARDING LIVES very seriously. "Mostly you just sit there. It's almost like watching TV. Except you blow a whistle a lot." You go into the pool...but you don't come out. Jenny mentions that she wants a summer job so she can buy shit and Mark says his dad's friend owns a riding stable and always needs help. He says Jenny could be a "wrangler", someone who helps the kids who come to ride. He never once asks if Jenny has any experience whatsoever with horses. Also, WRANGLER? What the hell is she wrangling? You insult the world with your existence, Mark. The conversation is over when Mark and Debra start kissing. Jenny decides to check on Peter instead of watching these two tongue wrestle. Jenny freaks out because she thinks Peter isn't breathing and screams for Debra. Debra picks him up, sees that he's still alive, and places him back in his crib. Jenny keeps crying and apologizing, Debra comforts her, and Mark has to flee because Mrs. Wagner's car just pulled up.

A few days later, Jenny is on the job at the riding stable. Her job is to put the kids in the saddle and send them on their way. They have a counselor (is this a camp? I don't know anything...) so why couldn't that person do this? Me thinks this job is a convoluted plot device to get Jenny into some sort of horror. Anyway, once the kids are off riding with their counselor, Jenny chats with Gary, a guy from Wyoming who's a REAL wrangler. Not impressed. Not in this town. Jenny does some horse stuff, thinks about some stuff, and as she's leaning against a fence rail (this is a JOB?), she spots a man on a horse riding closer. "Hi, I'm back." Yep, just a dead guy on his trusty steed.

The next night, Debra is on the phone with Mark, telling him about Jenny freaking out the day before because she thought she saw Mr. Hagen AGAIN. Debra hangs up when Jenny comes into the room and tells Debra about her day at the stable which was blessedly normal. Debra has to babysit and says she might call that guy Terry before she leaves. "I have to admit, I get pretty turned on by these calls. What does that say about me?" It says you're a dumb ass. Those calls are the unsexiest things on the planet and since that honor once went to my lopsided boobs, you can rest assured that I know what I'm talking about, woman. Debra decides it'll be so much more amusing if Jenny makes the call. Jenny doesn't want to, but she's a spineless rag and finally agrees. The call is short because Don told Terry it was Debra making the calls and he hangs up pretty quickly. Debra is embarrassed and leaves for Mrs. Wagner's house.

Mrs. Wagner rushes off after telling Debra that Peter is teething and if he gets fussy, just rub some rum on his gums. Don't worry--Peter's father is Captain Morgan so his blood is already 50% rum. Debra has a Coke (HER LIFE) and thinks about calling Jenny. But before she can, she receives a call: "Hi, Babes. It's Mr. Hagen. I'm alive. I'm back. Company's coming, Babes." Get your ass back in the grave where you belong, devil!

The next night, in between kisses in Mark's crappy car, Debra and Mark talk about the call and how Deb can't tell Jenny because Jenny already has one foot in the insane asylum and this will just send her over the edge. They talk about who the culprit could be and Mark admits to telling the Hagen story to some of his friends. He mentions telling TERRY so Debra assumes he made the call to get back at her. The next night, Debra confronts Terry at the Dairy Freez where he works, but of course Terry didn't make that call. Debra is disappointed...then she thinks about how cute Terry is and tries to set him up with Jenny. He says he'll think about it. There's nothing to think about: SAY NO. Poor stupid Terry...

On Friday night, Debra, Mark, Jenny, and Terry (who obviously has no brains at all) go to the movies and to a coffee shop afterward. When Debra and Jenny get home, they see something pale lying in the bushes. It turns out to be a baby doll, but Jenny was convinced it was Peter's lifeless body poking out of the bushes. The little doll comes with a little note: "Hi, Babes. I'm back. See you real soon. Mr. Hagen" Inside the house, the girls go up to Debra's room where Jenny proceeds to cry that it's really Mr. Hagen this time. It doesn't matter that his head barfed out his brain in that rock quarry! He's ALIVE! Not. Debra tells her that it's just a joke and it's probably directed at her, not Jenny, because someone called her at Mrs. Wagner's. Debra says it's got to be some crazy creep playing a sick joke because the dead don't come back to which Jenny replies "Don't they? Don't they, Debra?" Seriously, why isn't someone getting her some help? Her brain is more broken than Mr. Hagen's ever was. Debra asks if Jenny told anyone from home that she was coming here and she mentions Cal. Debra thinks he could be the caller and makes Jenny call him. She does and Cal's mother tells her that he ran away. Of course he did.

At the stables, Jenny comes across Cal. He pulls her onto a horse with him, they gallop off, and suddenly his skin falls off and she's riding with a skeleton named Mr. Hagen. "At last I'm going to take you to the grave with me!" No you're not. Because this is all a dream.

Monday night, Debra is at Mrs. Wagner's, waiting for Mark to show up. She's about to call Jenny when she hears a noise upstairs and goes to investigate. It's just the baby tossing in his sleep. He settles down and Debra goes back downstairs where she calls Mark who is totally pissed. He found out about her calls to Terry and when she tries to explain it was a joke, he hangs up on her. Then "Mr. Hagen" calls. "It's Mr. Hagen, Debra. I'm alive. And I'm coming for you. Real soon." Debra thinks it's Mark, but she also thinks the voice sounds as if it's coming from far away...from BEYOND THE GRAVE! Mwahahaha! "I'll be there. Wait for me, Debra. Wait for me. I've come from so far away to get you." She screams and throws the phone down which wakes Peter. She holds him until he falls asleep again. She goes back downstairs to find freaking Maggie rooting around in the cupboard. Maggie is drunk again and insists that SHE'S the babysitter. Eventually she leaves after telling Debra "I'll come back for what's mine." Later, Mrs. Wagner says she'll change the locks, but I doubt it. I think Mrs. Wagner likes allowing a crazy wino into her home to roam like a free grazing goat.

That night, Debra is awakened by Jenny's screams of terror. She had another nightmare. Debra's parents run in, but they go back to bed after Jenny insists she's fine. Debra tells Jenny she got another phone call last night which just leads Jenny to start all over again with her claims that Mr. Hagen is alive. GAHHH!

At the stables the next day, Jenny doesn't put a saddle on correctly and Gary yells at her. She's distracted by thoughts of Cal. Jenny goes on a break just as thunder and rain start in. She decides to go for a ride on a horse she just named...Thunderclap. On the trail, another rider is behind her and she flips out because she's certain it's Hagen. "I know it's Mr. Hagen. Coming to collect me." Jenny, please, just SHUT UP.

That evening, Debra is babysitting again. She calls home and her mom tells her Jenny still isn't home. They assume she went somewhere with Gary. They never once think she's riding hysterically through the woods in a thunderstorm trying to get away from a dead man on a horse. Hm. Debra calls Mark's house and his mom says he's out. Debra thinks it's weird that he'd be out in this storm so she gets herself a Coke. Because Coke is medicine. Coke doesn't hurt you. Coke just wants to be inside you. Uh...never mind. Anyway, the phone rings, but it's just a wrong number. Debra is feeling paranoid and thinks she hears footsteps upstairs. Then Mrs. Wagner calls and says she'll be a little later than usual. Hoo rah. At 11:00, Debra goes upstairs to feed Peter. She notices that the front door is ajar and convinces herself that Mrs. Wagner simply forgot to close it. In Peter's room, she finds the crib empty. She panics, notices wet footprints on the floor, and rushes downstairs to call the police. Good job, Debra. Usually the idiots in these books try to solve problems themselves without realizing they're too stupid to do so. Unfortunately, the cops are usually just as dumb, possibly dumber. Debra runs downstairs and finds a soaking wet Cal who apologizes for letting himself in but he's looking for Jenny (how did he know to come here?). Debra explains about the baby and asks for his help. Predictably, the phone is dead so the two run next door to use the phone. A couple lets them in, Debra calls 911, and screams "A dead man stole the baby!" Dammit, Debra.

Later, Mrs. Wagner and the cops are at the house and Debra thinks about the fact that Jenny's nightmare is coming true. Speaking of Jenny, no-one knows where she is. Debra actually mentions Mr. Hagen to the police who think she's insane. Mrs. Wagner is afraid Maggie took Peter and is pissed at Debra for not making sure the door was locked even though Maggie has a key and SOMEONE never changed the locks. The phone rings a moment later and the cops tell Debra to answer it. "I got rid of Jenny and I have the baby. Now do you believe me, Babes? Now do you believe I'm really back?" Debra tells everyone she knows where this freak is so they all leave. She leads them to the stables because she's pretty sure that Jenny is behind all this. And she is. Jenny comes out of the barn on a horse. She has a crying Peter in her arms and keeps talking in her Mr. Hagen voice. "I'm not Jenny! I'm Mr. Hagen and I'm back!" Wow. "I'm alive! I'm back from the grave! And I have my baby!" Lightning cracks and scares the horse that Jenny is on and she falls, still holding the baby. (Debra thought the cops shot her.) The rain stops, the baby is safe, and Jenny is presumably hauled away to spend the rest of her life in a padded cell.

Conclusion?: This is some tasty (although slightly moldy) cheese.

Next time: "All-Night Party" Back to the land of murdering teens! (Also, why is "All-Night" hyphenated?)

Cheerleaders: The Evil Lives! 6 Mar 2012 5:18 AM (13 years ago)

Book Description:

Everybody at Shadyside High remembers when Corky Corcoran destroyed the evil spirit. The evil that attacked the cheerleaders. The evil that killed Sarah Fear one hundred years ago. No-one expected the evil to come back. No-one knew there was only one way to defeat it forever. No-one knew that the answer lay hidden in Sarah Fear's grave. Now the cheerleaders must discover the secret...before it's too late.

My Description:

Part One

 Amanda Roberts is as stiff as a piece of dry spaghetti. Really, she tells us so and that's how we begin this book...this book that will almost certainly dissolve into a heap of stinking doo doo by the time we're done with it. I just get a bad feeling about these Cheerleader books, man. Kick me if I'm wrong! Anyway, Amanda is a senior at Shadyside High and captain of the cheerleading squad which means she'll either be dead or certifiably insane by the end of the book. She's called a Saturday practice and the first couple pages are nothing but the cheerleaders making dirty lustful eyes at the basketball players practicing at the other end of the gym. Two of the guys get into a fight. YAWN.

After practice, Amanda, Victoria, and Janine decide to go to The Corner. Before they leave, Amanda stops to talk to a b-ball player named Judd. Then she turns to see Janine freaking out. She found a little black snake in her gym bag. Two seconds later, a dude named Brandon confesses to putting it there. DEAR GOD I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE BORED. (And I just sat through a three hour astronomy lecture. What did I learn? That I really hate Isaac Newton.) The boys start tossing the defenseless little snake around until Natalie (Brandon is her boyfriend...I think) smacks them in the head with the fact that it's a living thing and she takes it outside.

In the locker room, Amanda finds a duffel bag with a name tag that reads "Corky Corcoran". Inside the bag, she discovers a cheerleading uniform and a photo of five Shadyside cheerleaders. At the bottom of the bag is a small wooden box with a label attached: DO NOT OPEN. EVIL INSIDE. Seriously? No, SERIOUSLY? Is this what the Evil has been reduced to? The disappointment...IT BURNS. She opens the box with the other cheerleaders at The Corner. Inside the box lies a folded letter from Corky along with some other papers. Corky describes the evil that the Evil has wrought. The last line of the letter is "Destroy this box!" I thought Corky drowned the Evil in a toilet or something so how is it now inside this box? Before anyone can look at the other papers, Amanda's raggedy ass boyfriend Dustin interrupts. Amanda doesn't even really like this lump, but he's all over her like white on rice. She only stays with him because he's a basketball player and cheerleaders are destined to be with b-ball players. It's written in the stars or some shit. Anyway, she purposely didn't tell him she was coming here, but he sniffed her out. "I found you." Unfortunately. Dustin gabs on about basketball and Luke and Brandon getting in a fight and then he offers Amanda a ride home because he just assumes it's time for her to leave. She says she drove herself and they walk to the parking lot where she breaks up with him. YES! Dustin goes catatonic, but manages to drive away. YES!

At home, Amanda receives a phone call from a stranger with "a husky voice" so you know it's some kind of creep. "This is the evil spirit, Amanda. I'm alive. I'm coming for you." I wish. WE ALL WISH. But it's just Amanda's friend Keesha. She tells Amanda that Janine has the box and the other papers were instructions for calling the Evil. These idiots decide they'll conjure the spirit with some other cheerleaders the next night. They hang up and Amanda goes down the hall to talk to her sister Adele. Adele is in college now, but she remembers Corky from high school. She tells Amanda about the horrible way Corky's sister Bobbi died and Adele asks Amanda if she's done something to disturb the Evil. Amanda lies and I cries.

The next afternoon, Amanda decides that the box must be destroyed. When she enters the gym for cheer practice, she hears Keesha scream "She's killing her!" Natalie and Janine are beating the shit out of each other which is just so great. The other girls break it up and ask why they were fighting. Natalie's boyfriend (Luke? Brandon? I can't remember and can't be bothered with caring because they all SUCK.) will be playing in a basketball game on Friday while Janine's boyfriend will be bench warming. Apparently Natalie was gloating about it and Janine jumped her. I can't think of a dumber reason for a fight. Practice goes on as usual and at the end, Amanda sees Dustin sitting in the bleachers with an odd look on his face. The kind of look a wolf gets just before it devours a baby bunny's still beating heart.

That evening, Amanda is walking to fellow cheerleader Victoria's house to conjure the evil spirit even though she decided earlier to destroy the freaking box. Evil is gonna get buck wild tonight, kids. Stupid cheerleaders. Before Amanda can get to Victoria's, Dustin pops out of the bushes like a psychotic jack-in-the-box. He wants to "talk". He brings up her crush on Judd and blames that on their break-up and not the fact that he's a nutjob. Amanda ends up running hard to Victoria's house to get away from him. Teenage romance gives me bleeding ulcers.

When Amanda arrives at Victoria's, she's surprised that all the lights are out except for a bunch of black candles. The girls are just preparing to conjure their evil spirit friend which will cast them all into a hell on earth. What, Fear Street not enough for you, hmm? Damn gourd heads. Anyway, Amanda gets really pissed off at the fact that the other girls seem to think it's a big joke. She tells them what Adele told her earlier, but the girls brush it off. The more hysterical Amanda becomes, the funnier they think it is. Of course, in the end, Amanda goes along with them because it's illegal to have a mind of your own. Janine gets the pages with the evil conjuring words and everyone sits in a circle to chant them. A moment later, 2 bright lights flash, the kitchen door bangs open, and a dark figure enters. AIEEE! Never mind...it's just Judd and Brandon. Judd promptly faints like an old lady with vapors. When he wakes up, he says he gets dehydrated after basketball practice. Victoria gives him some orange Gatorade (WHERE'S MY COKE?) while Amanda silently ponders whether it was dehydration or something EVIL that caused Judd to pass out. Personally, I blame his tight little corset.

