Shadyside Snark

Graduation Day or "R. L. Didn’t Let Me Down With His WTF Ending"

2010-10-15T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well friends: This is it. Our final Fear Street book.

For Graduation Day, L.K. and I did something a little different. We both read the book separately and wrote reviews without looking at the other persons. I still haven't even read L.K.s. So I guess we'll find out who cuts corners in their review style!

Without further ado: L.K. Stine's Graduation Day!

OMG, guys, this is it! Not only the last Seniors book, but also our last Fear Street book, ever. I’m not sure how I feel about this – a little sad and bittersweet. I’m sure I feel nothing like our intrepid seniors, who must be anticipating graduation with dread and a little bit of panic. After watching their classmates horrifically die throughout the year, you have to start to wonder what you’re in for.

So here it is:

We start off with Josie at the mall with Jennifer, the most boring twosome ever (let’s whine some more …) Josie is shopping for something sexy to wear to the party that her and Josh are throwing to stick it to everyone that’s ignored her all year. That’s a little callous, but whatever. Jen disappears, and the dresses Josie’s been looking at turn into the maroon grad gowns of Shadyside High. They start to pour blood and be filled out by skeletons.

Not surprisingly, this is the first dream sequence of the book. Josie wakes up in a cold sweat, wondering if anyone will survive grad.

Josie, Josh and Stacy are at school, talking about the yearbooks. My first thought was: how will they deal with all the memorial pages they have to put in there – I guess the same way they’ve dealt with it every year. Then dumbass Josh answers my questions – muttering he doesn’t want a yearbook because it’s just a book full of pictures of dead people. So they did actually make a memorial section for the dead, I guess R. L. couldn’t overlook that one forever (like he always seems to do with other dead-person stuff, like funerals or grief.)

They open the books to find all the photos of their dead classmates were changed to be decaying corpses. Was it a really insensitive practical joke or something else …? Josie screams “Haven’t we suffered enough!” and runs out. In my head, that was all super melodramatic.

Dana approaches Josie to tell her she can’t make it to her party because she’s too sad over her dead twin. Josie makes the case of being miserable together – sounds like a fun party.

Josie, alone, reminisces about the evil spirit she summoned last June to kill the entire graduating class, and what a big mistake that turned out to be. I’m thinking the biggest theme of this entire series is: Beward the Whiny Teenager.

Annoying Matty comes up to show Josie that Clark Dickenson (aka “Count Clarkula”) didn’t show up in any of the photos taken of him. This is clearly further proof of his vampire-ness. I guess? That’s cool, vampires are sexy.

The next day, Trisha cuts herself arranging trophies in the display case. Clark is next to her and ~~starts to lap up her blood~~ sways because ~~he desperately needs her mortal blood to live~~ blood makes him ~~hungry~~ dizzy. Josie wonders if Trish started to see Clark because of his closeness to her blood.

Trisha has a vision of the entire graduating ceremony attended by nothing but coffins. Yawn – hasn’t she had that one already? Move on, already.

Clark goes to the mall to shop and mischieviously pretends he might not buy something black. Psych! Of course he buys something black. He runs into Matty, who nervously tells him about his photos not turning out. Clark is surprisingly upfront, telling Matty he’s not a vampire but has always enjoyed the attention it gets him – like from Trisha Conrad. To prove he’s not a vampire, he brings Matty to his house and locks him in his room – not too convincing there, Clarkula.

Turns out Clark is a 200 year old immortal. He clouds Matty’s mind and drinks his blood. I … am surprised. All that build up and it actually went somewhere. Huh. Clark makes hungry ugh ugh ugh grunts as he drinks, which I found disturbing. Maybe he wants Matty to be his Renfield.

Josie is studying when the Doom spirit visits her. He takes offence at her “it’s just a dream” comment and proves it isn’t by filling her scalp with maggots. Ick.

She breaks down and confides in Josh about the Doom spirit, telling him everything. He takes her seriously and goes to tell her parent she needs to talk to someone, all the deaths have messed with her head. This is one of the most surprisingly sensitive things I’ve read in Fear Street, it makes sense that after seeing death after death you might want to talk yourself into it being your fault so that maybe you can have some control over it.

Whatever. Josie deals with this by running away to Jennifer’s. They call Trisha over and Josie once again confesses and tells Jen they need to find a spell to stop Doom. Unfortunately, the books had been sold, so they are out of luck. Oh well.

Next day at a student awards ceremony. Josie attends … for no reason, because she sucks. Josh is getting a science prize as well as an award for an essay he wrote on democracy – I thought he has a total dumbass, maybe not so much.

They get started, everyone is present but Phoebe. Don’t worry, she’ll show up soon. They unroll the flag to “The Star-Spangled Banner” – and with it comes Phoebe’s body, hung upside down, swinging along with the flag. I’m saddened by her death, Phoebe was always so feisty.

The kids moan about attending yet another funeral. Josh has had about enough, leave from the church with Matty and Mickey and drive to the Fear Street Woods. Josh is being very introspective, he actually has quite the sensitive side. I would like to see him end up being the hero of the series. It’s actually funny how, at the end of this series, you still have no idea if there is a hero, if there even is a hero. Or who the bad guy is for that. It would also be awesome if it turned out everyone was evil. That would be an excellent ending.

Mickey catches a bat. Joking that it’s Clark, they decide to put it in Clark’s bedroom.
Clark catches them in there. They give him his “present” and he sucks the insides out calmly. He explains he’s clouding their minds, then proceeds to do so. The boys leave, weirded out but not knowing why, but Clark makes Matty stay with him. Josh hears his cry of pain and wonders at it while he leaves.

At the mall, Josh runs after a girl he thinks he went to camp with years ago. She has a gorgeous friend Katrina that Josh flirts with for a bit. She agrees to go out with him, until finding out he’s from Shadyside High. So he really is cursed.

Josie is at the shrink’s office, being made to go there by her parents. The doctor eagerly listens to everything Josie says, then turns into the Doom spirit. The creature swallows Josie, where she falls past howls of pain and distorted faces, ending in darkness.

She wakes up in the doc’s office with an angry woman standing over her. The doctor was sick today, there was no way she should be in here. Josie runs away, which is sensible I think. She goes to open the car, but the handle is burning hot and her hand sticks to it. As she screams, she sees Doom behind the wheel before the car explodes. I’m thinking Doom is having a good time with all of this. Of course, none of that actually happened, Josie is fine.

Grad rehearsal – Mickey is wrapped around another senior, Zella, as opposed to his poor grieving girlfriend. Of course – grief is boring. I don’t like that a new senior is being introduced at this late date without her being in the yearbook of Doom. Couldn’t R. L. have used another character, like Mira Block who appeared in approximately no books but is supposedly a large slut?

Before everything is ready, Pomp and Circumstance blasts out on the speakers, making everyone cover their ears. Slowly, a procession of maroon gowns walk into the auditorium, all of them corpses – Debra, Danielle, Marla, Ty … all of the dead seniors. Fucked up!

The living run out, but not before Josie sees Marla get up to give her valedictorian speech. Well, she would, wouldn’t she?

So, everyone believes Josie now, and they figure they’re fucked.

Trisha and Josie go to the Fear mansion because there’s nothing better to do. Trisha has a vision, she sees a door with a big crack in it, and in a man’s voice pleads for help.

Trisha runs to the side of the house. Finding the door, together they open it. They are sucked in to a place full of skeletons grabbing at them. A handsome living man named Henry Conrad approaches them. He’s Trish’s great-grandfather. He asks him to get him out.

Josie isn’t sure if they should trust the random guy who hangs out with skeletons, but he tells her he can defeat Doom when he’s out. Josie’s sold. Also, a weird jellyfish attacks her and Henry rescues her, so he must be awesome.

When they get to the door, Henry runs and keeps on running. Over his shoulder, he tells them that to summon him, just say “I summon thee” three times and he’ll be there. He also yells that they haven’t seen the last of him, which sounds vaguely like a threat. He runs around the side of the building.

What the fuck was that?

Clark goes to visit Trisha. He’s so thirsty he’s losing control. He begs her to go out to a movie so he can drink her in private. He bites her in the car … or almost. The police pull up and tell them to move along. Trisha asks him to take her home and gets out quickly before he can pull anything. Clark impotently reaches after her – not much of a vampire, is he. Instead, he eats Trisha’s kitten. Um, just noticed the potential sexual reference there when writing that – very naughty, R. L. Who do you think you are, Bram Stoker?

Josie and Josh get ready for the party. Trisha and Matty come in, yelling about how Clark is a vampire and they have to do something. Trisha was onto him in the car and Matty’s been remembering some of his “alone time” with Clark.

Trish is determined to kill him. They decide to invite him over right away for his staking so he doesn’t ruin the party. Trisha entices him over. Clark comes over all eager, and to me he’s still a metaphor for teen sex and experimentation, I swear.

Josie sends him to the den where Matty is waiting with a stake. Screaming ensues. Matty comes out triumphant, saying Clark just crumbled.

So they start a very lame party, where a bet a bunch of people just start crying, when an unexpected (expected?) guest shows up – Doom. A screen of smoke comes up where Josie watches as each of her friends is grotesquely murdered (I mean, Jen has her arms ripped off and then is strangled with them, seriously). That’s just the preview, though, a warm up to the real thing.

Josie starts to summon random Henry Conrad, but the snakes that hang out in Doom’s eye sockets jump down her throat. She vomits violently enough to get rid of them to summon Henry.

A gorgeous Henry walks into the room, apparently set on killing Doom. Unfortunately, he just turns out to be more Doom, doubling its strength. Oops!

The den door flies open and out flies Clark. He’s still “alive” or undead or what-have-you. Matty claims he couldn’t kill Clark … because he’s a vampire too!

Matty and Clark fly over Doom and proclaim the ancient evil of the vampire is more powerful, so they win. They crush Doom to yellow dust, which swirls around, knocking Kenny over in the process, before falling on everyone like snow.

Matty and Clark turn into bats and fly away. Well, I didn’t see that one coming, but it looks like they are the heroes of this piece.

Grad Day. Everyone is super happy now that they’re not going to die horribly. In his valedictorian speech, Kenny asks for a moment of silence in memorial of their lost classmates.

Then Kenny turns into Doom, who had hidden in his body at the party. It wishes Josie a Happy Graduation …

Okay, okay, what the fuck? This book was so full of random shit I can’t even follow. The actual plot line contained like two things – have a party, graduate. And yet, R. L. threw in everything he had for that one. This book was actually crazy. I kind of loved it. I will give it 85 corpsified graduates out of 99, for a very satisfying end of the Fear Street books.

And here is my Graduation Day!

Well kids, it’s hard to believe we’ve finally come to our last book. Sorry for the delay in writing this last review, but I’ve started back at SCHOOL this fall and it requires some time that I had specifically put aside for Fear Street.

It’s only fitting that the last book of the Seniors Series (and of the Fear Street Series) is absolutely fucking insane. Like it’s unreal. All over the map! It’s broken into five separate parts, so maybe that will help us keep track of all the insanity that happens.

Prologue

Our main protagonist in this book is Josie Maxwell who is an okay character, although a little whiney for my taste. Like, one of the first sentences she utters is “I need something sexy. Something to make everyone wish they hadn’t ignored me this year.” Ugh. If Josie was a guy, I’d say he was close to being a serial killer, but since she’s a girl...I’m just going with typical, whiney girl.
Josie is out whining to her friend Jennifer Fear, as they’re shopping for “sexy” outfits to wear to Josie’s graduation party. Catsuits, anyone? Josie’s had a rough time this year and this shopping trip doesn’t really help her. She starts hallucinating that the clothing store is just full of red graduation robes. And those red graduation robes are suddenly full of ... skeletons! And there’s blood all over the floor! Josie takes this to mean that “no one will survive graduation...” Well not with that attitude!