It is now Friday night and the cheerleaders are at a game. The Shadyside Tigers are playing the Lincoln Hornets. Natalie's boy toy Luke has the ball, but he's not going for the basket. Luke starts to run up the bleacher stairs but trips and slams his head on the edge of a seat. Amanda notices something lying next to him. "The "thing" was the top of Luke's head. His skull. His hair. His scalp--completely torn off." Does this mean the Hornets win?

Part Two

 Four days later, everyone attends Luke's funeral. Afterward, Brandon, Victoria, Keesha, Natalie, Janine, and Amanda hang out at Amanda's house where Natalie accuses Janine of being happy that Luke is dead because now Janine's boyfriend Brandon will get Luke's place on the basketball team. Yes, she IS serious. Natalie runs out of the house and BRANDON of all people decides to go after her. Suspicious? Indeed.


The doorbell rings a few minutes later. It's Judd looking for Brandon. Amanda tells him Brandon isn't there and invites him inside. He goes in and they all talk about Luke some more. Judd tells them they're dedicating Friday night's game to Luke. Soon, all the girls leave and Amanda is conveniently alone with Judd. They kiss and Judd confesses he felt as if he were possessed or something the day Luke died. Amanda thinks it must be the Evil coming through.

After school on Friday, the gym is packed for a pep rally. Janine is depressed about the Natalie situation, but all Natalie is thinking about is the Evil. She wants to tell the principal that they conjured it. WHY? So they can be laughed out of her office? How will that help? The girls start their cheering and afterward, Ms. Oakley (the principal) gives a speech about Luke. Then more cheering. But this time, no-one in the crowd is cheering along. They're all completely losing their shit because Natalie's face and skull are cracking apart, blood pooling at her feet. Everyone flees the gym as the basketball coach covers Natalie's now lifeless body with a piece of canvas. Amanda sees Janine staring down at the body a little too calmly. Automatically, Amanda assumes that Janine is possessed by the Evil and therefore accidentally killed Luke and Natalie. Janine walks over to Amanda and leads her to the locker room. Janine says she's terrified and they really must have brought the Evil back because the tops of heads aren't supposed to pop off and faces shouldn't just crack open like that! The girls think about how they can get rid of the Evil. Amanda remembers that Corky wrote that everything began in the Fear Street Cemetery so they should probably go there...to do stuff...or something. They decide to go now even though it's getting dark and Fear Street sucks even more at night.

The girls stumble through the cemetery searching for Sarah Fear's grave. They soon find it and are shocked to see that the grave has been dug up and the moldy coffin is wide open and empty. DUN DUN DUN! The girls don't have time to examine the grave because they hear someone coming. They run and come face to face with frigging Dustin. He confesses that he followed them here because he's losing more of his mind everyday. Dustin says he wants to talk, but Amanda just wants to leave and says they can talk later. But noooooo. Dustin just stands there so Amanda tries to run around him. She slips and falls into Sarah Fear's stinking grave. She understandably freaks the hell out and attempts to grab Dustin's hand so he can pull her out, but she falls backward and Dustin's face grows smaller and smaller as she falls...and falls...and falls. Somehow.

Part Three

 Amanda swirls through the worm hole at the bottom of the grave until she lands in an old timey town. She immediately spots two girls talking. They refer to each other as Sarah and Jane so Amanda assumes one is Sarah Fear. Sarah rants to her red haired friend Jane about how pissed she is about being forced to marry Thomas Fear and how lucky Jane is to be traveling to London soon. Then Sarah talks about the plan she and Jane recently developed. Since Sarah has never even met Thomas Fear, she's going to send Jane to Shadyside in her place. Jane will pretend to be Sarah, marry Thomas, and the real Sarah can pretend none of this ever happened as she flits gaily through the streets of London (is this during the time of Jack the Ripper?). The two ride off in a carriage while Amanda stays behind to black out. She wakes on a ship that's capsizing in the middle of the ocean. Some girls have all the luck. Sarah is standing at the railing with the other passengers, whining about how she could be on her honeymoon with Thomas Fear rather than facing a watery grave. Amanda and Sarah are thrown overboard and Sarah drowns. Amanda is underwater with her and watches as a green liquid comes spewing out of Sarah's mouth. "It's the Evil!" My friend!

Part Four

 Amanda wakes at the bottom of Sarah Fear's grave. She's soaking wet with Evil water. Dustin drags her out (how long was she gone?) and she tells him and Janine that she travelled back in time. She explains everything including the fact that "Sarah Fear" was actually "Jane Hardy". Janine and Dustin think she's crazy because she was only in the grave for a few seconds. Are they not wondering how she became drenching wet? Janine drives Amanda home and when Amanda gets out of the car, she sees muddy footprints leading to her house. Amanda goes upstairs (she's...HOME ALONE) and hears someone in her bedroom say "Amanda. Come in." She peeks inside and stares at a rotting half corpse, half skeleton thing that goes by the name Sarah Fear. "Come in, Amanda. We must hurry. You and I are going to trade places now." Oh GAWWWWD. Except Amanda just imagined that. She goes into her room where she finds a wet and muddy note from Sarah Fear. "You and your friends have awakened a great Evil. The Evil takes pleasure in killing. You are next, Amanda." Amanda hurries and changes her clothes so she can go to Janine's house because she's the one will all the Evil paperwork. She opens the front door and Judd is standing there with MUDDY SHOES. No! Yes! NOOO! Amanda is instantly convinced the Evil is inside Judd. She flips out and practically shoves him out, saying she's gotta get to Janine's. He offers to drive her and she goes because...she's an idiot? They near Janine's house and see her pulling away in her car with Brandon. Judd follows them and they end up at the cemetery. Amanda leaps out of the car to get away from Judd even though it's probably the other two she needs to worry about. Amanda sees Janine and Brandon near Sarah Fear's grave. She grabs Janine and tells her the Evil is in Judd. He's right behind her when she says it and he's hurt, man, he's real hurt. Amanda changes her mind about Judd when she sees Brandon's eyes glowing bright green. Green is the color of EVIL. Brandon ends up killing Judd and Amanda beats Brandon with a tree branch intil he falls unconscious into the grave. Then Sarah Fear shows up. *sigh* What a circus. Janine and Amanda run, but they turn to look just as Brandon leaps out of the grave and attacks the ragged corpse of Sarah Fear. Amanda realizes that the corpse is Jane and the real Sarah's spirit is in Brandon. The corpse shoves Brandon who grabs Amanda who shoves Brandon who pulls Amanda into the grave with him. (Half of my brain cells just disintegrated.)

Part Five

 Amanda wakes (I feel like I've typed that 500 times) to realize that she's back on that sinking ship. WINNER. This time, Sarah and Jane are there...and Brandon. The two girls are fighting because Sarah is a bitch who possessed anyone she could after she died. They struggle and Jane pulls Sarah overboard. They both drown.

Amanda wakes (AGAIN!) in a hospital where Janine acts completely confused when Amanda mentions the Evil and Luke and Natalie dying. She says Luke and Natalie are fine and she's never heard of a Sarah Fear. Amanda asks to see Brandon who has the same memories as Amanda. Then they both look at each other with glowing green eyes and Amanda says "We can't rest. You and I have so much work to do!" Shit.

Conclusion? NO. If you value any shred of your intelligence, you will not read this book. I repeat, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. I am absolutely dumber for it.

Next time: "The Babysitter III" I will never understand how there are FOUR of these things...

Seniors #8 - Sweetheart, Evil Heart 8 Feb 2012 10:27 PM (13 years ago)

Book Description:

Ty Sullivan thinks he's so hot. Especially since he's seeing three girls - all at the same time. And when Ty gets a valentine from the mysterious Amy, he decides to go out with her, too. But Amy isn't like the other girls... She's dead.

My Description:

We begin this tale of heartache and woe with Ty Sullivan bragging to his friend Mickey about what a stud he is. "I'm telling you, Mickey. I'm a wanted man." If you've read the other Seniors recaps on this here blog, you know that I loathe Ty Sullivan with the fiery heat of a thousand equatorial suns. Honestly, I can't remember why (I think it's mostly that he's a smug arrogant turd) but that doesn't matter. The hatred LIVES! Anyway, Ty is a jackass who is dating Phoebe Yamura, Trisha Conrad, and Marla Newman, all three of whom need their asses kicked to a pulp for letting this idiot manipulate them. (I'm not even on the third page and I'm already slamming my face into the wall. This one's gonna be a heartbreaker, kids.) Ty thinks about his gorgeous girlfriends and how awesome he is. This guy is in complete ORGASM over himself. "I am definitely at the top of Shadyside High's most wanted list." Kiss my white ass, Ty. Mickey tells Ty to watch out because Trisha already has a boyfriend, Gary Fresno, and he's a real badass. You can tell because he fights a lot and wears lots of leather and tight, scrotum-crushing jeans (I assume). Marla shows up a moment later so Ty hangs up on Mickey, checks out his hot bod (YACK!) in the mirror, and runs downstairs to meet Marla. They head up to the attic to "study". That's his idea of a date. Making out in a musty attic while his 11 year old sister is a room away. Seriously, I hate you, Ty. He rakes the 500 layers of dust off an old loveseat while Marla conveniently loses her balance and bumps into an old desk, knocking out an old valentine that's been waiting for this moment for years. Ty picks up the heart shaped card and reads the note inside.

Dearest Tyler,
I've been waiting so long for you. I ache for your kiss. Write to me or I will die. Bring your letter to the Shadyside Cemetery and leave it under the old elm tree near the Fear family tombstones.
Love, Amy

This chick is way dramatic. Ty assumes this was written to his great grandfather a long time ago because his grampy's name was Tyler. Ty thinks Amy sounds hot. WHAT ABOUT THAT LETTER WAS HOT? Marla decides to leave after giving Ty a "long, sizzling kiss". She also mentions that the Valentine's Dance is going to be at a craptacular club called Red Heat this year, but Ty doesn't really say anything because he has three girlfriends and can't exactly take them all. After Marla leaves, Ty fingers the valentine until the doorbell rings. It's Phoebe and she's curious as to why she just saw Marla driving away. He says she dropped off some biology notes (and her sloppy tongue). Phoebe buys it and the two have a Coke while Phoebe reads the ULTRA HOT valentine. Then they make out and Ty thinks about Amy the whole time. He seems to think the valentine is actually for HIM. How would anyone have gotten it into a desk in his attic? If it's a recent delivery, why does the thing look as old as Methuselah? But Ty doesn't give a damn about pesky logical questions. He just wants his woman. "Whoever she was, she sounded like a real babe." Define 'real babe'. Because I don't understand how you're getting that, sir.

A few days later, Ty is driving Trisha home in his kick ass Celica. They're just coming off a date on the Conononka River. Can you feel the romance? Me neither. Trisha brings up the Valentine's Dance, but Ty says they shouldn't go because it could cause trouble. Then Trisha says she recently had one of her famous visions. In this one, someone from the past was chasing her and Ty. He asks if the person's name was Amy, but Trisha couldn't see who it was and now she's all suspicious about who this AMY person is. If you only knew...that Amy is the least of your problems. Ty tells her about the letter and says he actually wrote back and put the letter in the cemetery for Amy. "Just as a goof, I guess." You guessed wrong. Amy is forgotten a moment later when Trisha realizes Gary is following them. Ty makes some twisty turns and loses the stalker, but not for long. At the next stop light, Gary pulls up behind them, jumps out of his car, and starts pounding on Trisha's window and screaming at her to get out of the car. Ty gets out and tells Gary to get lost and he does, but only because another car has pulled up and is honking its horn because stupid teenagers clogging traffic with their fighting and dirty love triangles are so annoying. Oh, but wait! Gary was only PRETENDING to walk away. He turns back and shoves Ty against the car before telling him "You'll pay for this." Two guys from the traffic piling up come and grab Gary before he can really mess Ty up. Trisha ends up leaving with Gary and Ty rushes home to eat before going to Marla's. He's received a letter from Amy, sent through the mail this time rather than the magical dusty desk portal.

Dearest Ty,
I knew you would come. I knew you were my soul mate. Nothing can separate us now. Not even a hundred years. Please bring me another note.
Love, Amy



The next day at school, Ty is messing around in the hall with his friends. They seem to enjoy talking about the fact that Ty might get caught with one girlfriend by another girlfriend. They're quite jealous of their jerky little friend. Ty spots Gary at the end of the hall. Gary gives him an evil look and mouths "You're a dead man." Yay for death threats! Ty's friends warn him to stay away from Trisha for the sake of his health. Then they run off because they don't want to be seen with a doomed bilge rat.

Ty hangs out at his house with Phoebe after school because he's afraid someone will see them together. Phoebe points out the newest decaying letter from Amy and they read it together.

Beloved Ty,

Your notes keep me alive, even though we're separated by so much time. I shall always be true to you, my dearest. Are you being true to me? I am ashamed to confess that I have a terrible, jealous temper!

Love, Amy

This should work out well for you, Ty. Phoebe thinks it's someone playing a joke (as any reasonable person would assume) but Ty doesn't believe it. Too much lovin' makes you an idiot. The two loveworms start kissing but are interrupted by the phone. Ty answers, but there's too much static to hear anyone so he hangs up. The phone rings again, Ty answers again, and when a voice says "It's Amy...Amy. Ty, can you hear me?", he hangs up. Phoebe leaves a moment later and Ty is left alone to think of Amy and the fact that she might be a wee pissed off if she knew about his other girlfriends. This is the closest he'll ever get to guilt.

That evening, Gary is driving Trisha home and wondering why she had to go around with Ty Sullivan. He thinks it's because he (Gary) is too poor for rich Trisha, but she denies it. Gary drives like a maniac, scaring Trisha until she finally screams that she'll never see Ty again. Trisha manages to make it home in one piece and finds a nice surprise waiting - a valentine that says "Stay away from Ty. He's all mine now." He's all yours, sister! Trisha has a vision of some guy with a bloody head wound and she knows it's either Ty or Gary. Someone is gonna die. Eventually. Probably. Hopefully.

At lunch the next day, Trisha tells Dana Palmer about her vision and they talk about Ty and Gary who Dana declares dangerous. Or dangerously stupid. After school, Trisha drives to Gary's house in the shitty part of town. She finds him in his garage and she warns him about her vision. He brushes it off by saying she'd like to see him dead because he's not good enough. Then he grabs her and says he'll make sure it's Ty she saw in that vision. Dammit, Gary, SHUT UP.

That night, Trisha goes to Waynesbridge with Ty. Because everyone in this book is a foolish twit. She tells him about her vision and Gary's reaction. Then she mentions the valentine and shows it to him. He freaks out because it's Amy's handwriting. After the two see a movie, they come out of the theater to find all four tires on Ty's car completely flat and a bloody dead rabbit with a knife sticking out of its chest in the back seat. Ty is furious because he believes Gary did it. "If Gary thinks he can scare me off, he's totally wrong. I'll get him for this!" Liar.

Ty calls a cab for Trisha and a tow truck for himself. After he gets his tires changed, he drives to Gary's place to get revenge for something he's not even sure the guy did. Ty accuses Gary, Gary punches Ty in the face because he didn't touch Ty's stinking car, and Ty leaves. The whole thing is over in about two seconds. Ty goes home to find a new note from Amy. "I warned you about my jealous temper." It's written on the back of a photo of Amy. She's wearing a cloak and bonnet and some emo sad eyes. Ty realizes Amy trashed his car and thinks NOW would be a good time to end the letter writing because this dead girl is getting crazy. So he writes her to tell her not to bother writing anymore because things are getting too intense and he's too much of a wuss to handle it.

At school the next day, Ty finds a note in his locker. A note written in thick, dripping blood. "You're dead. Love, Amy" She has a way with words...and blood. After school, Ty runs into Phoebe in the student parking lot and they make a date for later, assuming Ty is still alive later. Ty goes home to find yet another letter, this one informing him that his cruelty is unforgivable and his girlfriends will have to die along with him. Ty decides to write her in an effort to save his worthless ass. He apologizes and says it would be better if they stayed apart. But Ty can't resist being an asshole and ends the letter with "And please leave us alone." It's signed "Good luck, Ty" Good luck? She's dead, moron. I think that's a pretty good sign that her luck ran out a long time ago.

A little later, Phoebe comes over and they do that thing they do. Until they're interrupted by Marla who claims someone just tried to kill her. Ty doesn't care. He's more worried about making sure that Phoebe knows that Marla is only here for her biology notes, nothing else, nothing touchy or tongue-y.

The next day, Ty tries to convince himself that Marla was attacked by a girl gang. No comment. Absolutely NO comment. But Ty gets a slap in the face when Marla shows him the note she received. "I may be dead - but you are next to die. Stay away from him." In the cafeteria at lunch, he sees Phoebe who shows him her own note from Amy. "He's mine, not yours. I'll make sure you can't have him. Because you'll be dead - like me." Later, Trisha also shows him a note from Amy. "I warned you, but you didn't listen. You didn't stay away from him. You will pay - and join me with the dead." Trisha wants to know why Marla and Phoebe also got notes and Ty tells her it's all just a dumb joke and she believes it.

A few days later, Ty calls Trisha to ask if she wants to go to the dance with him, but she's decided to go with Gary. Then he calls Phoebe who tells him she can't go because she twisted her ankle at cheerleading practice. Ty thinks she's lying because she's afraid of dying and he hangs up to call Marla. She can't go because she's supposedly going to her grandma's birthday party that night. Ty is alone and oh how he regrets it.

It's now Saturday night and Ty has just showed up at Red Heat for the dance. Across the packed room, he spots a weirdo in a bonnet. Looks like Amy tracked him down. Old dead chicks have noses like bloodhounds...and Ty sure does stink. Amy vanishes before Ty can speak to her. Then he sees her standing near the balcony staring at him. He runs up the stairs, but the moment he reaches the top, Amy is back downstairs. Really? Are we really playing this game? I feel like I just stepped into some stupid Abbott and Costello movie. When Ty finally catches up to her, she attempts to kill him by throwing him over the balcony, but before that can happen, Ty pulls off her bonnet...and sees Phoebe. Then two more bonnet girls appear. Marla, Trisha, and Phoebe pulled this prank to get back at Ty for screwing them all over. All the letters were written by them. Ty feels like a total ass for believing that a dead girl was stalking him. He makes his way toward the door and spots ANOTHER bonnet girl. She slips out the door and Ty chases her.

Meanwhile, Trisha, Marla, and Phoebe are feeling a little guilty over crushing Ty and psychologically scarring him for life. Girls, your guilt is tainting my joy at seeing Ty practically cry and wet himself so kindly cut the shit. As they're talking, they realize that none of them planted the dead bunny or slashed the tires. They just figure some creeps from Waynesbridge did it for no apparent reason. They head to the parking lot to search for Ty. They find his bleeding body at the edge of the road. "Ty Sullivan was dead." WHAAAAAT?

Later, the police inform them that Ty was hit by a car. The girls feel horribly guilty as they talk to the detectives. They tell them about the joke, but the detectives don't find it funny, especially since one of the valentines was found in Ty's pocket. The detectives want to keep them for more questioning and the girls are terrified that they'll be blamed for Ty's death.

Trisha gets home a few hours later where she has a vision. In this one, she sees Ty running and calling Amy's name. Then he's slammed by a car which just keeps going after it hits him. Trisha decides to call Gary just to make sure he didn't murder Ty, but he never answers the phone. GUILTY!

On Monday, the halls of Shadyside High are filled with talk of Ty's death. Trisha can't stop thinking of her vision and who could have possibly killed Ty. She sees Gary and he gets pissed because she's still thinking about Ty even though he's now a dead man, but he quickly apologizes. He says he wants to show her something and leads her outside to the parking lot. It's a new red car...the same color as the car Trisha saw plowing over Ty. And it has a dent in it. Perhaps made by the fleshy body of a 17 year old creep? Gary says he "borrowed" the car and wants to take her for a drive, but she refuses and runs away. She runs all the way to the cemetery and finds Justin Thompson (resident nerd) there as well. Justin is acting very strange. He offers to walk Trisha home, but she declines and he says "I like you...a lot. I bet you didn't know that." It wouldn't be so odd if he wasn't trying to moisten his desert dry lips the entire time. When Trisha doesn't give in to his parched passion, he says she should be grateful to him for getting rid of Ty for her. "I had to kill him, Trisha. I did it for you, don't you get it?" Uh, no, no-one "gets it", oh crazy bespectacled one.

Trisha flees but trips and falls which gives Justin the opportunity to grab her by the throat and start to choke her. She pokes him in the eyes, he lets her go, and promptly trips, cracking his skull against a gravestone. Justin died because he was a clumsy nerd. I now fear for my own life more than ever.

After school on Wednesday, a memorial service is held for Ty. I guess they just dumped Justin's murdering ass in a shallow hole in the woods. They probably let a roving pack of feral dogs dig his grave. Trisha goes home afterward and finds an apologetic note from Gary. Trisha loves him again since she's sure he's not a murdering psycho. Gary "spontaneously" rides up on a blue mountain bike, the ride of choice for all badasses who desperately want to look less like hit-and-run killers. Gary ends up telling her that Justin loaned his car to him on the day that he died. Very useless information, boo boo.

On Friday afternoon, Trisha and Phoebe are walking home together. Phoebe wants to take a shortcut through the cemetery where Trisha nearly met her maker. They pass the headstone that Justin fell upon and Trisha is shocked to see the name on it: Amy Fear 1872 - 1890. The End...or is it? (No it isn't. This is Fear Street, after all.)

Conclusion? That ending is just VOMITOUS.

Next time: "Cheerleaders: The Evil Lives!" These damn cheerleaders are back to end the EVIL! for good.

The Mind Reader 2 Feb 2012 6:26 AM (13 years ago)

Book Description:

A bony hand beckons from a shallow grave... But only Ellie Anderson can see the skeletal hand. Ellie has visions -- visions of past secrets and future horror. Her visions have led her to the body of a girl who was killed two years before. Now her power may help her find the murderer...unless he finds her first!

My Description:

Ellie is visiting Alma's Coffee Shop (what about the damn Doughnut Hole?!) for a Diet Coke and a chance to talk to her BFF Sarah who works there. Both girls get distracted by a good looking guy who walks in and takes a booth. Ellie decides he's in college because he's wearing a sport coat with a denim shirt and jeans. So sexy, so mature. Sarah goes to take his order while Ellie drools all over the counter. Sarah comes back with a name: Brian Tanner. A few moments later, Ellie feels a desperate urge to get the hell out of dodge and far away from Brian Tanner so she runs off. Mind Reader AWAAAAAY! (For the rest of this book, I'm pretending Ellie is a superhero called The Mind Reader. Her mission: to protect the world from weirdos in sport coats and murderous males with a murderous gleam in their eyes and dried flakes of skin falling off their lips.

Ellie goes home and takes her black Lab, Chaz, for a walk. Of course they end up on Fear Street where Ellie mourns the fact that her visions make her life so much worse. She lost a friend and a boyfriend because of it. Once, when she was a kid, she saw her dog Jake being hit by a car and it actually happened. She found his little corpse by the side of the road. (Damn these tears!) Ellie decides it's time to go home, but Chaz isn't letting her leave so quickly. He brings her a strangely long bone and starts howling his head off, dragging her toward some bushes in the woods. Chaz has found what's left of a human hand. Good dog! You've just found your first corpse on Fear Street!


Ellie runs out of the woods and flags down a car filled with four stupid seniors from Shadyside High. She and Chaz hitch a ride to the police station where a condescending cop questions her story. Two words, buddy: DEAD PIG. Ellie is passed to another cop, Lieutenant Wilkins, who happens to be Sarah's father and he believes the story. In the woods, the cops find the big bone Chaz brought to Ellie. "That's no deer bone." What a relief. Ellie can't find the hand, though, and she gets a sinking feeling it was a vision. But she finally locates it behind a big rock because The Mind Reader is just that awesome. Sarah and a group of less important teenagers show up. Brian Tanner is also there standing off to the side and looking NOT AT ALL suspicious. He disappears a moment later. One of the officers finds a scrap of red fabric and Sarah collapses at the sight of it. She's fine a few seconds later but has no idea why she randomly passed out. Got a little something gnawing at your subconscious, Sarah? Don't deny!

The next day, some meathead named Frank Schuler comes running up to Ellie to talk about the night before. Ellie can't believe he's lowering himself to speak to her--he never has before. Frank's brain dead girlfriend Patty also gallops up to flap her floppy horse lips about Melinda, Sarah's older sister. Melinda disappeared and was supposedly wearing a red shirt the night it happened which explains why Sarah fainted when she saw the scrap of red. Ellie is fairly new to town and didn't know about Melinda. She runs to a pay phone to call Sarah's house, but no-one answers. Ellie decides it's Melinda's body in the grave in the woods. The Mind Reader don't need no damn evidence--she feels it in the gut...of her mind.

After school, Ellie heads to her job at the Shadyside Public Library. Brian (I keep typing that as Brain which we all know he isn't) shows up and asks if she can help him find a book on primitive weapons. He admits he could have found it himself, but he wanted an excuse to talk to her. Smooth. Or whatever the complete polar opposite of smooth is. They awkwardly converse and Ellie finds out that Brian attends Waynesbridge Community College and is quite possibly a creepy stalker based on the fact that he knows she's new to town. I wonder if Ellie's paranoia is marajuana based? Everybody in Shadyside knows everything about everybody else. It is their curse. So the fact that Brian knows she's new to town isn't surprising. He probably also knows her class schedule, her menstrual cycle, and what brand of toothpaste her father's cousin's sister's aunt uses. Anyway, Ellie finds a book on primitive weapons titled "Primitive Weapons" (what are the odds?!) When she pulls it from the shelf, she freaks out because in the empty space is a bloody knife! AIEEEE! It's only a vision, though. She lies and tells Brian her ear-drum-shredding scream was because of a mouse. She hands Brian the book and walks away. He calls her name, but she ignores him, locks herself in the office, and proceeds to lose her mind because she never told Brian her name. *sigh* Shut up, Ellie.

After work, Ellie walks in the dark to Fear Street to visit Sarah, but no-one is home. Ellie looks up and sees a grinning skull in the window. Apparently someone is home after all. Ellie hurries off to see if Sarah is at the coffee shop. As she's walking, Brian pulls up alongside her in his black rape Jeep and offers her a ride. He urges her to get in, but she has a bad feeling about this guy so she refuses and runs to the coffee shop. Ellie asks Ernie, the owner, where Sarah is and he says she never showed up for work. He walks off and frigging BRIAN pops up out of nowhere. Obviously his manly leather elbows are just too much to resist because Ellie is no longer freaked out by him and they talk. They have a few burgers before Ellie sees Lt. Wilkins walk in. She asks about Sarah and he says she's staying with her aunt for a few days. Ellie turns and sees that Brian is gone. Ernie says he dropped some money on the table and ran when he saw Lt. Wilkins. Verrrry interesting. Kind of. Ok, NOT AT ALL. We all know this jackass isn't guilty because he looks too damn guilty!

At home, Ellie finds her dad reading a newspaper with the headline 'Unidentified Body Found In Fear Street Woods' and tells him she found the body. He gets pissed because he doesn't want her involved. He hates the police because some psycho who should have been behind bars killed Ellie's mother. (He always told Ellie her mom died of appendicitis, of all things). They both have a cry and Ellie goes upstairs for a shower to wash away the sads. Oh, and the vomit she couldn't hold back. As Ellie is showering, she looks up and sees the bloody knife from the library. In the most awesome scene of the entire book, the sentient knife dives down in an attempt to stab Ellie. Blood is splashing everywhere (the knife is bleeding, dammit!) and suddenly Ellie hears her mother's voice. Her mom is trying to kill her from beyond the grave with a floating blooded blade? I'm in heaven. Of course that's not what's happening, unfortunately. A moment later, the voice, the blood, and the knife disappear and all Ellie hears is her father telling her that Brian is on the phone. Ellie tells him to tell Brian that she's gone to bed. She goes downstairs and asks her dad how her mother was killed (isn't it obvious, lady?) but he says he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

At the library the next evening, Ellie clicks through the microfiche machine for a newspaper article about her mother's death. She was stabbed to death while two year old Ellie sat nearby in a stroller. The Mind Reader (who I'm beginning to think might actually be Brian which pisses me right the hell off) saw her mother die a horrible death but she was too young to remember or understand. Ellie suddenly has a vision and sees her mother saying "I love you" just before she died. SOB! (Seriously.)

After work, Ellie goes to Sarah's house because she believes she's there. Ellie knocks before letting herself in through the unlocked door. Sarah is lying on her bed, a complete wreck. The grave in the woods was indeed Melinda's and Sarah and her father are grieving hard. Sarah eventually falls asleep and Ellie takes the opportunity to snoop around Melinda's room. She has the beginnings of a vision but flees the house before she can see more. Predictably, Brian is waiting nearby and Ellie spills everything. Death and debilitating depression turn Brian on and he asks Ellie out. At first she refuses, but when he mentions rowing to Fear Island, she's all for it. Are these two completely deranged? They'll be near the place where Ellie found her best friend's sister's moldy remains and they're going to have a happy little picnic there? With any luck the free floating knife will nip that in the bud right quick.