Part One

Josie is waiting with her friend Stacey, and annoying dork Matty Winger for the school yearbooks to be delivered. They’re all a little anxious to see their hard work in print, especially because there’s a special section for all the dead students. That must be a HUGE section! Like 10 kids died already, right? When they get the yearbook, they’re all a little disappointed... seeing as all the photographs of the dead kids have been replaced with pictures of rotting corpses! Hmmm at first I thought that was another one of Josie’s hallucinations, but no, the pictures were really changed. Seems a little juvenile for an evil spirit, yes? So maybe it was done by a real person! Eh, I don’t know, we’ll find out.

Josie does us the solid of recapping what started this whole messy year off. She chanted the Doom Spell at Jennifer’s house (you know, because she’s a Fear) and later, the whole senior class was killed by a cloaked skeleton in various disturbing way. She somehow escaped and used another spell to turn time back an hour and everyone was alive again. But she thinks the cloaked skeleton has been stalking the graduating class and killing them off one by one. (You guys should really go check out L.K.’s recap of “Let’s Party”, the first Seniors book where this all takes place. This is the party recap: “Josie comes out of the bathroom. The cloaked skeleton comes to the party and rips everyone apart. Bummer.” Haha!)

Matty interrupts Josie’s silent thinking time to let her know another creepy thing about the yearbook. Even though Matty took half a roll of film on Clark aka Count Clarkula, nothing showed up! It’s just a blank square. Apparently that's enough evidence to make Clark a real vampire. Except... if the yearbook printers didn’t notice they printed a bunch of CORPSES, I kinda doubt they’re going to notice if one kid’s picture is blank. Let’s be fair.

So the next day at school Josie see’s Trisha Conrad cut herself pretty severely on her locker. While this wasn’t very interesting in itself, it’s ultra interesting that she was with CLARK and they talk about hanging out later. Josie thinks to herself that Trisha’s been pretty cut up since her boyfriend Gary Fresno was killed. On the way to the nurses office, Trisha has another one of her visions. She saw the podium and the auditorium for graduation... except the rows were just filled with coffins. Trisha starts screaming at Josie that “IT’S NOT GOING TO LET US GRADUATE!!” Jeez. These two need to stop hanging out together.

Part Two

This section is all from Count Clarkula’s point of view. He goes to mall to find a new outfit for the graduation party. He gets himself all in a tizzy when he thinks about how Trisha cut herself and bled everywhere this morning. Is he grossed out, or turned on? It’s hard to tell with Clark, or teenaged boys in general. He runs into Matty, who confronts him about not having a picture in the yearbook. Awful brave of Matty, don’t we think? Clark outright tells Matty that he’s not a vampire, and if Matty will come back to his house, he will totally prove it to him! Hmmm... that seems like a bad plan.

And it is. Clark gets Matty back to his place and confesses that he is a vampire. And then proceeds to drink Matty’s blood! Wait, is this another hallucination? Nope! Clark has the strength of “200 year of immortality” behind him and easily overpowers Matty. Well, that was almost unexpected. I wonder if R.L. planned to make Clark a vampire the whole time? Clark sucks Matty’s blood in kind of a homoerotic way, until he’s interrupted by Trisha calling. And he tells her he’s been thinking of her. While sucking blood out of Matty’s elbow? Sure he has.

Part Three

Josie is studying for her calculus final in her bedroom, mostly because her dad says if she does well this year, he *might* buy her a car. That’s a pretty good trick actually. He doesn’t have to really buy her a car, but gets the results out of Josie anyways! I’ll probably use that on my children. Ahh parenting tips from R.L.
Anyways, Josie is starting to get mad at her stepbrother Josh for playing his terrible music so loud, but when she turns around...the hooded skeleton is there! She’s convinced she’s dreaming but the skull says he’ll prove he’s real: by making maggots come out of her scalp. GROSS. But then he just fade away, which really seems like a missed opportunity if he’s in the killing-seniors business.

Josie decides it’s time to tell Josh what’s been going on. You know, with regards to an ancient demon killing all their friends. She tells him the whole story, about the doom spell, everyone dying, then her going back in time to stop it. Surprisingly Josh is pretty understanding, and promises to help her figure it all out.

Oh sorry, did I say help her figure it out? I meant he wants to get her the HELP she needs. He immediately goes to their mom and tells her that Josie has gone crazy. When Josie overhears their conversation, she decides to run over to Jennifer’s house and enlist her help with defeating this skeleton thing. She gets Trisha to come over too, since she’s a True Fear. After she tells the girls what’s been going on, neither of them really jump on board. I think it’s the whole time-travel thing. Or that she watched everyone die. I’m not sure. Josie goes to find The Spell Book that she originally used to cast the Doom Spell in the Fear’s library. Only, Jennifer’s dad got rid of all their (evil) Fear memorabilia!

She seems to just give up after that because the next scene is at the awards ceremony for the seniors. This scene basically just has Josie complaining that she’s not smart enough to get an award and dumping on everyone else who does. Super cool, Josie. At least you’re smart enough to cast a spell to kill everyone that makes you mad! Nothing happens at the ceremony until the end, when they pull back the curtains and Phoebe Yamura is dangling from a rope, dead. That’s kind of an unceremonious end to Phoebe, don’t you think?

Part Four

After Phoebe’s funeral, Josh, Matty and their friend Mickey go for a long car ride to clear their heads. While they’re in the woods, Matty catches a bat (how? why?) and they decide to play a joke on Count Clarkula. They also ask Matty how he got the huge bandage on his elbow and Matty’s all “I can’t remember”. Totally normal, happens to me all the time.

So they troop over to Clark’s house and break in to set a bat loose in his room. I’m not sure HOW this is a really funny prank, but they all think it is. Until Clark catches them in his room. And proceeds to eat the bat while the boys look on in horror. After he’s finished with the poor bat (you’d think vampires would have more respect) he “clouds” the boy’s minds by staring at them, and Josh, Matty and Mickey forgot they saw anything unusual. As the boys go to leave in confusion, Clark asks Matty to stay for a little longer. Sexy times!

Part Five

Josie is still upset about everything (unsurprisingly, since she hasn’t actually fixed anything yet) and is having nightmares about all her dead friends. Her mom tells her that she HAS to go see a psychiatrist for her own good. Josie reluctantly agrees. The next day her and Josh go to the mall to get supplies for the graduation party their going to have where everyone will die. Maybe! Josh thinks he sees some girls he knows and runs to chat them up. He ends up inviting one to his party, but when she finds out what school she’s from, she runs away in horror. Smooth, Josh. After being rejected, he accosts some strange girl because he hallucinates that it’s long-dead Debra Lake. Maybe he believes Josie now?

Josie goes to the psychiatrist, but instead of speaking to a Dr. Gollub, it ends up being the skeleton demon. And it eats her? Does that mean she’s dead? No, she’s just transported to some crazy hell world, full of twisted agony, then spit out on the other side. This really feels like another missed killing opportunity for the skeleton demon!

Part Six

She wakes up on the floor of the psychiatrist and the assistant is all “Dr. Gollub is sick today, WTF are you doing?”. When she gets to her car, the door handle is burning hot! And her hand gets stuck to it. Guess who’s in the driver’s seat? The skeleton, here to drive her to hell. Or probably not, since he’s terrible at actually killing Josie. The demon makes the car burst into flames and explode, which hurts Josie but doesn’t kill her. And also didn’t leave any damage to her car, which is totally fine when she stands up. Kinda lame.

Josie is at the graduation rehearsal the next day. Everything seems to be going well (no one dies) until Pomp and Circumstance begins to play excruciatingly loudly. No one knows where the music is coming from until the auditorium doors swing open, and all the dead seniors start marching in. Not in a Ha-Ha-fooled-you-we’re-not-dead-way. But in a really creepy, totally ZOMBIE corpse march. The rest of the surviving seniors stamped out of the auditorium but Josie can’t resist a look back. On stage, Zombie Marla Newman, is giving a silent valedictorian speech! Even a bitch when she’s dead, eh?

Trisha and Josie decide to take matters in their own hands. By going to the destroyed old Fear Mansion, where nothing good happens. GREAT idea!
Trisha has a vision as soon as the girls get to the Fear Mansion. She sees a very particular door, and behind it, a man is crying for help. Trisha runs off ahead and easily finds the door at the back of the mansion (seems suspicious...). They tug the door open and get sucked inside. Into another world of evil! Bony hands, ghost calls, and howling spirits surround the girls. They find the man though, and it turns out that he is Trisha’s great-grandfather, Henry Conrad. He needs their help to escape the haunted world (although it seems like the girls are pretty useless at anything at that point). They’re not sure if they trust him, but he promises to help them once they’re out in the real world. Trisha decide’s that family ties are suddenly important, so they help him.

Henry lead them to the way out to the real world, but not before Josie can get swallowed by some large, gelatinous monster. Henry saves her pretty quick and they escape no problem. Was that monster really necessary then, R.L.? As soon as they’re out of the mansion, Henry Conrad sprints away from them. He yells back that when they need his help, just repeat three times “I summon thee”. Umm doesn’t that sound unnecessarily negative?

Part Seven

Clark is hanging out with Trisha and thinking about how outrageously thirsty he is. Why didn’t he just call his little blood buddy, Matty? He takes her out for a date, then to a deserted area of the woods to make his move. And by move I mean kill her. He’s just about to bite her when the police show up and tell them to move their party along. Ahhh Fear Street police. You only show up when kids are making out, hey? Trisha gets Clark to drop her off, and since he didn’t get to drink Trisha’s blood he settles for the next best thing. Her little kitty, Minnie! Poor Minnie.

Josh and Josie are getting ready for the party. Josie is now supremely confident that nothing will happen to them because her and Trisha “got protection”. You mean Trisha’s weird time traveling grandfather? What does Josie think he’s gonna do? But her and Josh seem confident as they set out bowls of chips. Trisha and Matty burst in with big news: Clark is a vampire! Trisha actually saw his fangs before the police interrupted their party. And Matty all of a sudden remembers that Clark has been drinking his blood for the past few weeks. Randomly. They decide that Clark is the real reason everyone in their class has been dying, and not the skeleton demon that Josie has been seeing. Josie seems okay with this development even though that totally makes her crazy.

The kids get Clark to come over to the party early. Their plan is to get Matty to drive a stake through Clark’s heart while no one watches. REALLY? That’s the plan? Trisha, Josh and Josie all hide, and they hear a scream and Matty’s alone when they come back in the room so... the plan worked perfectly! God, no wonder these kids all die.

Even though Clark is dead, no one is really in the mood to party that night. Everyone just sits on the edges of the room and chats quietly. But the party really picks up when the skeleton demon finally arrives! Josie’s not worried though, because she has a secret weapon. Go go gadget elderly man!!

Josie doesn’t get to finish her summoning spell at first though because snakes jump out of the skull’s eye sockets and plunge down her throat. Ugh! She finally manages to scream “I summon thee” three times and Henry Conrad quickly strides into the room. What, was he just waiting outside for his cue? Unsurprisingly however, Henry Conrad turns out to be another skeleton demon in disguise. Josie pretty much gives up on life at that point, since she the two murderous skeleton demons have merged into one bigger demon in her living room. But at least she killed Clark!