On Saturday morning, Ellie sees a news piece about Melinda and learns that the cops are searching for her boyfriend Brett Hawkins. Ellie pushes it out of her mind: "Today is a day for fun." Yeah, good luck with that. Ellie and Brian (or is your real name BRETT? Hm? HMM?) drive to Fear Street Woods with Chaz the dog (a.k.a. the most intelligent being in Shadyside). They canoe. They kiss. They fill themselves with fried chicken and teenage lust. It's all funny sunny rainbows until Brian pulls out a knife to slice an apple and it looks like THE knife. This time it isn't a vision. Brian says it belonged to his grandfather, but Ellie only knows it from her nightmares. She says she needs to go find Chaz who has wandered off. Ellie gets Chaz and mentally talks herself out of seeing the knife as neon sign pointing to Brian as the murderer. They all get into the canoe and Ellie ends up in the drink a few minutes later. She panics because she feels something around her ankle pulling her down. Finally she frees herself and realizes Brian is nowhere to be seen. A fisherman is rowing toward her and then she spots Brian floating facedown in the water. The fisherman picks them both up (Brian is still breathing). Brian claims that he dove in to save Ellie, but the water was so dark with Fear sludge that he couldn't see her so he flailed around like a dying eel, grabbing Ellie's ankle in the process and nearly killing them both. Before Brian passes out he says he's supposed to be saving Ellie. He also says "Melinda" because SOMEBODY has to think of the dead girl.

Later, Ellie goes to the police station to see Lt. Wilkins. She's shocked at how old and shitty he looks. She asks about Brett Hawkins and mentions Brian, but Wilkins says he's never heard the name. "That meant that Brian must have muttered the name of a different Melinda. That meant all Ellie's fears about Brian were ridiculous." YOU BLOOMING IDIOT. Ellie's opinions on Brian change when Wilkins shows her a photo of Brett Hawkins--it's Brian. She tells him about her visions and mentions a buried knife, but decides not to mention Brian. YOU FEEBLE MINDED IMBECILE. He believes it all and they go to the woods where Ellie digs up a knife which Lt. Wilkins identifies as Brett's. FINALLY Ellie decides to tell him that Brett is going by Brian Tanner now and supposedly lives in Waynesbridge. Wilkins leaves and Ellie starts to walk home when she comes across a dirty Sarah who's wearing only a bath robe. She flips out and runs away when Ellie tells her about Brian. Speaking of Brian, he's waiting in Ellie's living room. "Ellie. Why did you show him the knife?" Because a person is DEAD, moron. After a bit of wrestling, Brian pins Ellie and tells her that, yes, he is Brett Hawkins...and that's as far as he gets because the police are at the door. Ellie runs to the back door because Brett tried to choke her when she went for the front. Lt. Wilkins is there and arrests Brett. Later, Ellie's dad passes on a message from a phone call with Wilkins: Brett escaped and is probably coming for you. Dad uses his last moments with his daughter to tell her that her mother had visions and she too was helping the cops with a case. She helped get a psycho killer arrested and in return, he brutally murdered her in broad daylight. Moral of the story: never cooperate with the law. Even after all that, Dad decides to drive her to the police station after all. YOU BLUNDERING CHOWDER HEAD. You spend all that time telling her that helping the cops will only get her slashed like her mother, but when she tells you it's her duty as The Mind Reader (irony: she's never read a single mind) you herd her straight for the slaughter. Worst. Father. Ever. Dad tells her to warm up the car, Chaz jumps out of the bushes and scares the hell out of her, and off they go! TO DIE.

At the station, Ellie conjures a vision...of blurry gold light. I've officially lost faith in The Mind Reader. A few hours later, after her father has gone to bed, Ellie sneaks out to visit Sarah who desperately needs psychiatric help (Lt. Wilkins = close runner up for Worst Father Ever). Sarah has locked herself in Melinda's room, but Ellie uses her muscle-y leg to kick the door open. The room is trashed and Sarah is pissed because Ellie dug Melinda up. Sarah hated Melinda because Melinda was perfect and their dad loved her more. So when Melinda decided to run away with Brett, Sarah helped her out and now blames herself for Melinda's death. Then Ellie has a vision about Melinda's grave and tells Sarah they have to go there because Melinda wants them to. Sarah grabs one of her dad's revolvers in case Brett shows up and the girls leave for the woods.

Once there, they start digging and come upon a gold button. At that exact moment, Brett steps out of the trees and says "What's that? Did you find the button?" Then the cops show up; a cop drove by and happened to see the suspicious teens in the woods and radioed Lt. Wilkins & Co. Wilkins is prepared to shoot Brett. but Sarah shoots Wilkins first. The gold button belongs to him...somehow Sarah figured out that Wilkins fought with Melinda about Brett and ended up shoving her. She hit her head and died so Wilkins buried her in the woods and tried to pin the whole thing on Brett. Make sense? Didn't think so.

Later, Brett tells Ellie that he's been on the run for a few years, but he was drawn to Shadyside because he saw Ellie in a vision. "I'm kind of like a mind reader. I have visions. Dreams--only I'm wide awake." Ok, that isn't mind reading. Why does this piss me off so much?! Oh, I know--BECAUSE THIS DAMN BOOK IS CALLED "THE MIND READER" AND NO-ONE READS A SINGLE FRIGGING MIND! Anyway, visions visions blah blah blah kisses FIN.

Conclusion? No mind readers in a book titled "The Mind Reader"? Stine just pwned us all...for which I will take hideous revenge.

Next time: "Seniors #8: Sweetheart, Evil Heart" Just in time for Valentines Day--hearts, candy, and a stupid arrogant asshole who's dating a dead girl and doesn't know it. HAHAHA!

Unrelated to Fear Street: an author (Josh Voyles) who actually WANTS my opinion sent me his new book, Sliver, for review.Step...away...from...Fear Street? I'M SCARED! (Review of Sliver coming soon in spite of irrational fear of real world.)

The New Boy 7 Nov 2011 11:41 AM (13 years ago)

Book Description:


What a hunk! When handsome, mysterious Ross Gabriel comes to Shadyside High, all the girls want to date him...even the ones who already have boyfriends! Janie, Eve, and Faith go so far as to make a bet...which one of them will he go out with first? But then the murders begin and it starts to look like dating Ross means flirting with a gruesome and untimely death. Will Janie's dream date with Ross turn out to be the night of her life? Or the night of her death?


My Description:


Two weeks before the first murder occurs, Janie spots Ross for the first time. His athletic body, curly hair, and broooooooding eyes make her a wee bit hot beneath the collar (and panties). She sees Corky Corcoran and Kimmy Bass (everybody's "favorite" cheerleaders) giggling and shoving their way down the hall. This has nothing to do with anything. It's just a random observation which makes me fairly certain that Kimmy's crimped black hair wrote this book. Anyway, Janie is wondering where Faith and Eve are. The three girls were in charge of the committee for the most recent school dance and need to meet with Mr. Hernandez, the new principal, to turn over the money they earned from ticket sales and such. Little Janie doesn't like thinking about the dance, though, because her gorgeous friends had dates and she was lonely. She walks to the office to see if the girls are already there, but the place is empty. Until Eve comes bursting in with BIG news: "Did you hear the news? Deena Martinson broke up with Gary Brandt!" Why is this so exciting? Gary Brandt is a filthy whore who has a new woman every week and Deena Martinson is about as interesting as a block of wood. The bubbly mood vanishes when the two realize the money is missing. It turns out to be an incredibly stupid joke on the gullible Janie. HAHAHAHAHA! Fuck.


Janie, Eve, and Faith (whom the other two ran into in the hall as they were rushing to "find" the money that was in "Faith's" "bag" "the whole time") begin walking back to the office when Janie spots the new boy with blood dripping down his arm. The three girls run to him and he tells them he cut his arm on the fence beside the parking lot as he was helping a girl free her bike. Your story smells like rotten eggs, pretty boy. Don't play with me! I read the back of the book, you murderer!! Uh, anyway, he introduces himself as Ross Gabriel and Faith and Eve jump to guide him to the nurse's office, ignoring Janie who tells them she'll take the money to the office. "It's not fair," she muttered to herself. "I saw him first." Poor little Janie. I guess this would be the time to mention how these girls look (because that's why Janie feels so inferior to the other two). Eve has long luscious black hair and olive eyes. Faith has long luscious blond hair and blue eyes. Janie is short, blond, thin, and kind of shy. I have a soft spot for you, Janie. Everybody ignores me, too! *SOB*


Janie is counting the money when Faith and Eve walk into the office carrying on about how cute Ross is. Janie says she saw him first, but Faith and Eve couldn't possibly care any less. The two start arguing about their shitty boyfriends until Janie tells them they need to help her stack and band the money before Hernandez shows up. Ian and Paul (Eve and Faith's boyfriends) pop up out of nowhere and pretend to shove the money into their pockets. This starts plenty of gag-worthy play fighting between the boys and their girls. The door opens just as Paul throws a a banded stack which ends up hitting Mr. Hernandez in the forehead. He has a sense of humor about it, though, and no-one gets in trouble. Sad, isn't it? Paul said he stopped by to give the girls the key to the filing cabinet where the dance committee keeps its stuff. Then the boys leave along with Mr. Hernandez...even though I assume he's supposed to be putting the money in a safe spot. Fool.


Later, the girls come back to the office to give Hernandez the grand total ($1,241.65) but he's on the phone. JUST TAKE THE DAMN MONEY. He hangs up a few minutes later, but Janie nor the other girls can remember the stinking total so Janie runs back to the filing cabinet where she wrote down the total. She's shocked to find the money missing. Oopsy daisy! (I thought the whole point was to give Hernandez the money so he could put it in a safe or something? I guess I don't understand the intricacies of this book's plot).

99 Fear Street: The Third Horror 4 Sep 2011 7:59 PM (13 years ago)

Any excuse to mention cute little kitties. Don't you feel warm and fuzzy now? Well, hold on to that feeling...by the end of this book, you'll need a reason to keep on living. Anyway, Rob is a total flirt (in this town, it's against the law to be anything else if you look as perfect as Rob) and pulls Kody close as they walk to the caterer's table. Kody admires him: "He's the handsomest boy I've ever met, Kody found herself thinking as she lowered herself onto the grass beside him." Too bad he'll probably be dead soon. But it doesn't matter because there are plenty of vapid pretty boys walking around so Kody will have a shoulder to cry on when the love of her life that she's known for one whole day dies. *sigh* Kody mentions that Persia is evil and treats Kody like a mutt and Rob says that Persia is jealous because she wanted to play Cally, not Kody. Once again, this makes NO SENSE. Why isn't Kody playing HERSELF? What is the purpoe of someone else portraying her when she's still around? Why am I asking questions? I'm only hurting myself. Anyway, Rob decides that Kody really isn't upset about Persia at all. She's upset about being back at the center of hell where her life was completely ruined. Wow, Rob. You are truly a genius among men. Dumbass. Kody says that being back at the house is difficult, but she wanted to be part of the film for two reasons: "One, it was such an incredible opportunity. I mean, my life was so terrible, Rob." Dad went blind, Mom was never the same, life sucked. On to the second reason: "I made a promise to my sister that I'd come back." She tells Rob about her sister's ghost and he thinks that's so normal that he can't leave fast enough when the assistant director calls for him. Kody wanders off, almost trips over a box of blood (yeah), and then can't stop thinking about the house's bloody history. But the sight of Cally (Persia?) in the window breaks through her thoughts.

And now the moment we've all been dreading: Cally's point of view. Gag. have I mentioned that I hate her? Because I really really do. Cally is furious because Kody came back to be a "movie star", not to visit dear old dead sis. Cally watches Kody and thinks about what a surprise she'll get when she finds Cally and realizes how positively evil she's become. "I am the evil and the evil is me." She should put that on a T-shirt. Cally decides that Kody will have to die. She watches Kody go toward the front door... "Cally shot a dozen pointed steel spikes through the front door. She listened gleefully as Kody's shrill screams rose up in a wail of terror." Kody, of course, doesn't die. She screams, Bo comes running, and after he threatens to chew out McCarthy, the asst. producer, for the spikes, Kody admires Bo's rugged good looks. No comment. McCarthy pleads his case and he and Bo walk off to do movie stuff. Kody spends a few moments having horrible bloody flashbacks before going into the house because she's part of a plot device that this book just couldn't live without. The scene about to be filmed involves Rob getting his hand ground into hamburger in the garbage disposal. He's really nervous about it so McCarthy shows him how it's done. Which is a huge, messy, gory mistake. Just as McCarthy puts his hand into the disposal, someone pushes Kody (who is just hanging around) causing her to bump into the switch that turns the disposal on. "Red as raw hamburger, McCarthy's fingers fell loosely on his cut and mangled palm." Dump some alcohol on it and STOP SCREAMING. Geez.

Later, Bo meets with Rob, Kody, and Persia and tells them that McCarthy lost all his mangled fingers. He asks Kody what happened and she tries to tell him she was pushed, but he interrupts her and keeps talking. She realizes he blames her for the maiming of the hand. He says he's grateful for Kody being involved with the production (HA!) and Persia mutters that it's all for the publicity (which is probably true). Bo denies it, saying that Kody is a great actress. Who has never acted before in her life. Kody is distracted by the weirdo looking in the window at them. It's our old friend Lurie, the real estate agent (who is now a peeping tom. Guess the recession caught up with him.) who sold Kody's family the house. Bo goes out to talk to the creeper and Kody and Persia have an argument which leads to Persia ripping out some of Kody's hair before Rob and Bo intervene. Persia walks off after claiming she was only acting. Rob seems very concerned about Kody: "But then, to her complete surprise, he leaned forward, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and kissed her. A long kiss. A hungry kiss." No word on the moisture level of Rob's lips. He leaves a moment later and Kody questions if he's truly interested in her. He is an actor, after all.

Kody goes to sleep in her trailer and is awakened by a tapping at the door. 'Twas the raven nevermore? No, it's just...nobody. Kody opens the door and sees no-one, but she's sure Cally was just here. She steps out into the night and walks to the house. She lets herself in and is shocked to see Mrs. Nordstrom (the old housekeeper) scrubbing the sink in the kitchen. The two have a little reunion before Nordstrom goes back to scrubbing blood out of the sink and Kody goes into the living room where Cally is hanging out in the form of a cold breeze. A second later, a security guard grabs Kody's arm and asks her what she's doing. She says she used to live here and he gets all excited, getting an autograph for his nephew before letting Kody go.

The next morning, Kody is on set confessing how nervous she is to Rob. He assures her that they're only doing reaction shots today so she doesn't even have to speak. A girl named Joanna comes on set as stand-in for a test shot...and promptly gets her face smashed by a rogue camera. "For a few seconds Joanna seemed suspended there, her head impaled by the protruding lens. Then she toppled back and fell heavily to the ground, leaving the camera soaked with her bright red blood." People immediately freak out and amid the chaos, the security guard says something to Bo who then wants to talk to Kody. The guard told Bo that he saw Kody in the house the night before so Bo suspects that MAYBE Kody messed with the boom which caused the camera to pulverize Joanna's innocent face. He changes his tune, though, and says he really doesn't know what to think. Bo runs off and Kody is pissed about being accused. She goes inside the house (because the place is so very warm and comforting) and mopes around. Then she finds Cally's severed head in the refrigerator. She screams, Bo comes running, and we all learn that the head is, unfortunately, just a prop. Kody goes to her trailer to rest her aching brain. Meanwhile, Cally is amused by Kody's reaction to the dummy head. She's also amused (everything is just so damn FUNNY!) by all the bad things she's planning to do. Cally is the WORST revenge seeking ghost ever. Why not torture Kody directly instead of hurting people around her? Oh right--because the book would only be ten pages long and no-one would get paid.

The next morning, Kody throws herself into Rob's arms and begs him to hold her. As if that will help. Stop acting like a Victorian school marm with a wicked case of the vapors and do something productive for once. Like getting as far away from Shadyside as humanly possible. Instead of taking my advice, Kody makes out with Rob until they're interrupted by the hideous Persia. She came to tell them that Joanna died in the hospital and the police are on set investigating so Bo has called a break for the day. Later, Bo gathers everyone for a meeting to discuss the issue. He's interrupted by Mr. Hankers (the handyman from the previous books) who has arrived to slaughter the basement rats. At the end of the meeting, Bo tells Rob and Kody that they'll be shooting their attic scene the next morning. Bo thinks about how good Rob is...and how Kody should be replaced.

Rob has rented a Mustang convertible so he and Kody go for a drive. In the evening, they end up beside the Conononka River making out like fiends. (My eyes cannot possibly roll back any further.) It starts to rain so they go back to Fear Street. Kody runs to her trailer for her script because she and Rob plan to "practice their lines" and Rob stays in the car. Kody picks up her script and hears a tapping at the door. She opens it and steps out, but there's no-one there and Rob's car is gone. Then Cally appears to screw things up further. Kody can't see her, but Cally's voice commands Kody to follow her. Just reading this is making me dumber. Kody is excited and runs out into the rain. She runs to the house and goes into the basement at Cally's urging. A dark shadow rolls across the floor to Kody, but before anything happens, damn BO pops up with his hand clamped over Kody's mouth. Where the hell does he come from?!? Is he stalking her every move? He's always way too near. He wants to know what she's doing and she asks the same of him, but he just says he has things to do for the production. Liar. He says they should leave, but they can't because Kody has spotted a box of explosives labelled DANGER and she wants to know what they're for. He says at the end of the movie, he's going to blow up the house. PRAISE BE. Burn the mother down! Bo starts acting really weird and creepy and says she absolutely cannot tell anyone. He goes on to talk about her death scene, but Kody doesn't want to hear any more. Then she mentions the fact that Cally led her here, but Bo thinks she's just coming up with things for the script. Their discussion is ended when a giant rat tries to tear out Kody's throat. The poor stupid rodent misses and falls to the floor. Kody KICKS it and it runs away. How dare she! The rats are our future. RESPECT.

The next morning brings the attic scene which is sure to be a total disaster. Kody asks Rob why he left her the night before and he insists she told him to go back to his hotel without her. She is seriously dense. She hasn't thought ONCE that it's Cally messing with her. Anyway, Bo explains the scene. Green goo will come pouring out of the floor, Rob and Kody will pretend to be terrified, and it all has to be done in one take because it would take way too long to clean the crap up to film it again. Bo leaves the room for a few minutes and Kody and Rob have a romantic moment that isn't romantic at all. Thankfully, it doesn't last long because the goo machine starts cranking and steaming hot goo comes pouring out. And the door's locked. And the goo smells like sour milk. As the goo gets thicker and rises a little higher, Kody starts calling for Cally because she has no idea her dead demonic sister is CAUSING this mess. And now Rob thinks Kody is completely insane. Finally Kody grabs a light tower (metal poles holding two large lights) and smashes a window. Unfortunately, it appears Rob has drowned in the goo. "He probably tried to swim, Kody realized, and the disgusting liquid held him under." He tried to SWIM? Don'tlaughdon'tlaughdon'tlaugh. Actually, I guess I CAN laugh because Rob isn't dead at all. Kody pulls him out of the goo, gives him mouth to mouth (as she's been doing for several days. ZING!) and lo and behold, he lives. Then Kody vomits and calls it a day.

The next afternoon, Kody and Persia watch Bo pacing and claiming that this movie HAS to be made. WHY? The guy can't direct. Period. He should cut his losses and end it now before he gets his eyes gnawed out by rats. Rob is in the hospital and doing fine. Yeah, anyway, a guy named Burt Martindale is playing Kody's dad and will be filming his first scene today. Marge Anderson and Noah Klein (Mom and James) are also in the scene along with Kody and Persia. It's a dinner scene, the one in which Dad gets stabbed by a knife with a mind of its own. I guess nothing happens. For once.

That night, Kody wakes up after a nightmare in which she's eating doughtnuts that taste like the sour milk goo. She decides she's going to deal with Cally now. Except she still doesn't think Cally is evil. When she gets to the house, she asks Cally if she can hug her. Cally responds by luring Kody to the basement which has a tiny secret room (where the rats hang out for darts and beer nuts) where Cally is waiting for her. Cally becomes a freezing cold mist that invades Kody. I think. Possibly?

The next day, it's time for more of the dinner scene. Bo instructs Kody and Persia to argue over a knife. And when he says "Action", Kody rams the knife into Persia's hand, pinning her to the table. Blood spurts everywhere, Persia is screaming, everyone else is screaming, and Kody is yelling that it was supposed to be a prop, not real. Persia is eventually taken away by paramedics and Bo takes Kody aside to tell her that the movie is jinxed and she is the cause. He says she's being removed from the film. Kody responds by cracking his skull with a spotlight and burning his face with the hot bulb until smoke rises. "Okay, everybody! That's a wrap!" Shrew.

The real Kody is tied up in the basement. Cally didn't possess her body...how the hell did she make herself solid enough to pass as the real Kody? How can she pick up objects and such? Do I really give a damn at this point? Does ANYONE? Anyway, Cally is pure evil, rats are all over the place, and Mr. Lurie, Mrs. Nordstrom, and Mr. Hankers are feeding the rats and treating them like pets. Kody can't believe they're there and they don't even KNOW she's there. They're in the secret room and Kody is in the main part of the basement yet they never saw her. Don't care. Doesn't matter. Kody hears them say Cally is easily controlled and she realizes Cally isn't really evil. She's being controlled by those three. Cally shows up and lets Kody go because she's ruined her life and has no further use for her. Kody tells her about the demented freaks in the next room, but Cally doesn't believe her. Then the three come out and thank Cally for bringing them Kody. Cally tells Kody to run for the stairs and as she does, the three turn into rats and attack Kody. "A line of drool fell from Mr. Hankers's snarling mouth as he scratched the gray fur of his belly with both claws." Very attractive. They're joined by other rats, but Kody manages to get out of the house just before the entire thing explodes and rats go flying. *sob* I loved those filthy rodents!

A few weeks later, Rob and Kody are hanging out...eating pizza and drinking Coke. It never fails. Kody is back in Los Angeles with her parents (that's where they fled after their time on Fear Street). Rob lives in the city and just auditioned for a dog food commercial. Woof. The doorbell rings and Rob answers. He comes back to the living room with a package for Kody. It's a tape with a note attached: "Here's a collector's item for you, Kody. It's the only film that was shot at 99 Fear Street. Talk about a big finish! Better luck to us all! Sam McCarthy" It's a shot of the explosion and a faint image of Cally waving good-bye.

Conclusion?: I don't wanna think about it...

Next time: "The New Boy" A mysterious hunk of teenage man meat moves to Shadyside and shortly after, the murders begin. It's sure to be...a gas. The kind of gas that explodes in your face and makes you wish you were never born.

Night Games 16 May 2011 8:00 PM (13 years ago)

99 Fear Street - The Second Horror 22 Mar 2011 7:18 AM (14 years ago)

At first, Brandt McCloy thinks moving to Shadyside is great. He has attracted the attention of three beautiful girls -- Meg, Jinny, and Abbie. But Brandt hasn't heard the terrifying stories about his new home -- 99 Fear Street. He doesn't know about the headless bodies, the bleeding walls. He doesn't know that Cally Frasier still haunts the house and plans gruesome deaths for him and everyone close to him. Poor Brandt -- what he doesn't know WILL hurt him.

*If you need a refresher, link to The First Horror is in the sidebar.*

My Description:

Prologue

Cally Frasier's ghost is in the attic of the eeeeevil house on 99 Fear Street. She's watching a new family move in and her ghostly eyes are drawn to the hunk of burnin' dry-lipped love called Brandt. (This specimen is also known as teenagus dooficus. The Latin makes it fancy!) Cally is a sad and lonely ghost because the eeeeevil drove her entire family away and she's been spending her spectral days lamenting the fact that the eeeeevil is now inside her. Lest we forget how this house became chock full of evil, Cally has the story: "The house was built over 30 years ago, she knew. Built on cursed land. The first owners never moved in. The man who built the house brought his family to see it and left them alone for five minutes. Five minutes. When he returned, his wife and children were dead. Their heads ripped from their bodies. He hanged himself one month later. Here. In this house." Truly tragic...and maybe a wee bit awesome. What am I saying?!? It's the eeeeevil talking through my feeble frame! [End Prologue]

We begin this tale of unimaginable EVIL (I'm already sick as hell of that word)with the McCloy family moving all their crap into their new residence, the cursed house at 99 Fear Street. Mr. McCloy is screaming at one of the movers for not being more careful with the boxes of priceless tribal masks. Yeah, I know how pissed I get when people throw MY tribal masks around willy nilly. Like, don't they understand that those things are priceless artifacts (i.e. worthless shit) that came from prestigious locations around the world (i.e. a discounted bin of Mardi Gras favors at the Dollar Tree)? Dammit, people! Anyway, instead of bothering to help in any way, Brandt sits nearby stroking his cat Ezra and staring at his new home. This house is just like all the others on Fear Street: a delapidated dump full of rats and evil. Don't look so excited, Brandt. He isn't...he's disappointed in this cesspool he's being forced to live in. It only gets worse when Dad comes out of the house screaming about the rats. The rats are your friends! Or they will be when you realize they're not going anywhere. No poison or trap can kill a Fear rat. FACT. A moment later, Mr. Glen Hankers (the handy dandy repairman from the first book) comes over to introduce himself. He and Dad head inside the house to check out the rat situation. I guess old Hankers isn't interested in telling this family what happened to the last tenants of this house. Brandt tells his mom he's going to help the movers and Mom says he shouldn't because of his "condition". Is he pregnant? As I ponder Brandt's gestation, he starts unpacking a box that has dad's blowing darts inside. Don't ask. I won't either. Somehow one of the spears "seems to jump" out of Brandt's hand and stabs Ezra who promptly bleeds to death. NOOOOO! One chapter in and there's already dead cat blood on your hands, Stine. You're an evil man. An evil man indeed. The family consoles themselves by saying Ezra didn't suffer. Uh, when DIDN'T he suffer? He slowly bled to death! SOB!

They heal their wounds (but not Ezra's! SOB!) that evening over pizza. Like a healing grease scented salve, the pizza coaxes their troubles away with its pepperoni and cheese goodness. They talk about all the healthy food they ate on the island of Mapolo, their last place of residence. They left a tropical paradise to live on Fear Street. Morons. Anyway, Mom recalls how much Brandt loved the food: "You asked me to make stewed mushrooms and coconut for your birthday, remember?" Ew. Then Mom shuts her pizza pie hole to hand Brandt a glass of Pepsi. WHAT?! PEPSI? Do they not know they could be shot in the back for not drinking Coke in this town?? All Coke, all the time...or else. The conversation turns to Zina, an old woman who lived on Mapolo until she vanished. Her coked out daughter said she turned into a panther and told Brandt he was the only one who could find her. Mercifully, Brandt's parents decided to move before he could go the way of the...panther.

That night, Brandt lies awake in bed thinking about poor Ezra. But his thoughts are interrupted by a scratching sound. He assumes it's just those dirty rats and notices the noise is coming from the attic so he decides to investigate. You, Brandt, are in a Fear Street book and should know that's it never the rats and will never be the rats. He enters the dark, musty attic and hears claws clacking and a growl. Suddenly something leaps at him, bounces off him, and falls to the floor. It's a fat raccoon who just tried to sumo Brandt out of the attic. Upon failing, the raccoon does battle with Brandt. Seriously, the next few pages consist of Brandt holding a broom and the raccoon hissing and growling before grabbing the broom with its mouth and snatching it from Brandt. Then it ditches the broom and bounces its fat rump out the window. Dude got pwned by a damn raccoon. Enough. Said. The parents come running and Brandt tells them the story, but he blames the raccoon's bad assery on rabies instead of the AWESOME VIRUS. Mom and Dad say Brandt shouldn't have been engaging in mortal combat with a raccoon on account of his "condition".

Cally's ghost watches Brandt slump back to his bedroom in defeat. She's quite amused by what took place and thinks Brandt's fear makes him even cuter. She also has a thought about the raccoon: "That raccoon didn't have rabies. There's another reason it acted so strangely. There's something else that made it act viciously. The evil, Brandt. The evil in this house." HELL to the NO. The evil is not responsible for everything! That raccoon is genetically fierce, you fools! And what do you know anyway, Cally? You're an invisible pile of DEAD.

The next morning, Brandt goes for a drive instead of helping his parents unload groceries like his father asked him to do. Brandt drives like the idiot he is and ends up losing control of the car, swerving out of the path of an oil truck, and squealing to a stop right at the rim of a gorge. He backs up and drives home at 80 MPH. "That was fun. Man, that was fun!" Mush head.

That night, Brandt can't go to sleep because he's thinking about starting school the next day. Then he feels cold air blowing across him just as sharp teeth clamp onto his shoulder. Pleasepleaseplease let it be Raging Raccoon back for another round! Brandt screams and Dad comes running in. He examines the shoulder (no marks) and checks the room (no vengeful critters). He chalks it up to Brandt being nervous about school and having nightmares because of it. Thanks, doc.