Or did she? Clark comes bursting into the den (was he waiting with Henry?) and Matty confesses he didn’t kill Clark...because he’s a vampire too. Then Clark and Matty start shouting at the skeleton demon about how THEIR VAMPIRE evil is way more badass than the spirits evil. REALLY? They tear the skeleton’s head off and crush all its bones. Then the bone powder swirls around Kenny Klein, and then it falls to the floor like snow.

Everyone silently watches the two life-partners, Matty and Clark transform into bats and flap away into the night together. All the surviving seniors cheer and celebrate that now they can graduate in peace!

Except the next day, after Kenny Klein gives his valedictorian speech, he hugs Josie backstage and reveals that he’s the skeleton demon in disguise. “Happy Graduation, Josie!”

Surprise! That was fucked up. A fitting end though, yes? I’ll give Graduation Day 49 zombie graduates out of 54. Pretty well done R.L.!

Keyword Extravaganza!

2010-08-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

Hey kids! While we’re all waiting for both L.K and I do finish the last book (SOB!) I thought I’d post a little compilation of something that I’ve found hilarious.

Keywords Searches. Now on blogs, as most of you probably know, you can keep track of how people have stumble across your website. Most of you have found this blog by searching “Fear Street” or “Shadyside Snark” on Google. But some of you, poor souls, have come across our website by searching some really, REALLY different keywords.

Top Ten WTF Searches!

10. Increased death rate for shadyside for 2009
You know, I like this search. Someone out there was CONCERNED about the increasing amounts of deaths in a fictional town last year. Even though that town really hasn’t been featured in a book since 1999. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

9. Teen camel toe (x 100000000) + Skirt camel toe
Oh MAN, do people love Teen Camel Toe! I’m pretty sure searching this links to the book where Jade wears a catsuit, and L.K. was really concerned that she would have a camel toe. So thanks L.K.! for helping us achieve 100 000 hits by attracting 10 year old boys that aren’t ready to look at real vagina’s yet ☺

8. Incidents of boob touching + Heroine boobs touching in parties
This is also from the 10 year old boy fan group, I imagine. Although “incidents” seems like kind of a grown up word for young boys to be using. Maybe this is an actual “incident” that someone is looking up?

7. I would wrestle the babysitter + BABYSITTING WRESTLING.
OH LORD, I would TOTALLY wrestle the babysitter too! This search might have been mine…

6. Cute & sweet homosexual + Homosexual sweet kids
Well this one is my fault. I MAY have titled my review of the second Fear Street Seniors “Sweet Homosexual Zombie Child Kisses”. But in my defense, there were homosexual child Zombie kisses!! So really, if we’re pointing fingers, we should really be pointing them at R.L. Right?

5. George olsen maine prison 2009
This one required some detective work. Who is George Olsen? Why is he in a Maine prison (presumably)? Unfortunately, since I’m NOT a detective, I just retyped that search into Google and half-hearted looked at the results. There was a bunch about Boy George in jail! I also couldn’t find any mention of Shadyside Snark, so I’m confused as to how this person found our website. But hey, just imagine how confused THEY were when they arrived at a Fear Street fan website!

4. Lisa Blume sex tape
Also requiring detective work! Now the only link for a Lisa Blume is to an IMBD reference. Lisa Blume has only been in one movie: “The Hills Have Thighs”. Which is a porn, right? WRONG! It’s an “Appalachian Comedy” where Lisa Blume plays Velveeta Adams, a lesbian twin who is forced to live in a basement. That movie is UNBELIEVABLY not a porn. However, another “The Hills Have Thighs” was released in 2010, and it is totally a porn. But Lisa Blume does not star in it. Another confused horny man stumbles upon our fair website!

3. Milfs Blind date doing the splits
I feel like there must be a certain video that this person is looking for. Like maybe on the old show “Blind Date”? Some milf did the splits?

2. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings sweetheart please forgive me
Ah yes. The old “look-on-a-Fear-Street-Fan-page” to find advice on how to get someone to forgive you. I also feel that this person must be young. Hurt feelings?

1. The story of Phoebe the zombeh. She's not happy unless she's gnawing on human flesh.
Finally! Someone after my own heart! I really can’t express how happy I am to know that there is another person out there with an extreme love of Zombies. I want to know about this Phoebe. Is there fan fiction I could read?!

And finally, the Oh so close runners up!

Blogspot + shadyside snark
Like you couldn’t have put those two ideas into shadysidesnark.blogspot.com? Really?
Jadefetish.it
I bet they got to read some sweeeet stories about some camel toes!
How to craft fists of steel
YES
Corky coragan everywhere
She was in a large amount of books, wasn’t she?
Peter Sturdevant
This found me mostly Facebook accounts. Somewhere, some crazy girl has an epic crush, and has been googling the shit out of him
“Killers Kiss” “Sweat”
Ahh delicious. Also, judging by R.L.'s love of grotesque kisses, no wonder someone found our little blog.
Old Cheerleaders Never Die…
Menacing! Is this true!?

Fear Street Seniors: Prom Date, or "Be Careful What You Wish For, Especially If You Wish For Psychopathic Killers"

2010-07-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

I read a review of this book online, and boy was that plot line different from what I read. The overview I found was this: Trisha Conrad is dating Gary Fresno but is forced to attend the prom with Matty Winger, the biggest geek in school, just because his father is an important business partner of Mr. Conrad. Trisha goes with Matty, but at the prom she humiliates him in front of the whole school. Soon Trisha begins receiving threatening notes, and assumes Matty is responsible until he is found dead. Trisha later finds out that Mary O’Connor is the culprit; she hates Trisha for stealing her boyfriend Gary.

Here is the real (and way more cracked out) version:

Trisha is having nightmares about being a Fear, where all her ancestors are telling her she’s evil and she needs to join them, before they tear off her head and enter into her brain. She’s woken up by the maid, Celia.

The Conrads (her parents) are off to Europe that morning, where her dad is expanding his mall development business in London, Paris and Rome. Okay, malls in Europe, ew. I would find it shattering to find out that all the French kids hung out at WalMart or something. Let’s keep America in America, shall we? Anyways, Trisha’s mom is kind of mysterious about whether or not she knows that Trisha is a Fear, but before she heads out she gives her a blown glass wishing well. She calls it a good luck charm and says it’s been in the family for a long time, an heirloom. Trisha is suspicious of the well’s origins.

At school the next day, she tells Jen Fear at lunch about her nightmares that she’s actually evil, because Jen is the only one who knows her secret. Then some other girls come over and they all giggle about the prom and how fun it’s going to be. Trish is going with Gary, and in her inner monologue she gushes about how hot and great he is. She also thinks it’s a good thing Dana has prom to worry about, so she doesn’t have to worry about her recently-dead twin.

Jen is just mad that she doesn’t have a date, which when compared to Dana’s issues seems like a stunning lack of priorities. But Jen is pretty bitter about this. Trisha agrees that she for sure couldn’t go on her own. So, Shadyside is pretty evolved when it comes to that kind of thing, then.

Just then Trisha has a vision – a bloody body crumpled up like a piece of paper. It’s Gary. She immediately goes to tell him about his impending doom. He blows it off, which I might reconsider when looking at how many deaths she’s accurately predicted. But he’s very sweet about it, promising to be extra careful, so you know that he does really like her.

Jen and Trisha are back at Trisha’s place. Jen is jealous when she sees Trish has bought two prom dresses so that she has options the big night. Trisha gives Jen the wishing well charm to help her get a date. What a lovely show of charity on Trisha’s part!

Jen tries to convince herself she doesn’t want to go to the prom, because people always seem to die when the seniors get together at a big event (seems pretty reasonable) but she admits to herself she’d rather have a date. And die a bloody death then miss her prom is the subtext, but we’ve already determine Jen doesn’t have great life priorities.

Josie catches up to her on the street to tell her she has a date – that dweeb Matty Winger, who is a loser but preferable to missing the dance totally. They go to Jen’s house and imagine the perfect guy to take them to the prom. Jen is gripping the good luck charm as she makes up her boy.

Next day, Jen is miserable at the prom committee. The best part is they’ve decided that their major decoration feature is going to be giant globes made out of glass suspended from the ceiling. Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t want to go to a dance that had those, in the real world where people didn’t die on a daily basis, let alone in Shadyside where I was a member of a class doomed to die before the year was up. Sounds like a Carrie-like death trap waiting to happen.

Jen continues to be miserable – this plot line is wearing thin and something better happen. Okay. That night a boy calls her. His name is Duke Carpenter, he goes to Waynesbridge and apparently they met last year some time. He hasn’t stopped thinking about her and asks to take her to her own prom.

Having no idea who he is, Jen agrees to go to prom with him on the spot – but wants to meet him first to make sure he isn’t a serial killer. Who are you kidding Jen? You would absolutely go to prom with a serial killer. They decide to meet at The Corner the next day.

Jen dreams that she’s at the prom that night, and all the globes fall and shatter on the prom goers, killing her faceless date. She’s probably dreaming this because it’s intensely likely!

At the Corner, Jen waits and waits for her potential Prince Charming. Several potentials come in, but no mystery Duke. He’s stood her up. Jen wonders if the whole Duke thing was a mean prank and goes back to being miserable. Duke calls her that night with an improbably tale of a car running out of gas. She thinks his story is cute and forgives him. He wants to come out to meet with her.

Jen goes to buy a prom dress with Josie, and gets a lovely sheath of midnight blue. She calls Duke at the number he gave her, but it’s a disconnected number. She looks in the phone book for Carpenter, and they don’t exist – anywhere, she checks the whole county like a big stalker. She begins to wonder, again, if Duke lied to her and decides he’s not really for her. She gets home to find a gorgeous guy standing on her porch.

Duke is even better than her made-up man – handsome, charming, funny, smart. He keeps going on about the wild night they spent together of which Jen has no recollection. She decides it must have been REALLY wild if she didn’t remember it, and thinks of it no more.

Jen gets ready for Duke, at the last moment bringing along the wishing well. Her handsome date picks her up in a limo, then they go to pick up their friends – Josie and Matty, and Clarissa and Will. Duke is perfect and charming with them. Will makes a funny crack about Duke’s tux, and Jen is momentarily scared he’ll get pissed, but he laughs and thinks her friends are awesome.

The prom is beautiful, full of deadly glass and lights. Jen and Duke dance romantically together. He goes to get her some punch and a glass globe falls on his head. Actually, it barely misses him and just sprays glass on a bunch of people. Your typical fun-filled Shadyside surprise. He brushes it off (Okay?...) Dana reminds them they’re all going to Fear Lake after the prom, as per tradition.

The kids walk to the limo. All of a sudden, Duke starts beating up Will, like hardcore beating him. Jen pulls him off, but he grabs her and shoves her into the limo, where Josie and Matty are inside already. He screams for the limo to go. He tells Jen he did it because Will made fun of his tux. Seems reasonable.

He gets the driver to pull over at a liquor store, so that they can party properly. The rest of them are locked into the back. The driver for some reason ignores them and the phone is dead. Gary pulls up next to the limo with Trisha and goes into the liquor store. He can’t hear the kids shouting at him. A fight breaks out inside. Duke runs out with a knife in hand, Gary goes after him. Duke plunges the knife into his chest. Gary crumples like a piece of paper, blood gushing out, Trisha’s vision comes true. Trisha is screaming and crying when Duke hops back into the limo, telling the driver to get to the party.

The driver turns around slowly. It’s Josie’s Doom demon, grinning at them under a chauffeur’s hat. All the kids scream as the limo takes off to Fear Lake. Duke gets them to drive past the party, to a quiet beach by the lake. He tells Josie and Matty to stay where they are and drags Jen into the woods for a private party.