When Brandt comes downstairs the next morning, he meets Mrs. Nordstrom, the housekeeper who made an appearance in the first book. Mr. Hankers recommended her to Mom and she was hired on the spot. Hankers...Nordstrom...could they too be ghostly? Do I care? Eh. Brandt talks to his parents about his unpleasant experience the night before and suggests it was a spirit and the house is haunted. Mom and Dad basically roll their eyes at that and yet Brandt begs them to check it out as if they have Ghostbusters on speed dial.

Brandt finally leaves for school and meets a girl named Abbie Ayler on the sidewalk. They talk for a bit and he learns that Abbie goes to Darwin Academy (an girl's school) and likes to talk about the creepy crap that goes down on Fear Street. She tells him about the twins that lived in house before and that she heard that one of them died inside the house. Brandt just thinks about how cute she is. *sigh* He happens to glance up and sees what appears to be his father's body hanging in the window. Abbie sees it too and screams. Brandt runs upstairs and is shocked to find his father very much alive. The figure in the window? "A suit! It's only a suit!" Excellent sleuthing, Columbo. Relieved that his father isn't dead and hanging in a window like a forgotten muu muu, Brandt asks Abbie out for Saturday afternoon (they're going to "study". Unless Brandt's "condition" acts up.) and runs off for an exciting (and excruciating) day at Shadyside High.

Brandt is standing in line in the cafeteria getting hit on by yet another girl. Her name is Jinny Thompson and she also introduces her friend Meg Morris. Then they introduce him to a jock named Jon Burks who thinks he's awesome because he can spin a basketball on his finger. I bet Raging Raccoon could spin a ball on each paw. Suck it, Jon. Jon says Brandt should try out for the basketball team and Brandt agrees even though he never plays basketball. Jon then tells Jinny not to forget their upcoming date because he had to fight for his right to drive his parents' car. And by 'fight' he means he whined for an hour straight until his parents couldn't take it anymore and threw the stinking keys in his face.

That afternoon, Brandt shows up at basketball practice to show the team and Coach Hurley what he can and/or can't do. I'm getting high on the impending embarrassment! Even though the coach tells Brandt he's doing good, he actually kinda sucks and gets tired really quickly. Sadly, nothing embarrassing happened. My high was wasted.

After practice, Brandt walks home and decides not to tell Mom about b-ball because she would kill him. I assume this is because of his "condition" that no-one cares enough to tell us about. he dodges his parents and goes to his room where it doesn't take him long to realize there's a weird glow coming from beneath his closet door and the stench of rot is so strong it makes him nauseous. Should've washed those dirty Hanes, Brandt, you filth. He touches the doorknob and feels slime dripping from it. He opens the door and a heavy white cloud floats out and starts choking him. It doesn't get to finish, though, because Mom hears Brandt's shrieks of terror and rushes into the room where the mist immediately vanishes. Of course the mist was Cally who is after Brandt for reasons unknown.

The next afternoon, Brandt is back at basketball practice. YAWN. Jon elbows Brandt in the gut and he falls hard on his arm. Everyone freezes and stares in awe as a huge black bruise spreads over Brandt's arm. Jon grins a douchey grin as if proud of his handiwork. YAWN.

Brandt lays in bed that night thinking about his day. Then he starts hearing creaking noises from the attic and decides to play Nancy Drew again. Because he is an idiot. He creeps upstairs, turns on the light, and sees nothing except a notebook lying in the middle of the floor. MENACINGLY! It has Cally's name written on it which means it's her diary. Brandt doesn't mind, though, and immediately starts reading. He realizes that Cally was one of the twins that Abbie told him about. He reads the story of the house and Cally's thoughts on how cute Anthony is and how gross it is when people gets their heads ripped off which is supposedly what happened to the very first residents of 99 Fear Street. Brandt decides the house really is haunted and he was right all along. He wonders if Cally was the twin that died and his question is answered when he reads the last page which simply says "I died tonight." That never fails to amuse. Did she really need a written reminder that she was dead? Me thinks that's something you wouldn't forget. Except you can't remember or forget anything when you die. Because you're dead.

The next day, Brandt is sitting in Mr. Ross's chemistry class, totally spacing out and only paying attention to Jinny's miniskirt. "She looks awesome, Brandt thought." I hope he gets his testicles roasted on a bunsen burner. There's some arguing among Meg and Jinny about who will be Jon's lab partner and who will be Brandt's. Meg ends up with Jon and Jinny with Brandt. After class, Jinny confesses she didn't want to be paired with Jon because he sucks at chemistry and life in general and would have made her do all the work. Then Brandt asks her to come to his house on Saturday so they can get started on their "project". Uh...what about Abbie?

Basketball practice again. Jon shows off and when Brandt tries to do the same, he dislocates his shoulder. Coach Hurley pops it into place and Brandt goes off to the nurse's office. Jon smirks. I die a little inside.

As Brandt is walking home later, he tries to think of a way to explain to his parents why his arm is in a sling. "Fist fight in the student senate?" HAR HAR HAR! Except not. Suddenly Meg pops out of nowhere and Brandt screams "Stay away!". Smooth. He realizes it's only Meg and calms down. She makes a "joke" about it: "I know you didn't want to be my lab partner, but I didn't know you were terrified of me!" Shut up, Meg. She snuck up on Brandt to tell him about Jon and his horrible, awful, no good, very bad temper. "He got suspended last year for beating up a kid in Waynesbridge. The kid spent two weeks in the hospital." So you might wanna rethink your "study date" with Jinny, Brandt. Unless the thought of internal bleeding excites you. A moment later, Meg and Brandt are kissing. "She's really awesome, Brandt thought." What the hell? She tells him to come over on Sunday to hang out and he tells her that sounds great. She runs off to her house to record this EPIC event in her Lisa Frank diary and Brandt walks home. He spots Abbie and mentally freaks out because he FINALLY remembers he asked her to come over on Saturday too. He cancels with Abbie because he figures he's got a better chance of engaging in "extracurricular activities" with Jinny. Abbie is disappointed (WHY?!) but says they can reschedule and goes home. You're not missing anything, Abbie. A brick wall can give you everything Brandt can. And possibly more. Brandt goes inside with a big grin on his goofy face. "He had to smile. Girls were throwing themselves at him right and left!" I'm going to barf. And I haven't thrown up in two years. TWO YEARS, Brandt!

Jinny shows up on Saturday and it's pretty obvious she's disgusted by his house and the fact that it's on Fear Street. Well, this is all you've got to look forward to if you stay with Brandt. The parents are out at a faculty tea at the community college in Waynesbridge where Brandt's dad teaches so Brandt and Jinny can "study" for hours! Brandt shows Jinny his dad's collection of "tribal warfare" items and tells her "My father is an expert on ancient rituals." Then they go upstairs to Brandt's room where Jinny notices the pouch that Brandt wears around his neck. "It's a good luck charm. It saved my life once." He doesn't tell how a pouch of Lucky Charms can save you from certain death. Instead, he waits upstairs while Jinny goes down for a COKE. Brandt thinks about how awesome she is (his vocabulary is lacking) when he hears her scream. He rushes downstairs to find a lot of broken glass and a lot of blood on Jinny who keeps screaming "Make it stop!" Brandt's parents come in and Jinny calms down enough to tell them the glass she was holding just shattered in midair, slicing her wrist. They carry her off to the hospital where she's bandaged up. Brandt walks her to the door of her house and she says "Next time, we'll study at my house." before shutting the door in Brandt's face.

As Brandt is walking home, he notcies he's being followed by a huge shadow. He panics and starts to run. He's almost home when he trips over a tree root and lays in the grass waiting to be accosted. By a shadow. Yeah. But Abbie comes running up before the shadow can take Brandt's innocence. Abbie laughs at Brandt because he fell flat on his face and Brandt doesn't like it. She apologizes and they sit on the porch as Brandt grills her with questions about the house. She really doesn't know any more than what she already told him. Brandt doesn't want to talk about it anymore so he asks no more questions. "He suddenly wanted to be somewhere safe and warm. And he didn't want to be alone." Ooo la la. He asks Abbie is she wants to go to a movie, but she says she can't. She asks if he wants to go the next night, but he has plans with Meg. Finally Abbie just goes home and Brandt goes inside. His mom and dad call him into the kitchen where they tell him too many girls could be bad for him. Don't want to overdo it! Brandt gets pissed and stomps off to his room. Boo hoo.

Later, Brandt attempts to sleep, but the footsteps in the attic are too distracting. Eventually he goes up there and once again finds nothing but Cally's diary. It's open to a fresh page and on it are the words "I made Jinny bleed. Abbie is next." Brandt is horrified and only becomes MORE so when he sees that it's Cally's writing. His response is to throw the diary against the wall. "I know there's evil in this house. But if anyone can beat it, I can." Is that part of your "condition"?

The next day, Brandt tells Meg about the diary. She just says it's weird and has to be someone playing a joke. Who could sneak into his attic every night without him knowing about it? Meg isn't too worried about this crap and starts kissing him...until her cat Lulu scratches Brandt. The animals are really the star of this show. To make things even more uncomfortable, Jinny shows up. She's shocked to see Brandt and tells Meg she'd like to speak with her in private. Brandt ears them having a whispered argument and he can't resist shouting "Hey, don't fight over me, girls! There's plenty of me to go around!" Hey, don't fight over him, girls! Just gut him like a fish and leave his entrails out for the birds! After all, there's PLENTY of him to go around. Jinny leaves and Brandt follows shortly after.

Brandt goes home to his precious attic to read the dead girl's diary. There's a new line: "Brandt, you cannot save Abbie." That goes without saying. he takes the diary to his room and hides it in a drawer. He hears a muffled voice and something that sounds like a child crying, but he can't figure out where it's coming from. Then the invisible child starts begging for his mother. "Come get me, Mommy. It's so dark here. Come get me! It's me--James!" James is Cally's 9 year old brother who got trapped inside the wall in the first book and the family couldn't get to him so I guess they gave up and left him. Nice. Brandt remembers reading about James in Cally's diary and he rushes to grab a wooden mallet he just happens to have lying around so he can break into the wall. He makes a large hole and is greeted by the nauseating stench of putrid rot. Oh, and James's tiny skeleton gripping the tiny skeleton of his puppy (Oh Cubby! SOB!) who died along with him. "A ragged little pair of jeans and a shirt clung to the boy's bones." Too sad. Why didn't his dumbass parents find him? Brandt is now sure that the house is haunted by the ghost of James.

Later, Brandt shows his parents what he found. Dad thinks James is a poltergeist who has been messing with Brandt. Fool. Then he says they should call the cops so they can deal with the remains and get in touch with the family. Cally thinks about how sweet James was and how much she hates Brandt. "It's too late for James. Too late for me. And it's too late for you."

On Saturday morning, Brandt spots Abbie outside and tells her how great she looks. My eyes are rolling as hard as they can. They go inside and Abbie asks about his dad's tribal crap and about the island they used to live on. Brandt tells her about the islanders and how they drink animal blood to feed their animal spirits. Or something. Every time Brandt opens his mouth, I tune out. A moment later, the phone rings and Brandt runs to get it and hears Jinny's voice on the other end. But they don't talk long because Abbie is screaming bloody murder in the next room. A giant suit of armor fell on Abbie. Random much? Brandt drags it off her and she says it just flew at her. Then Brandt tells her that this was predicted in the diary of a girl who used to live here and the diary has had some new entires lately... Abbie just cries and says the house is evil.

The next afternoon, Brandt is attempting to go to basketball practice, but Jon is being an ass and won't get away from him. "Jinny and you--it isn't going to happen. You've got to remember one thing. You bruise real easily." Brandt isn't paying attention, though, because the shadow figure that once followed him home and practically violated him is now hovering in the hallway. Brandt doesn't want to be left alone with it so he tries to pick a fight with Jon. Jon just says he's a weirdo and walks off. Brandt follows and the shadow disappears. What is the point of having a shadows figure follow him around if it isn't going to DO anything?!

Later, Brandt rushes home to look in Cally's diary to find clues as to why the shadow is following him. Because it likes the smell of Axe body spray and Dippity Do gel. Then Brandt does into his father's study to search for a book that might have some information on evil spirits. He finds one titled "The Nature of Evil" which has some words for him: "Evil never dies. Those who do its work can be conquered. But evil itself never goes away. It only seeks a new vessel. Anyone can become a victim of evil. Even the kindest heart, the gentlest soul, is at its mercy." Brandt thinks that's what happened to Cally and that's why she's torturing him. He goes back to the attic and finds a photo of two girls and a little boy and thinks how happy they look and blah blah blah. The point is that Brandt doesn't want to have his life ruined like the Frasier family. Out of the silence of the attic comes shrill laughter. It goes on and on until Brandt can feel his eardrums melting and flees the house. Cally made a funny.

On Wednesday, Brandt is sitting in his house alone after school while his father works in the backyard. The doorbell rings and it's Jinny and Meg. Uh-oh. Jinny holds out a plate covered in aluminum foil and both girls say "Happy Birthday!" which makes Brandt confused because the last time he checked, it wasn't his birthday. Meg explains that they're leftover brownies from a bake sale last week. "They're not too stale. Only a little." Wow. They really hate you, Brandt. They all go inside to eat stale browniea. The girls can't resist jumping on those damn darts. Brandt takes down a blow gun when his father calls to him from outside. Brandt pulls on his sweater (the one that makes him look like Mr. Rogers) and runs outside, leaving Meg and Jinny to play with the deadly blow gun. Dad is standing beside a branch he cut, a branch that is blood red inside. Dad decides to call it bloodwood. Creative. He and Brandt cut the branch off and dark red sap oozes out. Then Dad remembers Brandt's "condition" and tells him to go on inside. Brandt does and finds Meg and Jinny lying on the floor with darts in their throat. Oops.

Meg and Jinny LIVE! The doctor says that they're lucky to be alive. Brandt and his father head home from the hospital and Brandt says it had to be the ghost, but his dad doesn't want to hear any apirit crap and tells him to stuff it. At home, Brandt goes to his room and ends up reading the latest diary entry. "No more Jinny and Meg. Abbie dies next." So Meg and Jinny are dead? What? Oh well. Brandt wants to warn Abbie and strangely, he finds her standing in the hallway outside his door. She walks inside, looks at the diary, and says "Why, Brandt, you've been reading my diary, haven't you?" OF COURSE. Abbie's (a corpse who Cally possessed) face contorts into a red eyed mask of monstrous EVIL! Also known as Cally. She says she's terribly lonely and plans on keeping Brandt here forever for company. Because that's how much she hates him. *sigh* Then she raises her hand and Brandt sees that she's holding one of his dad's hatchets. She buries the hatchet in Brandt's skull, but he doesn't die. I have a feeling we're about to find out what that "condition" of his really is. Cally is shocked and Brandt simply yanks the hatchet out of his head. "You can't kill me. I'm already dead!" Well, yeah, but...never mind. Brandt died two years ago on the island of Mapolo. HOW he died is completely ridiculous. His dad bought some darts from a Mapolo warrior who believed Dad cheated him somehow. So to get revenge the warrior came to Dad's hut one night and poured magical poison powder in the doorway. Then he growles "like a panther" in the hopes that Dad would open the door, step in the powder, and die a painful death. Over some freaking DARTS?! The plan backfires when Brandt comes to the door instead. Brandt tells Cally that it felt as if his feet were burning. The "fire" spread through his body until it reached his heart and he died. His father went to the local witch doctor who gave Brandt a new "life force" by killing a drifter and transferring that life to Brandt. Cally is happy that Brandt is undead and hugs him because now they can be together forever and ever. I THOUGHT SHE HATED HIM! Brandt looks over Cally's shoulder and freaks out: the shadow figure is back. Brandt asks "Who--who ARE you?" and the shadows fall away to reveal an old bald man dressed in white. It's the drifter from the island who has come for his spirit. Seriously. Turns out that pouch Brandt wears around his neck is the only thing keeping him alive and the drifter rips it off. Brandt immediately shrivels up and dies and the drifter lives again. Cally is sad because she's alone again. Apparently the drifter has no desire to hang out with mopey teenage ghosts. Good for him.