Duke tells her that he dreamed him up with the wishing well, so he’s her perfect guy, but he came with all the anger and jealousy she was feeling at the time. Now she’s stuck with him, they’ll be together forever. Jen doesn’t like that much, so she beans him with a tree trunk and knocks him out. Josie and Matty come running up and they decide to drown him. They drag him to the lake. Not surprisingly, he comes to and starts to choke Jen. She thinks she can wish him away with the wishing well, but Duke grabs her hand and the well goes flying in the air.

Duke grabs it, thinking he’s won, but it bursts into flames and sets him on fire. Apparentely water can’t put it out, because he is standing in a lake and all, but he burns up, leaving behind the wishing well.

Getting back to the limo, they see the Doom driver is done. They drive the limo home. Jen goes to bed, but someone is in her room. It’s Trisha. Trisha is moaning that she is evil, that everyone she loves dies, that it’s all her fault that Gary died. She tearfully tells Jen that she doesn’t think they’ll survive Graduation …

Ooh, is your interest piqued? I can’t wait to read the last of the series, and the last of all our Fear Street books.

As for Prom Date, it was alright. Jen is not exactly the most intriguing character and for the most part I just want to punch her in the mouth for feeling sorry for herself. Duke was hella interesting though. A better ending would have been a shower of glass globes on everyone, or an homage to Carrie somehow. You could have done so much with this, R. L. I’m a little disappointed. I’ll give this 8 blown glass mysterious wishing wells of evil out of 17.

Wicked or "Don't Trust The Guy You Tried To Murder Yesterday"

2010-06-24T15:44:00.000-07:00

First of all, I would like to say a Happy Second Anniversary to our little Fear Street
blog! Two years ago, L.K. and I decided to indulge our secret love of terrible 90’s
horror fiction and share it with the world! Since then, we’ve read almost 150 (!!) Fear Streets and had almost 100 000 hits on Shadyside Snark. All thanks to you people who enjoy reading about Fear Street too! Is it too much if I bake a cake today?

Moving on… to Wicked. The 10th book in the Seniors series revolves around Marla Newman’s need to please her mother. Marla needs to be valedictorian to finally impress her mother! What someone should have told her long ago, is that if her mother doesn’t like her by now, at age 18, probably nothing Marla does is
going to change that. Just sayin’!

I actually didn’t remember the prologue until I was looking back through my notes, and it’s kinda surprising because the prologue is pretty creepy! Melanie Anderson (not a senior so we already know she doesn’t matter) is getting ready for the day when she sees two girls appear in the mirror. No, they aren’t in the room with her, just in the mirror. She seems to know them and is freaked the eff out! Melanie tries to escape her room, but runs into a magical silver wire… that slices her head off. “Sliced it off so neatly, so clean – her body ran another two or three steps before it even realized the head was gone.” Shudder! Also, can anyone verify that? I don’t think that can really happen… although I’ve heard of people’s faces moving after they’ve been decapitated. Blech. Not the way I wanted to start my morning.

Alright, enough with the disgusting decapitation. Marla is competing with Kenny Klein for the spot of Valedictorian. They’re sitting near each other in the cafeteria, right before they’re suppose to face off in a social studies debate. Clarissa Turner has the unfortunate luck to accidently spill some ice tea on Marla. And Marla FREAKS the fuck out. Like screams at Clarissa for being SO stupid and yada yada yada. I mean, we all think that when someone spills something on us, but we’re not crazy enough to yell about it in front of the whole school. As Clarissa walks away, Marla thinks about how sweet it would be if something terrible happened to Clarissa. Just then, Clarissa slips and falls in her food! Marla is pleased, like the psycho she is.

Two girls approach Marla after the cafeteria incident. Roxanne and Elena tell Marla that they saw what she did to Clarissa – she has the POWER to affect people with her mind! Since they are lowly juniors, and Marla thinks she’s totally awesome she blows them off as crazy girls and goes to the debate.

Reaming out Clarissa had some unfortunate side effects for Marla though, as now all of Clarissa’s friends hate her. Ahhhh girls in high school. We…pretty much never grow out of that. Josie Maxwell and Trisha Conrad are all up in Marla’s face too. Right before Marla and Kenny are set to debate, she notices that Roxanne and Elena have come into the auditorium and are going to be watching the debate. Kenny goes first and speaks eloquently and passionately, and basically owns it. Marla could have taken him down (she thinks) except when she tries to come up with a rebuttal… she can’t make any noise! Well that’s not true, she can burp, but she can’t talk or say anything! Marla’s day doesn’t get much better. After her disaterous, and gassy debate speech, she receives a lower mark on a French test (85%) and then Josie, Clarissa and Trisha play a recording of her debate (non) speech over the intercom system!

Marla is SO steamed about all this that she…makes a “People I Hate” list. Of course she does. #1 is Kenny, then it goes on until basically everyone at Shadyside High is named. Productive! She may as well named it “People I will shoot first when I finally snap!”

Later that day, Marla dreads telling her mom about her bad French test, but a funny thing happens. When she pulls it out to show her mom (she’s 18 and showing her mom her homework? Really?) the test says 98%. Marla decides she must be more out of it that she thought!

Just when things were turning around for Marla, she gets to school the next day and finds that someone found her “People I Hate” list and tacked it to the school bulletin board. Well, that’s the price you pay for being crazy! Marla is worried that people will start hating her. I think it would help her cause if she didn’t constantly think to herself “I’ll show them! I’ll show all of them!” because that’s what crazy villains think, right before they blow something up.

Marla knows that Josie Maxwell tacked it up, and decides to get some revenge by throwing her clothes (black leotard and baggy black jeans BTW) into the school dumpster while Josie is in gym class. Marla is predicatable shoved into the dumpster by a mysterious force. And if falling into a dumpster doesn’t sound like a fate worse than death, then I invite you to come over to my dumpster. Because just the thought of going near it makes me want to cry.

Marla is finally approached by the two girls, Roxanne and Elena again after she gets out of the dumpster. Apparently, they were SERIOUS about being witches and really want her to join them. They discuss how there needs to be three of them, since their last third “isn’t around anymore” (Melanie Anderson, anyone??) Marla agrees to meet them in the Fear Street woods that night.

So they really are witches. When Marla gets there, crazy magic happens, and they get Marla to sign an ancient pact (written in an ancient language) in blood. Let me tell you kids, that is NEVER a good idea. No good has ever come from using your blood as ink. Trust me. After numerous scary witch-y things, Marla wakes up in her bed.

Everything goes Marla’s way the next day. She looks better, does better on tests, and tells her new found witch friends that she feels up to doing something “outrageous”. They suggest she takes her energy out on someone on her hate list. She decides to make Trisha Conrad’s skirt rip and fall off (underlying issues?). Roxanne and Elena don’t think that’s good enough though. They want to punish the girls that were mean to Marla! So they use their power (and Marla’s somehow) to push Josie Maxwell through a glass door. Josie survives, but is really cut up.

Marla wants to leave the pact (already?!) but apparently, pacts signed in blood are pretty binding. Like forever binding. Marla is unhappy but realizes she has to go along with it. That is, until she finds out that she needs to kill someone within the month or else the “Dark Forces” will kill her. Marla freaks out even more, and tells the girls she won’t go through with it. Roxanne and Elena spend the next day freaking out Marla but having objects change into snakes, and people around her generally become possessed. Marla was pretty easy to convince, because she quickly decides she’d rather kill Kenny Klein that risk having a rope turn into a snake again! (Not all snakes kill you know, MARLA)

Marla goes over to Kenny’s house under the guise of studying for French. It’s pretty cute because Kenny obviously has a crush on Marla (who else would help their rival study). It becomes less cute when Marla attempts to strangle him to death with her power. She can’t go through with it, so Kenny is all “WTF did you just try to murder me!?” Marla break down and tells Kenny the whole truth about the girls and magic and how she needs to kill someone. He doesn’t seem as upset as I would be about the fact that Marla could kill ANYONE, but chose him. In fact, he decides to help her solve her little evil witchcraft problem.

Marla asks the two girls to Fear Street woods the next day, because Kenny (who can obviously read ancient languages) has discovered that these blood pacts never have a “need-to-murder” clause! The girls must be lying! Why would we trust Kenny? As it turns out, the girls are much more powerful than her, and Marla ends up being frozen into an ice cube before Kenny can even come out of his hiding spot!

The four of them end up having a pretty epic (by that I mean LONG, not cool) fight scene that is interspersed with Kenny and Marla making out. Elena dies first, by being thrown into a giant pit that opened up in the earth. Kenny eventually sets Roxanne on fire but since that STILL didn’t kill her, Marla shoves her into the pit again. Kenny and Marla are so happy they committed murder against two of their classmates and go home.

Question: Why does killing the other two matter? Doesn’t she still have a pact with the “Dark Forces?” Marla doesn’t seem to think so. Turns out she’s dead wrong! Kenny rushes up to her before school the next day, saying he did more research and found out something more…turns out if you kill someone who practices the Dark Arts, you DIE exactly 12 hours later. Which happened to be at that exact moment, and Marla is sucked into a pit that opened up in the earth. YEAH! That’s how it ends! Maybe Kenny actually knew about this, but didn’t tell Marla as punishment for trying to KILL him the day before? I like ending better.

Another question? Why didn’t that happen to Roxanne and Elena when they killed their former third partner, Melanie? Just asking R.L…. Okay, this book wasn’t the best. It was crazy, but not THAT crazy. I was kinda hoping that after Marla killed the two girls they would discover that it was all a practical joke that Marla took too seriously. I like that ending better too. So I give Wicked 32 fake-endings-I-like-better out of 57. I was looking for more out of the last few books of the series!

Just two more left! L.K. and I have decided that as a special treat for you guys, we’re both going to read the last Seniors book and post our own separate write ups. So we can compare exactly how much each of us leaves out, fudges over, and forgets. Oh yes, and also so we can compete about who is funnier. Vote for me!

Fear Street Seniors: Spring Break, or “Nancy Drew Mystery of the Desert Coyote”

2010-06-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

In this next thrilling episode of our intrepid Fear Street seniors, Josh and Josie Maxwell (who are step-brother and sister) go off on separate different spring break experiences. Josh’s seems really exciting, and Josie’s is so boring that I would have preferred to shoot myself then to experience it. BUT, that’s kinda a comment on their personalities, so I guess that’s what you get when you’re a whiny bitch, Josie.

The book is, as ever, broken into a million “parts” going back and forth between the two Maxwells. Neither story actually has anything to do with each other until the end, so it seems really disjointed. Don’t get all excited that the ending will tie it together in some awesome way, though – it doesn’t.

Part One

Let’s start off with Josh’s spring break. His kick-ass vacation begins by flying into Tuscon, as he’s going to spend the time at Trisha “I’m evil” Conrad’s Arizona ranch. With him is his buddy Mickey, Dierdre Palmer and Gary Fresno.

As a refresher, Gary is Trisha’s tough, wrong-side-of-the-tracks boyfriend, who she stole from sad Mary O’Connor. And Mickey is dating Dierdre’s identical twin sister, Dana. Dana was supposed to come, but came down with the flu, so sent Dierdre as her replacement. Dierdre is in love with Mickey, so she’ll be potentially replacing Dana in all aspects of Mickey’s trip.

Josh actually seems to be a nice guy. He’s happy to be away from all the troubles that plague the senior class in Shadyside, and hopes to relax in Arizona. Although with Gary around, and the Conrads in Australia, he thinks things could get a little crazy.

In the luggage area, Josh bumps into a big guy in a cowboy hat, who immediately starts a fight with him. Josh pulls a manly move and runs away. Gary wants to go back and fight, but everyone finally gets loaded up into the van with no violence.

Not for long. The dick in the cowboy hat follows them and starts to chase them off the road. A rather extreme reaction to being bumped by some guy, I think. Someone needs some anger management. Finally, after an almost run in with a truck, dude flies off the road and gets stuck in the sand. The teens are safe for now.

They find themselves at the Conrad’s luxurious sprawling ranch, complete with pools, chefs and of course “the help.” Josh sees a hot girl and drops his bag immediately, because he’s a bit of a dork. He picks everything up with a blush, but she seems kind of into him. Her name is Rose, and her father is the foreman of the ranch, Simon.

Once in his room, Josh realizes his bag doesn’t belong to him. It belongs to the red-neck crazy, Clay Hartley, and in it he finds a gun. Josh figures this Clay guy wouldn’t be to happy if the authorities find it. Rose agrees to take him to the address so he can do the bag switch face-to-face.

As he gets to the house, there’s an earthquake. That’s a random bit of scariness – are there earthquakes in Arizona? I actually want to know. Anyways, Josh runs away like a girly man, making Rose (probably) question her liking of him.

Part Two

Josie Maxwell is unspeakably dull. She spends her spring break whining about being bored to her equally boring friend Jennifer Fear (who became dull as soon as you find out she’s not a real Fear). They dress up like sluts and go to the bar with fake IDs to alleviate the boredom. How common of them.

They get kicked out immediately and Jen has a flat tire. Ooh, chills. This will be scary. They meet some vaguely cute college randoms who take them for a short drive. When they return to Jen’s car, someone has written “Wanna play” across the windshield.

Part Three

Back to the actual story. The teens are sitting around the campfire at night. They are joined by Roberto, a college student working the archeological site on the other side of the ranch. Roberto is flirting with Trisha, which is driving Gary crazy.

Rose and Simon tell the kids the ranch is built on the lands of the Hohokam Indians (not pc, I know. That’s what they call them in the book). Hohokam means “The Vanished Ones.” Apparently the tribe disappeared suddenly about 500 years ago. Roberto is digging up Hohokam artifacts. The kids want to visit the site, but Rose freaks.

There have been a lot of accidents and disappearances around the site. Rose thinks it’s more than just bad luck – she blames La Amadora. She is a ghostly protector of the Hohokam people. Although clearly she didn’t do a very good job if they all disappeared. She appears in the form of desert animals or a woman in a red cape. Sounds to me like a ghost story invented to keep people away from the dig site. This is totally like a Nancy Drew. I bet there’s a drug trafficking ring operating out of the site. Or something.

Josh catches Mickey sneaking off with Dierdre. His words are “Dana isn’t here. Dierdre is the next best thing.” I guess. Josh is skeptical about this too. Josh goes to his room alone. He hears a woman wailing outside, but he can’t see anything outside. Mickey gets back from his cheating, and they decide to go check out the dig there and then.

Dierdre comes running after them because she got scared. The three of them head into the desert. They find the site soon, and Josh immediately falls into a pit. Climbing out he smashes a piece of pottery. That’s probably a reason to not have dumbass teens at a dig site.

And yet Roberto still lets them come out the next day to the site. When they get there, Trisha has one of her visions. She sees a coyote with red stripes, then all of them fly into the air and vanish. They decide to get out of the site and check out the cactus forest. Josh is walking with Trisha when he hears a buzzing – kind of like a rattle. He turns in time to see a rattlesnake bite Trisha’s leg. Maybe it knew she’s evil. She’s taken to the hospital, but will be okay. Josh begins to wonder if the tribal spirit is real.

Part Four

Jen and Josie start dating the college randoms. Creepy things happen to them.

Part Five

Mickey, Gary and Dierdre go see a drive-in movie, leaving Josh and Rose at the rand alone. They go for a walk in the desert and make out. Suddenly Rose dashes off into the cacti. Josh follows and finds only an angry coyote.

The coyote totally takes Josh. Are coyotes really that strong? I’ve come across a few and I don’t have the enduring fear that Josh seems to have of them. They’re like wild dogs, right? I mean, I’d be scared if I was a chihuahua, but I’m not.

Anyways, Simon shows up in the nick of time and shoots the evil coyote. Rose shows up again and blames La Amadora. Not the fact that she ran away in the desert.

Josh returns to his room to find it trashed. He’s angry, but he deals with it like a guy and goes to sleep. He wakes up later with a figure in a red cloak standing over him with a knife.

Part Six

Josie thinks creepy things are happening to them because of the stupid Doom Spell she cast. She confesses to Jen, who confesses she’s not a Fear. While on the phone with one of the college randos (who clearly never figure out call waiting), she overhears that they’ve been doing the creepy things to the high school girls to scare them so they’ll put out faster. Cute.

Part Seven

Josh chases off the hooded intruder. Then goes back to sleep.

Next morning the teens go for a horseback ride up a ridge. Trisha realizes the ridge is where she saw her vision happening, where they all fly over the edge. Everyone freaks and they turn around back to the ranch.

Mickey takes off to hang out with Dierdre. Cheesiest line of the book:

“I promised Dierdre I’d show her how to do the backstroke.”

Josh blinked. “Like you’re an Olympic swimmer?”

“Who’s talking about swimming?”

You stay classy, Mickey. You KNOW someone changed “breaststroke” to “backstroke” on this one. R.L., I’m not sure how I feel about this blatant censoring of my Fear Street novels. Backstroke doesn’t even make any sense.

That evening, the hooded figure trashes Rose’s room. Josh assumes it’s Roberto, the archeologist. NOT Clay Hartley, the red-neck probably looking for his gun. He doesn’t need a reason for this – let’s just blame the archeologist.

Gary and Josh go to beat him up. At the dig site. But he isn’t there and the vigilantes get distracted by a picnic Rose set up for them.

They follow her up to the ridge of death again. Who should be waiting there but one angry Clay Hartley. With a rifle. Guess he didn’t need his gun after all. They probs should have paid attention to Trisha’s vision.

Clay lines them up along the edge of the ridge and demands “it” from Josh. Every time Josh claims he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he makes the kids take a step backwards.

Dierdre takes a step too far, and plunges over the edge. They hear her crack on the rocks below.

Josh attacks Clay and gets the gun away from him. Rose tries to soothe Josh and takes the gun. Once she has it she turns on the kids. Rose was in league with Clay all along. Clay jumps Josh and demands the coyote.

Mickey picks up on this and produces a clay figurine of a coyote from his pack. Rose and Clay were stealing artifacts from the Hohokam site and selling them to dealers. The La Amarada thing was just to scare nosy people away from the site. I knew it! Totally like a Nancy Drew. The coyote had come out of Clay’s bag when Josh dropped it, and Mickey picked up the statue later. He was going to give it to his girlfriend, Dana. Who is his girlfriend again, now that her twin sister he’d been fooling around with conveniently stepped off a cliff, I guess.

The coyote has red stripes – just like Trisha’s vision. Clay goes to shove them all off the cliff, but Rose stops him. They fight and in the skirmish Clay knocks the coyote over the cliff edge. He dives after it, and Josh grabs his legs just in time. Nice guy. I would have let him jump.

Roberto and Simon show up then to save the day. For most of them, anyways. Dierdre is dead. Rose and Clay are led away. As Josh leaves the desert, through waves of shimmering heat he sees a woman in a red cloak standing next to a coyote.

Part Eight

Josie comes up with a plan to get back at creepy college guys. She gets them to the Fear Street cemetery, and has her classmates dress up as ghosts to scare them. The ghosts work well. Instead of getting turned on, the way girls do when they’re scared, the guys run away screaming.

The best ghost is Dana Palmer. She looks really dead, and no one knows how she appeared to float, or walk through a gravestone.

Dana didn’t stick around for the after-party later, though. Josie called her to thank her, but a tearful Dana told her she had never showed. She had just gotten word of her sister’s death that night …

Oooh, okay that last part was a little creepy. I can’t believe R.L. killed Dierdre, she seemed nice other than the cheating with her twin’s boyfriend thing. I liked the ‘mystery of the desert’ thing going on here. I would give this full marks, if it weren’t for Josie’s whining. 84 striped coyotes out of 91.

Sweetheart, Evil Heart or "Cheating Kills. In Increasingly Random Ways."

2010-05-27T13:12:00.000-07:00

Oooo do I love Valentine’s Day horrors! I think it’s the combination of love, teenaged lust and murder. Guaranteed to be sexy times, right? Oh wait, we’re reading an R.L. Stine book. Never mind. There will be zero sexiness involved. Well, lets hope someone dies at least.

This book centers around Ty Sullivan and his lovely THREE girlfriends. Yes, three. Why? Who knows. He’s certainly not getting any action. All he seems to do is take them out on expensive dates, then chastely kiss them at the end of the night. Sooo kinda pointless, right? And of course they all go to the same school. No one will EVER find out about this, right? Ty has one “official” girlfriend – Phoebe Yamura. She’s pretty and the captain of the cheerleading squad. He’s secretly dating Trisha Conrad as well (you remember her? A true Fear? Has fantastic visions? Richest girl in town?) and she also has a boyfriend, Gary Fresno, who is a total douchebag. Ty is also dating Marla Newman who is the resident brainy girl. Poor Marla.

Ty starts the story off by bragging to his best friend Mickey about all the sweet non-action he’s getting from his 3 girlfriends. Marla and Trisha are both dating him because he told them he’s about to break up with Phoebe. Um, why don’t they just have some self-respect, and wait until he actually does it? Oh, right, 16 year old girls. That explains EVERYTHING. Mickey warns Ty to be careful because both Phoebe and Gary have some wicked, jealous tempers. Ty laughs that off, because he has absolutely no foresight.

Marla comes over that day to “study” so Ty takes her to his romantic attic. They chastely kiss for a few minutes and then Ty finds something in the old desk up there. It’s a Valentine’s Day card addressed to him, but it looks super old. It reads:

“DEAREST TYLER,
I’VE BEEN WAITING SO LONG FOR YOU. I ACHE FOR YOUR KISS. WRITE 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” (I have no idea why all their letters are written in CAPS. It just makes it seem like they're yelling at each other)

Well that’s certainly believable. Right after they find the Valentine, Marla realizes she’s late and has to go. What, their “date” was 15 minutes? Phoebe shows up right after Marla leaves for HER date as well. So Ty scheduled these dates approx. 20 minutes apart? How on EARTH does he think he’ll never get caught? He also decides that he will write Amy back, because he “can’t let her die, can he?” Ugh, he’s such a smug little asshole.

Ty is out with Trisha later in the week, and she’s making him awkward because she is hinting about the Valentine’s Day dance and Ty hasn’t decided who to take yet. Doesn’t it seem obvious that if he doesn’t take his official girlfriend, the whole jig will be up? That becomes the least of Ty’s problems though, because Gary has followed the two lovebirds in his car, and caught up to them. He flies into an insanely jealous rage but manages to convince Trisha to leave with him. Healthy teenaged relationship there.

When Ty gets home from his disasterous date with Trisha, there’s a new letter from Amy waiting for him! So exciting!

“DEAREST TY,
I KNEW YOU WOULD COME. I KNEW YOU WERE MY SOULMATE. NOTHING CAN SEPARATE US NOW. NOT EVEN A HUNDRED YEARS. PLEASE BRING ME ANOTHER NOTE.
LOVE, AMY”

Ty decides to look up the return address, and speeds over to investigate. For ONCE in this series, the address isn’t on “Fear Street”. But the lot is empty (of course). Ty decides to ask for a picture in his latest letter. He can’t believe this is happening to him! Soooo. He’s believing this. He believes he is SO irresistible to women, they contact him from beyond the grave.