Epilogue

Cally is alone again. Cry me a river. She watches as Brandt's coffin rolls away in a hearse and thinks about how much she hates his parents. Ok... She decides to make life a living hell for whoever moves to 99 Fear Street next.

Conclusion? Only one thing made this book even remotely bearable...

Next time: "Night Games" Cover of night + pranks = MURDER.

Ghosts of Fear Street #1 - Hide and Shriek 7 Mar 2011 2:11 PM (14 years ago)

Ready Or Not, Here I Come

Anyway, yes, the gravestone has a statue of an old grinning man sitting on it as if telling everyone that the bag of bones in the coffin below enjoys death just fine. A moment later, Randy hears a boy's giggle coming from nearby and she runs all the way home. Good plan. Giggling boys are not to be trusted. Mom is in the kitchen with Baby who demands to be called by her real name (which is Barbara) to establish her status as a fully fledged 7 year old woman. "BARBARAAAA!" Yeah, we get it. Thanks for bursting our last ear drum, BARBARA. Mom stirs the spaghetti sauce while BARBARAAAA! informs Randy that she's in love with her teacher Mr. Pine. So she does go to school. Hmm. After declaring her intention to marry and kiss Mr. Pine and jumping on Randy, Baby finally sits down to watch Batman, her favorite show. "My name is Barbara. Everybody has to shut up now. Batman's on." Ah, you make me laugh, Barbara.

The next day, Randy is in gym class hula hooping next to Sara. Sara asks her if she wants to come over Saturday for a sleepover. Randy is elated and says yes, but her good mood is ruined by Laura's foul mouth. "Better get in shape, Randy. Or else find a good place to hide." Does she ever give up? Randy asks Sara why Laura keeps saying things like that and Sara says she'll find out on Saturday.

Saturday arrives and Randy's sexy computer programmer dad who wears black rimmed glasses and tweed jackets takes her to Sara's house. Sara lives in the fancy part of town (a.k.a. North Hills) and Randy admires the house. Sara leads her to the basemtn which Randy also likes. "Our basement is like a dungeon, but the Lewises was all fixed up with a TV and VCR, a stereo, even a kitchenette in one corner. The floor was carpeted and travel posters covered the walls. Nothing scary about this basement at all." Everybody loves a travel poster. Sara introduces Randy to the other girls: Megan, Anita, and the twins Karla and Kris. They all lay out their sleeping bags and prepare to watch a scary movie while Sara makes some popcorn. They turn out the lights and watch Dracula which Randy finds quite creepy. After the movie, Anita says that Dracula isn't as scary as Pete which prompts Randy to ask just who this PETE is, dammit! The girls don't say anything which only increases Randy's curiosity so she asks again and FINALLY Anita tells the story. A long time ago in ye olde Shadyside, a kid named Pete died in the Fear Street Woods on his twelfth birthday. No-one knew how he died. He was "all shriveled up". They buried him in the cemetery in the woods, but Petey didn't stay put. One year later on his birthday, some kids are playing hide and seek in the woods and one girl spots Pete's ghost. He wanted to play with them, but they weren't having that so Pete took revenge on one of the kids by possessing his body and making him do horrible things such as running wild like an animal through the woods and eating nasty things. The boy shrivels up and the same things starts happening to most of the kids in town until they all start looking like terrified dried apples. The Dried Apple Disease. HORRIBLE! So ever since then, every year on Pete's birthday, the kids of the town go to the woods to play hide and seek with Pete who is always the seeker because that satisfies him so he won't terrorize the whole town. But whoever Pete finds first gets the privilege of being possessed by him for a year. Why? Because Pete is a whiny little bitch ghost who doesn't want to be dead so he forces a child to share their body with him. Randy thinks the story is a joke, but all the girls look genuinely scared. Then Megan tells Randy she's in the most danger. "Because Pete likes new kids." A moment later, the lights go out and all the girls scream. Sara turns them back on and finds her little brothers giggling over their trick. She chases them back upstairs and when Kris tells her they're adorable, Sara says "You can have them. Take them and Mom, too." Sara has CLAWS! The girls start talking about Pete again, but their attitude has completely changed. Now they're all saying the game is fun and it would be a shame to miss it and if you don't come, everyone thinks you're a total wimp. Randy doesn't buy into stories unless she knows the facts so she decides to investigate. How she plans to do this, I have no idea.

At school on Monday, Randy can think of nothing but Pete and whose body he must be in RIGHT NOW. Why doesn't Pete just invade a dog's body? All he wants to do is run wild and eat gross things...it makes more sense. But I guess that takes all the fun out of it for Pete. Any excuse to ruin a child's life! Laura passes by with her usual good word. "You're doomed, new girl." As Randy is walking toward her locker, she sees Lucas leaning against it. He starts talking about Pete and hide and seek and asks Randy if she wants to sit with him again at lunch because she's new and everything. Randy immediately decides Lucas is Pete. I thought Randy was the fact checker. Guess facts are useless when you've got a crazy ghost who wants to take over your body and turn you into a prune. Randy says she's eating with Sara and a guy named David Slater so Lucas walks off. Randy calms down and realizes she doesn't have enough facts to accuse Lucas of being the Dried Apple Demon. Make up your mind! Randy tells David and Sara about her theory and they just laugh, but David agrees to spy on Lucas with her later.

That evening, Randy and David head for Lucas's house. He comes out ad they watch him walking toward the woods. Randy hears him whistling a tune she recognizes as a funeral march which she happens to know a few words to: pray for the dead and the dead will pray for you, simply because there's nothing else to do. What the hell? Never mind. They follow Lucas into the woods, but soon lose sight of him. They hear kids laughing, but they don't see anyone. They both run until they reach the street and then laugh at themselves for getting scared over some kids playing. Fact: those weren't ordinary kids. Fact: you both know this.

During gym class the next day, everyone is pissed because they have to square dance. It's probably just so Ms. Mason (the bleach blond, perfectly manicured gym teacher for the girls) wil have an excuse to touch Mr. Sirk (boys gym teacher). Everyone is convinced she has a thing for his porny mustache. What an ignorant slut. Anyway, Lucas picks Randy as his partner which further convinces her he is actually Pete which makes her feel sick which gets her a pass to the nurse's office which means she gets out of square dancing. Yay.

That evening, Randy is walking to the bus stop with Karla, Kris, and Sara. They went to the movies and now it's starting to get dark. They talk about Petey before splitting up; Sara, Kris, and Karla get on their bus and Randy walks a little further to her stop before deciding to just walk home. Alone. In the dark. No, I don't know what's wrong with her. As she passes the cemetery, she sees Lucas slurping worms out of the dirt. Delicious. She hides behind a tree and waits a moment before running home where her parents scold her for walking home in the dark. What do you think about it, Baby? "Barbara!" Shut up.

The next night, Mom and Dad are going to have dinner with Sara's parents which means Randy gets to babysit BARBARA. What joy. When Mom tells Baby she can't stay up as late as Randy, she runs off crying and screeching. Someone put Baby in a corner! PLEASE! Baby calms down a little later and she and Randy watch TV and eat pizza and ice cream. Baby falls asleep at 8:30 and Randy starts getting nervous about Pete. Unfortunately, Baby wakes up about an hour later, gets pissed when Randy won't give her cookies, and starts screaming her head off when Randy calls her Baby instead of Barbara.Then she starts screaming for a different reason: Lucas is at the window and then at the door, rattling the knob. Randy and Baby lean against the door and scream at him to go away. He does and a few moments later, Mom and Dad walk in. Randy tells them about Lucas, but pretends she's joking when they threaten to call the police. Randy goes upstairs, leaving her parents with their precious Baby.

Saturday, June 10th. The dreaded day has finally arrived and Randy is freaking out. Her mom makes her go to the store for some ground beef even though she really doesn't wanna leave the house. Later, Sara calls and says the game starts at sundown. Randy tries to eat her meatloaf, but she's too nervous and Baby won't shut up. "My name is Barbara." *sigh* Your name is MUD.
Finally it's dark and Randy goes to the woods. Mr. Sirk is there with all the kids to wish everyone luck or something. Because he has no life. Before the game begins, someone brings out a cake, lights 12 candles, and everyonesings Happy Birthday. Fact: this is crazy. The game begins and everyone scatters to hide. Randy is just focused on staying the hell away from Lucas. She freaks out when she hears someone running behind her and she climbs into a tree. A few minutes later, David climbs up beside her and they sit in silence. Then Randy starts smelling something nasty like rotten garbage. She looks over at David and sees a stain on his shirt. A moment later, it starts to spread. David says "Pete's not so bad. I don't know why everybody tries so hard to get away. What is everybody so afraid of? Pete always gives the bodies back. I give them back as good as new." Randy stares at David in shock and he smiles at her with a mouth full of blackened, rotten teeth. She sees that the stain on his shirt is blood and she freaks out, knowing he's Pete and she has to get away. He tells her she can't run from him, but that's obviously a lie because that's exactly what she does. She makes it to home base only because Lucas distracted Pete. Randy tells the others that David is Pete (or Pete is David?) and he's after Lucas, but everyone laughs at her.Then Mr. Sirk (why is he still here? Seriously, does he have nothing better to do than hang out in the woods with a bunch of kids in the middle of the night?) blows a whistle and announces the game is over and everyone needs to go home. Kris says she saw Lucas jogging home which makes Randy feel a little better and she goes home, too.

At school on Monday, Randy hears that David is in the hospital and she assumes it's because Pete violated his soul. Later, she and Lucas walk home together. She confesses she thought he was Pete and brings up the worm thing. He laughs and says he was getting worms for fishing bait. In a cemetery? I thought he ATE one? Is he turning into a fish? Anyway, she also brings up the incident where Lucas rattled her front door. Apparently he heard Baby screaming bloody murder and wanted to make sure Randy wasn't killing her. They have a good laugh and Lucas says "You know, Pete really wanted you." His teeth turn black and he starts stinking like a decaying corpse and chases Randy into the cemetery. A whole gaggle of ghostly children surrounds Randy and Pete. They start calling Pete a loser and Randy chimes in. The ghosts form a swirling tornado that sucks Pete's spirit out of Lucas and puts it back into its grave. Uh, why didn't they do this years ago? Lucas and Randy vow never to play hide and seek again and both go home as if nothing ever happened, accepting the fact that they'll both probably need therapy a few years down the road when this repressed memory comes back to haunt their dreams.

Fact: this book really makes no sense.
Fact: worms are full of protein.
Fact: if you drink every time Baby screams "BARBARA!" you will be drunk within seconds.
Fact: the cover of this book has no relation whatsoever to the actual story which is a shame.
Fact: "99 Fear Street: The Second Horror" is up next.

Runaway 18 Dec 2010 4:19 PM (14 years ago)

Still More Tales To Give You Goosebumps 31 Oct 2010 6:33 PM (14 years ago)

The Perfect Date 25 Oct 2010 10:15 AM (14 years ago)

Book Description:

Brady Karlin is getting on with his life. The memory of his girlfriend--killed in a gruesome sledding accident last year--is beginning to fade. Now he's met Rosha Nelson, the girl of his dreams. And he's never been happier. Until Brady starts to see a strange figure--with a terribly scarred face--following him everywhere. Until the horrible accidents start happening--every time Rosha's around. Has dating Rosha made Brady's dreams come true? Or brought his worst nightmares back to life?

My Description:

A few quick notes first...

1) I was going to do Phone Calls but it was so unbearably boring and stupid that I put it down and picked up The Perfect Date instead. But don't worry. Phone Calls will be here eventually to plague your feeble mind with its horrible powers.

2) The description of this book is ridiculous. It's only been a year and this dude is already forgetting his poor doomed girlfriend? "And he's never been happier." A-S-S.

3) This cover is absolutely hilarious. The longer I look at it, the more amused I become.

4) It's sad that this is how I get my jollies.

On with the show!

Prologue

Brady (one of the few males in Shadyside who gets to be the star of his own book! Too bad that means absolutely nothing.) is hanging out at Miller Hill, the steepest sledding hill in Shadyside Park. He's with his darling girlfriend Sharon who is NOT BLOND. Yes, you heard correct! Sharon is a brunette who is freezing her ass off because Brady wants to sleeeeeed. Brady insists that they sled down the steepest point and even though it makes Sharon nervous and she doesn't want to, she goes anyway. They hop on their sleds and start sliding down the hill. As Brady giggles like a crazed hyena, Sharon's sled starts slipping out of control. She screams as the sled veers through pine trees and a patch of thorns. Then...silence. Brady spots her lying face down and motionless at the bottom of the hill and laughs as he says "Okay, Shar, you were right. From now on, we'll sled on the kiddie-" He shuts his mouth when he realizes she isn't breathing. He turns her over and gets a gruesome surprise: "Sharon's face! Her cute, button-nosed face! Nothing was left of it. No eyes, no lips. No face! Nothing. The thorns and metal sled runners had sliced it to red mush. Nothing remained but a pulpy mass of skin and crushed bone. A bright red puddle of blood on the crisp white snow." Um. Ouch. Maybe just put a band-aid on it...

The Following Winter

Brady and his friend Jon are eating pizza (because there's nothing else to eat in Shadyside) and talking about some girl named Lisa. Jon has a crush on her, but she's more into Brady and judging by the big douchebag grin on his face, Brady enjoys rubbing this fact in Jon's face. But Brady already has a girlfriend...who happens to have the dumbest name ever: Allie Stoner. Seriously. Anyway, Brady isn't all that into Allie because she takes their shoddy relationship more seriously than he does. But she's really cute so he'll continue to lead her on. Damn you, Brady. A moment later, Brady spots a gorgeous pouty BLOND enter the restaurant and oh baby, he's just gotta have her! Is that her on the cover? I've seen better. The same goes for you, Brady, you egomaniacal ass. He checks himself out before going over to the girl. "He knew he was good-looking." And I know he's NOT. The cover proves this. He's a rinky dink asshole! *sigh* Ignoring Brady's raging ego...