Mickey and Ty are goofing off in school the next day, and Mickey spills the beans to their friend Kenny about Ty’s 3 girlfriends. Ty’s pretty upset at Mickey, and chooses to take it out on Justin Thompson, the “geek” that has the locker next to him. Seems appropriate. I don’t think we’ve met Justin yet, although he does have his picture in the yearbook!

Ty gets home that day with Phoebe and he’s gotten another Valentine. Phoebe is kinda weirded out that Ty has been communicating with this person, because it is CLEARLY a joke.

“BELOVED TY,
YOUR NOTES KEEP ME ALIVE, EVEN THOUGH WE ARE SEPERATED 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”

Really subtle there, “Amy”.

This Seniors book is a little bit different as well, because sometimes the point of view changes to Trisha’s. Gary and Trisha are fighting in the car about Ty, and Gary does the super macho thing of driving irradically until Trisha is scared enough to say she’ll never see Ty again. That’ll keep her!

When she gets home to her gigantic mansion, there’s a note from Amy waiting for her. "STAY AWAY FROM TY. HE’S ALL MINE NOW." This throws Trisha into a tizzy and she has one of her visions. She sees a boy, dying on the ground in front of her. But she can’t tell who it is! She knows Gary is furious at Ty, and thinks it must be one of the two boys that will die. She has to warn them!

But takes a few days to do it. She tells Gary first who freaks out that Trisha mentions Ty’s name. He vows that it will be TY who ends up dead! Real stable there, Gary. Trisha goes out with Ty to the movies later that week to warn him too. He’s really creeped out, and even more so when they get back to his car, and all the tires have been slashed. Oh and also, a bunny was murdered in the back seat and everything is covered with bunny blood. Well, that’s just upsetting. Ty goes to confront Gary later that night, but Gary’s car is broken so it couldn’t have been him. But Gary certainly isn’t happy to hear that Ty and Trisha went out that night. Maybe he’ll have to follow through on his plan to KILL Trisha for going out with Ty.

Ty gets home from his confrontation and there’s a new Valentine waiting for him. This time it’s the picture he asked for! He can’t really see her face, because her enormous bonnet is covering it. But the back has “I WARNED YOU ABOUT MY JEALOUS TEMPER” written on it. Creepy! Ty writes his dead girlfriend a break up letter, and tells her not to contact him anymore because he won’t write back! That will show your crazy, supernatural love!

The next day, Ty and the incredibly geeky Justin (he’s into computers?! GROSS) have another run in near their lockers. By that time mostly everyone is in class so no one is there to see when Ty opens his locker and its full of blood! More bunnies? No, there is no blood source. But there is a new letter for Ty when he gets home!

“DEAREST TY,
I CANNOT FORGIVE YOUR CRUELTY. I CANNOT LET YOU LIVE. YOUR GIRLFRIENDS MUST DIE TOO.
LOVE, AMY”

She handled that break up well. Ty writes her another note, apologizing for being cruel, and well. It’s basically the worst letter ever:

“DEAR AMY,
I’M REALLY, REALLY SORRY. I DIDN’T MEAN TO HURT YOUR FEELINGS. I DON’T HATE YOU OR ANYTHING, BUT IT WILL BE BETTER IF YOU STAY IN YOUR TIME AND I STAY IN MINE. PLEASE FORGIVE ME. ANY PLEASE LEAVE US ALONE.
GOOD LUCK,
TY”

Really, Ty? “I don’t hate you or anything”? “Good LUCK”?! With what? Getting over him? UGH. Anyways, Ty is certain Amy won’t be bothering him anymore after that GEM. But while he’s relaxing at home with Phoebe, Marla comes pounding into Ty’s house because she was beat up by a girl outside his house! Luckily for Ty, neither girl questions why the other one was there.

The next day, Marla also shows him a note she got: “I MAY BE DEAD – BUT YOU ARE NEXT TO DIE. STAY AWAY FROM HIM”. Ty is freaking out because his flawless plan isn’t working!! Later Phoebe shows him a note that she got. And finally, Trisha shows him a note that she got from Amy as well. And mentions that Phoebe and Marla got them too! “This is really scary Ty! And how come they got messages, too? What’s the connection?” The connections in Trisha’s brain are clearly not working either...

He tries convincing the girls it's all just a joke. But it seems they don’t really see it that way, because when he invites each of the girls to the Valentine’s Day dance – separately – they all turn him down for other obligations. Did they figure it out, or are they too creeped out?

He goes to the dance anyways. Looking for a 4th living girlfriend? While he’s hanging out with his friends though, he sees…Amy! Well he sees a girl in an old fashioned bonnet and clothes. He follows her up to the balcony, but he keeps seeing her in different spots! Like she’s a g-g-g-g-GHOST! While he’s looking over the dance floor, someone starts shoving him, and trying to push him over the railing. It’s Amy! Oh wait, nope, it’s Phoebe in disguise. And the other two girls, also dressed like Amy.

They knew the whole time that Ty was cheating and wanted to play a prank on him. They had no idea he would be SO into himself, he would believe it! Ty runs out of the dance to save himself any more humiliation. In the parking lot though, he sees another girl in a bonnet. But if all the girls are inside…who is this unicorn…?

We cut to Trisha’s POV. She’s feeling pretty guilty about Ty. I guess maybe since she was cheating too, she can empathize more. The girls go out to look for him and find him. DEAD. Just like in Trisha’s vision. So where’s Gary? Trisha has another vision about Ty’s accident. She sees Ty running towards something, then noticing something is following him and running away. Then he gets slammed by a red car. Whew! At least Gary’s car isn’t red!

The next day Gary tries to get back in Trisha’s good graces by apologizing, then offering to take her for a ride in his new. RED. car. Trisha runs screaming away from Gary to the … Fear Street Cemetery. Well, nothing good comes from that! Gary doesn’t follow her the whole way, so Trisha feels like she’s safe.

And then she runs into Justin Thompson, resident geek. He offers to protect her. Cute! Then tells her that he likes. A LOT. And also licks his lips. Ohhhh that’s less cute. Justin confesses that he killed Ty for her. He couldn’t stand that he would cheat on her! (What’s his plan for Gary?) When it becomes clear to Trisha that Justin is crazy, she starts running, hard. When it becomes clear to Justin that Trisha isn’t immediately falling for him, he tackles her and they start to wrestle. Justin is so close to killing Trisha by strangling her, but with her last ounce of strength, she gouges his eyes, then shoves him onto a stone. He busts his head open and dies immediately. Rough week for Trisha.

The book ends with Gary and Trisha working out their problems (verbal abuse and threats long forgotten!) But Trisha walks by the stone that killed Justin and realizes it says:

AMY FEAR 1872-1890.

OoooOOooo! So maybe that was the fourth bonnet girl? Or Justin was cross-dressing? I was disappointed again that a non-central character ended up being the murderer. I wasn’t even going to write him into this recap because his part was so insignificant. Then he ended up being the murderer, and I had to go back to find where Ty and Justin had their run ins. Damn you, R.L. for your lame twist! But I was actually way more concerned that this would be a rip off of Double Date, where (*spoiler!*) it was all some lame prank. So well done R.L. for not ripping yourself off! I give this book 48 murderous girlfriends from beyond the grave out of 65!

K I had to add this picture, I actually scanned the back of the book for all of you. Because it appears to be Marla Newman... dressed as a ZOMBIE for the dance? Man, that would have been a WAY better book

Fear Street Seniors: Fight, Team, Fight!, or “Just When You Thought Cheerleaders Couldn’t Get More Evil”

2010-04-16T14:24:00.000-07:00

This book is all about evil cheerleaders. You think R. L. would have had enough of the whole evil cheerleader thing after the “Evil Cheerleader” series, but apparently there is no such thing as too much evil cheerleaders.

We follow around Phoebe Yamura, Shadyside’s token Asian. She’s pretty perfect. She’s cute, smart, captain of the cheerleading squad, and dating the cutest guy in school, Ty Sullivan. Although you may have noticed he dates everyone.

Soon we find out that Phoebe’s life isn’t entirely perfect. Her parents are super strict. They won’t let her do anything. She’s not allowed to date, and she’s barely allowed to be on the cheerleading squad. Also, both Jade Feldman and Dana Palmer had wanted to be captain, so they decide to make her life hell until she quits.

Evil pranks start happening to Phoebe. First her uniform is torn to shreds with a note – Give me a H-E-L-P. Ooh, clever. Because she’s a cheerleader, see, and they like to spell things out. Jade doesn’t deny doing it. Phoebe wants Jade off the team, and knows that she’s on academic probation. She figures she just has to wait for Jade to fail her upcoming chem exam and that will be it.

Except Jade, the sneaky bitch, switches their tests, and takes Phoebe’s A. The cheerleaders mean girl Phoebe into taking Jade’s failing grade in order to keep her on the squad. Jade, after all, can do a triple backflip. In thanks, Jade puts a rubber spider down Phoebe’s sweater. Because she’s both grateful and mature.

A new cheerleader has joined the squad, Gina, as an alternate. She just transferred from another school and is choked she only gets to be alternate. She reveals that she had a twin sister who died, who was also a cheerleader. That has definite potential to turn into something evil.

Phoebe finds a bloody cheerleader doll in her locker. The note this time reads Score: Me 2. You 0. It takes Phoebe a little while to figure that one out, which goes to show she might not have those “street smarts” everyone keeps talking about. That night at the game, Phoebe goes to take her pom-poms from Gina, and starts screaming in pain. The pom-poms are full of biting red ants. That is quite the difficult prank to arrange. Where does one find red ants, and how do you set them to attack? Phoebe is freaked out, because she doesn’t know how far Jade will go in this competition. Or Gina.

Phoebe’s parents don’t want her on the squad, and think it might be getting dangerous for her. But Phoebe will stay as cheerleading captain if it kills her. At night she starts getting obscene phone calls, someone playing a recording of her cheering. That would creep me out for sure. Phoebe is convinced Jade is stalking her now.

She tries to talk to Ty about it, but whenever she mentions talking he drives her to the Fear Street Cemetery to make out. Seriously?!! Is that what kids are into these days. Because if a guy tried to get busy with me among the headstones, I’m not sure how I would take that. Apparently it’s the cool place to go, as they find Jade with her boyfriend Kenny there, fooling around behind a crypt or something.

The next night, the cheerleaders decide to do the flaming baton routine. Okay, Phoebs, not a smart idea, okay? To the surprise of absolutely no one, Phoebe’s batons are rigged to burst into flames, and she wakes up at the hospital with second degree burns. In a stunning lack of priorities, her first concern is whether she can compete in the state championships this weekend. She can, so things are cool.

Phoebe and a friend look into Gina, who is growing is suspicion since as alternate she had prepared both Phoebe’s batons and pom-poms. They discover that she never went to the high school she said she did. They take this damning evidence to the cheer coach, who informs them that they were looking in the wrong state. Gina finds out and is powerfully pissed they were investigating her.

The morning of the competition, one of the girls gets a cold, so Gina has to take her place on the squad. And share a bunk with Phoebe. Phoebe is sure she’s going to do something crazy at the competition. At the hotel, Jade runs to their room, crying, saying Dana was hurt – that she’d cartwheeled into an empty pool. The girls go running out, only to find no Dana. Phoebe starts to get angry, and then all the girls, Gina, Dana, Jade and herself, are grabbed and handcuffed together by some guys who shove them in a van. Awesome.

They are taken to a cabin in the woods. The kidnappers immediately wander away from the girls, who make a break for it. They run down the road, then hide in the bushes when the van comes by. Dana falls into some mud and screams, tipping them off to where they are. Only the van searching for them isn’t the kidnappers, it’s Griffin, the school janitor who also drives the squad to their games in a school van. They’re saved!

Only Griffin drives them deeper into the woods. Phoebe realizes that Griffin is her stalker when he starts to chant some of her cheers. He was the one who had been playing all the evil pranks on her. Of course it was the janitor! How could I have missed that incredibly random bad guy?

Jade and Dana confess they arranged the kidnapping to scare Phoebe off the squad, but that they had nothing to do with Griffin. Griffin went insane because he had a sister on the cheerleading squad when she was in high school. She was only on the squad as kind of a joke, because she wasn’t very good. The other girls laughed at her. Then one day they got her to climb to the top of the mount. Only they didn’t catch her, they let her fall, and she broke her neck. So he hates all cheerleaders.

He takes them to an abandoned meatpacking plants. Of course, perfect horror book setting. Lots of chainsaws and old machinery around to maim and disfigure. He takes a chain saw and … cuts off their handcuffs. I wouldn’t want a psycho with a chain saw anywhere close to me

Griffin tells the girls they have to perform for him, do perfect cheers. He threatens them with a meat hook, very I Know What You Did Last Summer. If anyone messes up, they die. What an exciting game! They run through a few cheers, and Jade at one time uses the wrong foot. Phoebe ends her cheer by cartwheeling into him, knocking him down. She tells the girls to run.

They scatter through the factory. Gina immediately gets her foot caught in a conveyor belt. Griffin turns the belt on, carrying her towards a meat grinder. Phoebe manages to get her out, but they here a chain saw and a scream coming from somewhere else in the plant. The girls are almost free when Griffin catches up with them. He brings them back to finish their routine for him.

Phoebe sprints away. She finds Jade’s body, hanging on a meat hook in a freezer. Jade didn’t make it. Phoebe also finds a smoke detector. She takes a book of matches and burns them, trying to get enough smoke to set it off. Nothing happens, but points for effort there. Griffin is about to kill Gina with a butcher knife when she interrupts him. He goes after her and is interrupted by … the fire department! My, they got to the middle of the woods in a hurry.

The story ends with Gina being put on the squad to replace Jade, and Phoebe introduces Ty to her parents. And Jade was such a bitch that not too many people missed her. So, happy ending?

I thought this book was going to be ridiculous, but it was kinda okay. Point definitely for the classic horror ending at the meatpacking plant, and for killing off a main character. I give it 12 triple backflips out of 16.

The Gift or "Digusting Vials of Hair Are Used For Good!"

2010-03-26T14:15:00.000-07:00

Fear Street Seniors #6! That means… we’re halfway through the final series! Can you believe it? Sigh, time flies when all you do is work and read Fear Street novels. Really flies.

This seniors book centers around Jennifer FEAR. It’s pretty rare for an actual Fear to be the focus of a book, and usually when they are, they’re totally evil. Jen isn’t that bad tho! Her dad is mildly obsessed with their Fear heritage, although Jen hates it because all her classmates think she might be evil. The book starts off right after Christmas, and Jen is going over to see her best friend Trisha (of the psychic visions) to show off the necklace her dad bought her. Jen is super pumped about it, even though it’s a FEAR family heirloom. It was owned by Dominique Fear, who was apparently tried for murder and hung!

The girls find out that Dominique died that way because Trisha puts on the necklace and has one of her psychic flashes. She feels like she’s Dominique, full of rage, right before she’s hanged to death. Hmmm, why did the necklace do that to Trisha and not Jen? The girls try to forget about the creepy necklace vision, and focus on what all girls love to talk about: bad boys! Jen is dating Ty Sullivan, and no one can believe it because usually Ty dates like 8 girls at the same time. But Jen is even bringing Ty to her huge New Years Eve party! He must really like her then.

Well, turns out, not so much. Ty and her go out on a date that night, and he brings her to the cemetery. Really? Like, how cliché. But Jen makes the fatal mistake of asking him to hang out AGAIN, and he freaks out, tells her she’s too “serious” and dumps her. Meh, happens to all of us at one point. What DOESN’T usually happen though, is walking up in Ty’s backyard, after sleep walking over to his place in the middle of the night. Yewoza! Jen is very confused as to how she wandered over to Ty’s house but just kinda scurries home and tries to forget about it.

When Jen gets to school the next day, everyone is abuzz about Ty. And the fact he was attacked in his own backyard the night before! Jen is all “weird, I could have WITNESSED his attack!” and tells Trisha what happened. Trisha and I have the same reaction of, “Ummm, don’t you think YOU may have attacked Ty?” I guess Jen never thought of that scenario. Convenient…

Trisha is really upset that Ty dumped Jen though. To the point, that later that day, at Pete’s Pizza, Trisha gets up and starts screaming about how upset she is, in front of Ty and his new girlfriend Greta. Well, that must have been awkward for Jen. I mean, you want your friend on your side. But maybe not that PUBLICALLY crazy. Maybe. Jen’s night doesn’t get much better unfortunately, because on her way home, she nearly hits someone with her car! And best yet, it’s TY. He now thinks she’s nutters.

Jen has another dream where she slept walked to Ty’s house, but this time she brought some matches. Hmm, what could those be for? She walks up in the comfort of her own home though, much to her relief. Only problem is: Trisha comes by to tell her that someone lit Ty’s house on fire last night! Everyone’s okay, but there was some major damage. Jen doesn’t believe it, so they run over to Ty’s house to see for herself. While they’re inspecting the damage (of her fresh ex-bfs house? Not suspicious…) Jen finds one of her MITTENS there! Well that’s basically a smoking gun. She can’t believe that she could do anything this terrible.

Trisha has come up with a theory as to why Jen is going sleep-crazy. She tells Jen about how when she put on the necklace, she felt how powerfully ANGRY Dominique Fear was. Trisha thinks that Dominique is controlling Jen because Jen is a Fear, and they are therefore connected. Well… I’ve heard worse theories in my Fear Street days. Jen does what any teenaged girl does when she needs to get rid/hide something. She puts the necklace in a sweatsock and puts it in her drawer! Out of sight=out of mind, right?

Jen is busy getting excited for her big New Years Eve party, now that she’s sure the necklace can’t do any more damage. Unfortunately, she still has to deal with Ty thinking she’s crazy. He threatens her to keep away from him! Except…he shows up to her New Years Eve party. With his new girlfriend Greta. That just mean! Jen doesn’t want to make a big deal, or ruin anyone’s night, so she doesn’t throw them out. Jen = bigger person than I am. In the long run though, she probably should have thrown them out. A few hours before midnight, Jen hears Trisha scream from upstairs and runs to find her staring at Greta. Correction: Greta’s dead body. Her head had been smashed in with a heavy ceramic bowl, which I think is a first on Fear Street!

Since the party mood is kinda ruined at that point, everyone shuffles out the door while the police come. The ever-fantastic Shadyside police determined that the bowl just happened to fall off a high shelf, and Greta’s death was an unfortunate accident. Ty has been waiting around for the police to leave, so he can yell at Jen about how the accident was all her fault. Hmm, seems appropriate? I’m not even really sure. Jen might have actually done it.

The next morning, Jen’s parents are trying to make her feel better about the horrible death that happened there the night before. I can certainly tell you, my parents would not have been this cool if someone had DIED at my party. Jen finally confessed everything that’s been going on, including the theory that she’s possessed by Dominique Fear. Her dad awkwardly clears his throat and makes his own confession: they’re not really Fears. It seems that when HIS dad moved to town, the Fears were a well respected family, so he just changed his name to it. Jen’s dad cites “easy access to country clubs” as a legit reason for changing the family name. Allllllright. Jen is so relieved that she’s not a Fear! But also furious at her father for not telling her and cursing her with a terrible name for her whole life.

Jen decides to take apart the necklace now that it has no emotional value to her. After she takes out the stone, she notices a hidden compartment. And it’s full of HAIR. (Note: I love lockets. And I also love long hair. But the two together? DISGUSTING.) Jen also just happens to find a spell for casting out evil spirits, that includes throwing the HAIR of the person who is doing the possessing onto the possessee. Does that make sense? She needs to throw Dominique’s hair on whoever Dominique possesses. Convenient.

While she’s also looking through the Fear’s books, she sees a picture of a house that looks familiar. It’s a drawing of Trisha Conrad’s house! When Jen investigates a little bit further, she finds that Dominique Fear married a one Henry Conrad before she was hanged! Jen rushes over to Trisha’s house to warn her and also stop Dominique from killing anyone! Unfortunately, Trisha is out when Jen gets there. She’s out with Ty Sullivan! Jen has a moment of “WTF SKANK” but then realizes that Trisha would never do that to her, and it’s probably Dominique possessing her. Sure.

Jen does her best investigating skillz, and figures out that Ty probably took Trisha to his fave makeout place, the cemetery! Classy. Jen gets there just in time to see Ty’s body on the ground, and Trisha poised over him with a pair of huge scissors. Really? Scissors? Why on earth would that be the weapon of choice in a cemetery? Trisha is obviously possessed by Dominique, and the two of them tussle for a while. Jen pulls out her jar of hair and Trisha/Dominique rightfully mocks her. Jen knows that she only has one shot to get her with the hair and takes a chance! Poof! O, I guess at some point Jen burnt all the hair into ash, because she throws ash on Trisha instead of just hair. Probably a good idea for projection. Anyways, it gets Trisha out of the daze. The girls hug, and take Ty home while he’s still passed out cold.

We learn two things in the final chapter: Ty is guillible and Trisha is a BITCH. The next day, at Pete’s Pizza, the girls run into Ty. Apparently the girls told Ty that he got SO drunk at the cemetery the night before, he passed out. He doesn’t even remember buying/drinking the beer! Maybe he was mourning his GF that no one seems to remember who died TWO DAYS AGO. Jen goes to the bathroom and the rest of the book is from Trisha’s POV. Trisha’s known she’s a Fear for a while, but she also knows that Jen won’t tell her secret. Jen is too nice! So nice, she never suspected that Trisha had been dating Ty the whole time she was dating Ty too! BITCH. She thinks about being confused but also about the overwhelming rage that she felt. And the ease of which being Evil came to her. Well. That’s it folks! Trisha is evil! That ends another Fear Street where no one important dies. It was pretty standard, and I think mostly filler to introduce the idea that Trisha is an evil Fear. Maybe she’ll be the villain for the rest of the series? Let’s hope so! I give The Gift 12 necklaces of HAIR out of 23. Just passing.

Last Chance, or "Do Not Do What the Bad Man Says"

2010-03-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Last Chance is a book that highlights why I love/loathe Fear Street books. I spent most of my time reading this book screaming “What the f-!” at it, then settling down and shaking my head at it. Seriously.

The teaser is: Mr. Morley is so nice when he catches Mary O’Connor stealing a test. He doesn’t tell. He doesn’t fail her. She just has to do him a favor …

…

Don’t do it Mary! Do not touch the bad man, just call the police, and everything will be okay.

Except that Fear Street is not an after-school special. The messages that come out of these books are both awful and awesome at the same time. Let’s see how Mary deals with her little “predicament.”

As you might remember, Mary O’Connor is the poor white trash girl who’s father walked out on her family, and then her boyfriend, Gary Fresno, dumped her for rich Trisha Conrad. You think that Mary might deserve a break about now, but instead she gets busted for shoplifting. Now she has to see a counselor every week, and all of her teachers have been told about her incident, and discriminate against her because of it.

I’m sorry, does this seem a little unprofessional? Perhaps even … unethical. Are teachers allowed to gossip about student’s sticky fingers, and openly judge her based on this. Considering the amount of teenage murderers in Shadyside, you think they’d let one incident of shoplifting slide.