He walks over to the girl and she introduces herself as Rosha Nelson and asks if he wants to sit down. It's pretty obvious he does and he can't believe how smoothly this is going. I guess Allie is now dead to him. Brady mentions that he's never seen her around Shadyside High and she says she goes to a private school across town called St. Ann's. Then he asks her about her unique name. Nothing too interesting: her mom got it from some trashy romance novel. He tells her how special she is (even though he just met her and know NOTHING about her) and asks her out for Saturday. He doesn't need to know her any better. He can tell she's a sophisticated lady. After all, she wears red lipstick, drinks coffee, and has a husky smoker's voice. She's a real live 17 year old WOMAN. They agree to meet at the mall. Because that's the sophisticated thing to do. Before they part ways, Rosha accidentally spills steaming hot coffee all over Brady's tender hand. "His hand. His hand was on fire!" Rosha cuts my cackling short by touching his hand and making the boo-boo all better. Then she leaves and Brady goes back to sit with Jon. He drools about how perfect Rosha is and he's sure he's in love and blah blah blah. Jon is only concerned about the hot coffee burn: "That girl almost charbroiled your hand!" Brady claims he felt nothing. That's how third degree burns are supposed to feel! P.S. I hate you, Brady.

The next day, he attempts to avoid Allie, but she catches up to him. She asks about his puffy hand and then wants to know if he'd like to go to Pete's after school for the daily fix. He says he has homework to do. So Allie asks about the basketball game the next night (which happens to be Saturday) and what time he'll be picking her up. He says he has to babysit his sick cousin and can't go to the game. FAIL. He runs off because he can't stand to see the disappointment on her face. He DOES promise he'll come over on Sunday with Jon to study...if he isn't punch drunk from staring at Rosha's lady lumps. As he's leaving school, he briefly thinks about Sharon. But by the time he's outside, he's forgotten about Sharon AND Allie and can only think of Rosha. Such a creep.

It's now Saturday evening and Brady is hanging out beside the fountain at the mall. He's freaking out wondering if Rosha will actually show up. She does and they go see the new Brad Pitt film. Which happens to be a horror movie. Ok then. After the movie, they leave the theater and Brady spots a disfigured girl standing in the shadows. He sees that her face is horribly scarred: "Scars crisscrossed the girl's forehead like railroad tracks. Twisted, ropelike scars almost fused her eyelids shut. Her cheeks and chin wrinkled like shriveled apples." Brady immediately forgets about her. Typical.

In the parking lot, Rosha begs to drive Brady's father's shitty Oldsmobile. I don't get her enthusiasm. Brady eventually relents and comes to regret it because she drives like a drunken Mr. Magoo. She ends up losing control and crashing into a parked car. Brady's head cracks the windshield; he blacks out and wakes up a bit later, bloody but mostly ok. Somehow. Rosha is completely spazzing out. She says the cops will be here any minute and Brady has to switch places with her and say he was driving because she has no license and could get into trouble. I know Shadyside cops suck, but does she really think they won't notice Brady's bloody, concussed head and the cracked windshield on the PASSENGER side? When the cops show up, they simply think Brady hit one of the many patches of ice on the road. They never even ask him any questions. I guess Rosha pegged them correctly--they're stupid. She bailed before they got there. What a sweetheart.

Brady gets nothing but a slap on the wrist for the accident. The car wasn't too damaged so Brady's dad didn't kill him or anything. That Olds is a precious artifact. On Sunday, Brady and Jon go to Allie's house to study. She asks questions about the night before, Brady feeds her a stream of lies, and Jon tries to change the subject. He puts on some music and dances around the room with Allie while Brady mopes on the couch wishing he were with Rosha. When Allie and Jon go to the kitchen for chips and Cokes, Brady tries to look up Rosha's phone number, but he doesn't know where she lives and there are tons of Nelsons listed. He can't sit still for another minute so he says his head is killing him (he has a huge lump on his head from the night before) and abandons Jon and Allie to look for Rosha. You are truly a fool among men, Brady.

Brady goes home and finds a cop waiting for him. He shows Brady something the cops found under the seat of his dad's car: Rosha's purse. Brady simply says his girlfriend lost that and boy howdy, will she be happy to see it! *sigh* Calm down, Jethro. The useless cop leaves and Brady takes the purse upstairs to sniff its contents. He's shocked to find it empty. He expected at least some ID or a penny or a loose cough drop. Nada. He thinks it's weird, but since his attention span is that of a very stupid goldfish, he almost immediately forgets about it and starts thinking about his unsinkable desire for Rosha. The phone rings a moment later and he's disappointed to hear Allie's voice. She's calling to check on him and to ask if they're still going to Mei Kamata's party on Saturday. (Remember Mei from What Holly Heard? Her parties suck.) He gives her a vague complaint about his head to get her off the line quicker without giving her a straight answer and it works. Brady then opens a phone book and starts calling every Nelson listed in the phone book. In between calls, the phone rings. It's a strange girl who tells him to stay away from Rosha. He's going to need more convincing than that...

After school the next day, Brady tries to get out of the building without speaking to Allie, but she catches up to him anyway. HA. She asks him if he wants to come over to her house for junk food and studying. He says he has to go home and look through the want ads for a job. He also says his mom has a bunch of chores for him to do. Since when did stalking become a chore? Once Allie is gone, Brady gets all excited because he remembers that Rosha goes to St. Ann's which is only about 10 minutes away and St. Ann's conveniently lets out 10 minutes after Shadyside High so maybe he can just catch Rosha. He runs across the parking lot to Jon and "asks" him for some help: "We're going to St. Ann's to look for Rosha. I'll stake out the front and you park in the back. That way one of us will see her for sure." Jon says he has to be at work in 20 minutes, but Brady says that's plenty of time. Jon tells Brady that he needs to get a grip and quit obsessing over Rosha. This pisses Brady off and he leaves alone.

Brady arrives at St. Ann's and watches all the students pouring out of the school, but Rosha isn't among them. This is completely unacceptable (how dare she not be where he can see her at all times?!) so Brady heads inside to harrass the secretary about Rosha. He says he needs her number and it's an emergency. The lady says they can't give out information on students. Especially not to obsessive teenage boys with stalkerish tendencies. Brady finally gets it through his thick head that this woman isn't going to help him and off he skips to accost some random guy out on the sidewalk. He figures this virile male specimen will SURELY have noticed hot Rosha, but the guy has never heard of her so Brady shoves him to the ground. The boy jumps on a bus before Brady can attack. He's convinced the guy was lying about not knowing Rosha.

Brady finds himself walking alongside the football field when he spots a girl who, from the back, looks just like Rosha. He runs over to her and when she turns, he sees nothing but massive scarring. It's the girl he saw outside the theater a few nights ago and Brady just can't stand the sight of her so he turns and runs. And lo and behold, he crashes right into Rosha. He tells her about the scarred girl and how he was looking for Rosha. She gets mad at Brady for sniffing around her school and stomps off like a prissy little girl. Since Brady has been completely emasculated by Rosha's sophistication (some might call it 'bitchery') he runs after her, pleading for forgiveness and telling her how crazy he is about her. Oh, he's crazy alright. Rosha forgives him and they hop in Brady's car. He hands her the purse the cop gave him and she claims it's empty because she was excited to meet him, she grabbed the wrong bag. Brady eats it up like a fat kid gobbling cherry pie. They make out and Rosha says she wants to go dancing on Saturday. Brady is in a state of intense ecstasy right now and would agree to anything so they make a date. He briefly thinks about Mei's party and the fact that he was going to take Allie. But that doesn't matter now. Alienating everyone in his life to spend more time with Rosha is SO worth it. Stupid boy.

When Brady gets home, he decides he has to break up with Allie. Before he can call her, the strange girl who warned him about Rosha before, calls again. "Stay away from Rosha. This is no joke. Stay away from her." Brady screams "Forget it! Just leave me alone!" Doesn't he even want to know WHY he should stay away? Of course not. Because Mr. Johnson is doing all the thinking for him.

The next afternoon, as the two are weight lifting in the weight room at Shadyside High, Brady tells Jon that he wanted to break up with Allie, but he couldn't. He lied (didn't see that one coming!) to her about Saturday night: "I told her I'm grounded because I haven't found a job to pay for the car yet." Is he even aware of how much he SUCKS? Brady goes on to tell Jon about the scarred girl and the phone calls and he knows it's the same girl. A moment later, he stares out the window, sees the scarred girl, and drops the weights he's holding. He feels like he's dying until Jon hauls the weights off his chest. Brady starts screaming about the scarred girl and Jon says the reason Brady is so freaked out is because the scarred girl reminds him of Sharon. Brady agrees and has a mini flashback to the accident. He decides he has to talk to Rosha and figure out what connection she has to the scarred girl. He goes to a pay phone outside the locker room and dials the number Rosha gave him the day before. He only gets a recorded message: "You have dialed a nonworking number." This message combined with the fact that Rosha told him she lives on Fear Street should be huge red flags that something in the milk ain't right. But Brady isn't getting it and he leaves for Fear Street without saying anything to Jon.

Once Brady reaches Fear Street, he quickly realizes that the address Rosha gave him doesn't even exist. BURN. The next afternoon, Brady is completely losing his mind because he can't find Rosha. I think he has officially descended into madness. Over a girl he doesn't even know. I'd call him a moron, but at this point it's just too pathetic. I really feel sorry for him...even though I hate him. Brady thinks about Rosha, then Allie, then Rosha's kisses. The doorbell rings and there stands Rosha. Brady summoned her with his pitiful moping and incessant, obsessive thoughts about her! He wishes. She comes in and Brady tells her he tried to find her house, but the address was wrong. She claims she wrote it correctly, but the ink must have smudged or something. Liar. Brady brings up the nonworking phone number and Rosha says she has no clue what's up with that. Liar. Then Brady starts freaking out because Allie's car just pulled up outside. He practically shoves Rosha out of the kitchen, but she trips on a throw rug and "accidentally" stabs him in the side with a letter opener she was holding. Uh, anyone think she's trying to kill him? The burning, the car accident, the stabbing?

Rosha pretends to be so concerned but she yanks the opener out of his side like it was only stuck in butter, not in someone's FLESH. Brady collapses, bleeding all over the place. At that moment, Allie comes running in and starts freaking out. "You stabbed him! You stabbed him!" Rosha says it was an accident and tells Allie to help her get Brady to the hospital. He wakes up in the hospital later with his parents at his side. They tell him they're going down to the cafeteria and the moment they leave, the scarred girl comes in. She tells him that she warned him of Rosha, but he wouldn't listen therefore he got shanked with his own letter opener. The girl asks if Brady is ready to hear the truth about Rosha and he says yes. Unfortunately, a hateful doctor masquerading as Nurse Ratchet comes in and yanks the girl out of the room before she can say anything.

On Saturday, Brady goes home. Naturally, he can only think of holding Rosha and telling her it wasn't her fault that she rammed a sharp object into his gut and then pulled it out like she was carving a Thanksgiving turkey. Allies shows up instead and Brady can barely conceal his disappointment. Allie doesn't waste time in letting Brady know that Rosha told him all about their sneaky "relationship" and they break up. Well, that was uneventful.

After Allie leaves, Brady's mom leves for the store and his dad is at work so you know something HORRIBLE! is about to happen. He goes to his room and gets a phone call from Jon. He tells Brady he's got some interesting news about Rosha and he mentions the girl with the scarred face, but then he's cut off. Brady calls back, but no-one answers so he decides to go to Jon's house to see what the hell is going on.

Cops are at Jon's house. They don't want Brady going inside, but he dashes in anyway. Jon is lying in the living room. He got his windpipe crushed by a marble candlestick. Real classy. An officer takes Brady into another room to ask him some questions. Brady is in shock but manages to tell them about Jon's last phone call and Rosha and the scarred girl. He goes home and listens to a message from Rosha on his machine. She wants him to meet her in the park for SLEDDING. And he goes!

It's snowing and the car is swerving all over the place, but Brady makes it to the park in tact. He finds Rosha...on Miller Hill. She says it looks the way it did on their sledding afternoon. Brady is confused, but Rosha is quick to explain: "Don't tell me you've forgotten, Brady. I haven't forgotten. After all, that was the day you killed me." Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Rosha says Brady is an idiot for never realizing that she is Sharon. Rosha Nelson is an anagram for Sharon Noles. Rosha says she came back from the dead and took a different body to take revenge on Brady because he was the one who practically forced her to go sledding. As much as I hate to defend Brady, he didn't force Sharon to do anything. He kept badgering her, but she easily could've told him to fuck off and walked away. Rosha starts choking Brady and she almost finishes him off, but someone intervenes. "That's enough, Sharon! You're finished now!" It's the scarred girl who says she wants her body back. She goes to say that Sharon killed her, stole her beautiful body, and...this really makes no sense whatsoever. Apparently they traded spirits. Basically. I think. Or something. ANYWAY, the two undead girls battle and it actually becomes resonably awesome. They literally rip each other apart, tearing off limbs and snapping one another's head off. Once they behead each other, they go rolling down Miller Hill and disappear in the snow.

Epilogue

Brady is walking to Allie's house. He finds her shovelling snow and tells her he wants to apologize again for what happened between them. He begs Allie for another chance and tells her he has a question for her before she answers. First he explains that Rosha killed him on Miller Hill which is why he looks like death. "I'm dead." Thanks, Brady. Allie assumes he's joking, but she can't deny that he's as cold as the grave. "So cold. So cold. Because I'm dead." Yeah, we get it, Brady. He wants Allie to take him back even though he's a dead man. The book ends with Allie screaming.

Conclusion? Wow. I really want to like this one. I DO like this one! But there are so many questions that went unanswered. Who was the scarred girl? How did Sharon have the power to rise from the dead and trade spirits with some unsuspecting girl? Why did they both vanish into thin air after dismembering one another? How was Brady still walking and talking at the end? I also don't understand why Brady was such an unlikable jerk. Shouldn't we have at least some sympathy for the main character?! Well, we can't when he's an arrogant, cheating asshole. Oh well. When the girls ripped their heads off, that kind of made up for Brady's low points. I'm a sucker for decapitation.

Next time: On Halloween, I'm posting Still More Tales to Give You Goosebumps. I know it isn't Fear Street, but the stories are all Halloween related, short, and totally ridiculous so that should be entertaining. The next Fear Street book, though, will be Runaway. (If she doesn't control her super cranial powers, people are gonna start dropping like flies!)