Even Mary feels like she’s a criminal and should be treated as such. Her friend Stacey tries to get her to lighten up, takes her out shopping so that she gets over this stigma. Mary immediately almost steals a shirt. But it’s not because she’s dumb, it’s because she saw a cute boy! Okay, and because she is over the top stupid.

Mary has been spending a lot of time with Mr. Morley, her social studies teacher. He is just so understanding, and they talk about all kinds of things, not just school! Like, boys and stuff. Dear god, man, set some boundaries you pervert. Anyways, Mary is stressed about her upcoming social exam – she needs to pass it to stay on the track team, pretty much the only thing that she’s good at in life.

Mr. Morley is so understanding that he tells Mary that the social exams are all in this brown envelope on top of the desk, then he leaves her alone in the classroom to go get coffee. Mary can’t believe her luck! I can’t believe she wouldn’t think that she’d be set up. Morley comes back in, and Mary thinks he might have seen her, but he acts all friendly normal, so it must be okay. Now, maybe Mary does need to be treated for her property-taking issues, not only does she do it a lot, but she’s really bad at it.

Mary believes she aces the social exam, but instead of that A, Morley asks to see her after class. Oops! He tells her he knows she stole the exam, but she’s also under a lot of pressure, so he might be able to overlook it. If she does something for him …

It’s not as bad as you think. He wants her to take another teacher’s jacket, as he says it’s his anyways. So, he’s encouraging her thieving ways? Maybe he’s just trying to help her get better at it. To no avail, though. The teacher who’s jacket she’s stealing, Mr. Wise, catches her red-handed, and throws her shoplifting experience into her face. He says first thing Monday morning, the principal will hear of this. Oh, no, not the principal! Mary should probably chill out more.

Instead, she goes to Morley’s house on Fear Street over the weekend, sure that he’ll help her out of her situation. At his house she sees the cute guy from the mall, Rob. He’s helping Morley out with stuff around the house. He asks Mary out, then tries to warn her about Morley, when the man himself comes in. Morley is insanely mad at Rob, asking him to leave.

Then Morley turns to Mary, all concern and understanding again. Of course he’ll discuss the situation with Mr. Wise, making everything okay for Mary, but he tells her he’ll probably be fired for it. Mary is horrified. Morley also tells her that another teacher, Mrs. Wilson, is trying to get him fired. She’s written a letter about him to the Board of Education, but he can’t answer the charges if he doesn’t know what they are. If only someone could break into her desk to get that letter … But no, he couldn’t let Mary do that! He’ll just figure something out for himself.

Mary goes out with Rob that weekend. They have a great time, until he tells them they’re taking the “walking discount.” They dine and dash, and Mary kind of goes along with it, although it upsets her. Mary is so very easily manipulated. Rob then tells her it was a joke, and gives her a soft, melting kiss.

Monday morning Mary goes to see Morley to make sure everything’s been straightened up for her. Morley sighs and tells her she’s okay, but he’s screwed if he doesn’t get that letter. Then he gives her some puppy dog eyes and tells her he could never ask her to steal that letter for him.

Mary, being unspeakably dumb, breaks into Mrs. Wilson’s classroom and steals the letter for him. Whatever is written in those letters makes Morley hugely angry. He tells Mary there’s more letters, probably hidden in Mrs. Wilson’s house. Mary has to steal those letters too. When Mary balks, he tells her he’ll sell her out for stealing the jacket, and cheating on her exam. Not so nice Morley any more. He uses the phrase: “Jail is an ugly place.” How charming. Threaten an impressionable young girl with jail, I like it.

That night Mary goes to Mrs. Wilson’s house, having been given her address and the time she would be at a conference from Morley. How thoughtful of him. Rob shows up to stop her, and when he can’t, he goes in with her.

They find the letters, and Mary skims them. Essentially, Mrs. Wilson has proof that Morley murdered two of his students at his last job. And she’s sitting on this information why?

Mrs. Wilson comes home early. As they dash out the second floor window, they split up. Rob tells Mary to meet him at a park, so she runs there and waits. But the only person who shows up is Morley. Rob was nabbed by the cops, and had called Morley to bail him out.

But Morley won’t do that until Mary does something else for him. Mary didn’t keep the letters, so he’s pissed, and grabs her arm painfully. He tells her that Rob will stay in jail unless she comes to his office at lunch tomorrow. He also threatens to kill her like the other two students.

His new insane assignment for Mary involves his sister. His sister lives with her two children, but is always going on dates and leaving the youngsters alone. Morley wants to teach her a lesson by having Mary kidnap the kids, taking them to a house down the street until their mother comes home, freaking out. What a charming lesson!

Mary has heard enough. She goes to talk to her counselor, the one who can’t get over that one time she shoplifted, and tells her everything. The counselor sympathetically tells Mary she’s a terrible person for blaming her problems on Mr. Morley. Great support they have at Shadyside High, there. I guess since they usually deal with grief, loss and post traumatic stress, abducting children probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

So Mary goes to steal the children. She feels really bad, and the kids are cute, so it’s just like she’s babysitting them in a strange house. It’s kinda all good until the seven year old boy tells her he doesn’t have an uncle, and had never heard of this Morley character. That’s when Mary hears the police sirens, and she cuts and runs.

She finally stops running, and who should appear but Rob, who starts kissing her. Apparently Morley made good on the bail, but that didn’t endear him to Rob. Rob is sure that Morley is going to kill them, now that they know his “being a murderer” secret. So they’ll have to kill him first!

Mary is skeptical about this killing idea, but Rob says there’s no other way, they’ll be under Morley’s control forever if they don’t. He gives her a vial of poison, odorless, tasteless and clear, that will kill him instantly if she gets just a few drops in his coffee. What a handy thing to be carrying around. Mary tells him she can’t do it, but he won’t hear any of it. He says he’ll meet her in Morley’s office tomorrow.

Morley calls Mary that night to threaten her, because she screwed up with the kidnapping kids thing. He tells her to meet him at his office at one tomorrow.

Poor little Mary. Whatever will she do?

The next morning she goes to track practice, something she’s been sucking at since all her problems started. Today, though, she kills it, and is starting to think she just might be able to deal with everything. She goes to Morley’s office, but earlier than he asks, because track was let out early. He’s not there, but his coffee is sitting temptingly on his desk. She didn’t bring the poison with her today. But then she sees Morley’s notebook on the desk, and reads it. It documents everything that has been done to Mary, how he enjoyed manipulating her life. Mary figures that Morley has to pay.

She runs home and back as quickly as possible. Morley still isn’t there. She empties the contents of the vial into his coffee, then goes to the girl’s restroom to be sick. Then goes back to face Morley.

He is in the classroom this time. Mary hesitates at the door, praying that he’ll drink the coffee. He does, downing the whole thing, then tells Mary that he’s going to brew some more coffee while she thinks about what she owes him. Then he gets all sweaty and woozy, and collapses to the floor.

Mary takes his notebook and stashes it in her bag, then waits for Rob to arrive. He comes in, all smiles. He’s all like – wasn’t this wild? Morley told you everything, hey? Mary grimly smiles and tells him she knows everything. Rob comes over and finishes off the rest of Morley’s coffee, which is, ew.

Rob explains that is was all a psychological experiment, to see how a student would respond under extreme pressure – whether they could get someone to kill someone else. It was all a part of Morley’s research, and everyone was in on it except Mary.

So, there are so many what the fuck things wrong with this. Morley is a social studies teacher at a shitty high school, not working in a phD department. What the fuck kind of research is this. There is no end to the unethical and illegal behaviours that Morley and Rob engaged in with this “research.” I mean, Rob is over 18, and fucking around with the subject. He should be in jail, or something.

Apparently, Mary agreed with me. Rob starts to sway on his feet, and he’s like – wait, I didn’t give you poison. It was water. Wtf? And Mary tells him she wasn’t going to kill them, until she came to the class early and read about the experiment in Morley’s notebook. And decided that both of them should die. So she ran home to grab some poison her mother keeps in the house. (Wtf, why does her mother have poison in the house?) She shows Rob Morley’s body, and tells him goodbye as he collapses.

Stacy comes in to the classroom, as her and Mary are going shopping, and screams when she sees the two bodies. Mary’s all smiles when she tells her that she just spiked their coffee with hard-core sleeping pills her mom uses. They’ll wake up in a little bit, but they’ll know not to fuck with her again.

Is that what we would call “street justice?” Not that I don’t think the boys deserved a little death scare, but I still think they should be in jail. Kudos to Mary for growing a pair, and not letting people fuck her around any more. She should also go over to skeezy ex Gary while she’s at him and kick him in the balls, just while she’s on this roll. No kudos to R. L. for giving me one of these “comedic” Fear Streets where not only did no one die, but no one was even crazy, stalked, or thought they were a ghost. Better try next time. 14 crazy-ass-strong sleeping pills out of 25.

No Answer or "Teenaged Girls Are Terrible Planners"

2010-02-26T12:22:00.000-08:00

Ahh I finally have time to blog! I read “Episode” Four of the Seniors last week actually, and then couldn’t find the time to write all down til today! So bear with me if my memory is a little foggy.

So “Episode” Four (I refused to call it an “episode” without the mocking quotations. It’s a book. It’s Book Four. Get over yourself R.L.) finally gives us the big payoff we’ve been wanting. An effing MURDER! But who gets murdered? Let’s find out…

Clarissa is our main character in this “episode” and R.L. is showing some personal growth because Clarissa is a black woman! Is this our first non-caucasian main character? I think so! This unfortunately doesn’t mean she has any better luck than our other leading ladies. We find out that Clarissa just got out of an institution. She was in there because she couldn’t deal with the fact that her sister, Justine, had died and Clarissa was the one that found her. (Fair enough, I probably wouldn’t bounce back too quickly from L.K.’s death. SISTER LOVE) Justine had fallen down the stairs while talking on her CORDLESS phone and broke her neck. While Clarissa was in the institution, she became close to a boy from her high school, Will. Apparently he’s super hot.

Clarissa goes back to school, and everyone is so excited to see her, yada yada yada. She has two best friends, Debra and Mira. We’ve already met Debra before, and we know that Mira isn’t important because she doesn’t even merit a yearbook picture. Mira is also the slutty one. You know how there’s always one. We also find out that Clarissa’s parents are adopting a little boy and he’s arriving that weekend! That seems like … a replacement, hey? But Clarissa tries to be upbeat about Aaron coming, and goes to clean out her room for him, because she’s taking over Justine’s room.

While she’s cleaning out Justine’s room, Clarissa has a vision (hallucination? Encounter with a ghost?) of her sister, who points to a notebook left on her desk. There’s nothing special in the notebook, except that on the day Justine died, she had an appointment to call a psychic named Renata. Debra and Mira come over to help Clarissa clean, and for some reason, Clarissa tells them about the ghost encounter! Bad idea. All I’m saying, is that on my first day out of an institution? Imma keep all my crazy visions to myself.

The girls believe Clarissa for some reason, (they are also crazy?) and decide to call Renata. As soon as someone answers though, they heard a small, ghosty voice that called Clarissa “Moongirl” which was Justine’s private nickname for her. Voice from beyond the grave! Justine tells Clarissa that she was murdered, but disappears before she can name her killer. Renata comes onto the phone, saying that she was possessed by Justine and proves to Clarissa she’s the real deal by telling her the boy she’s had a secret crush on her whole life (hint: its Josh. Will is gonna be pissed!)

Clarissa decides to trust Will with her secret hallucinations too. He does two terrible things: he doesn’t believe her for one, and then he tells her that Mira already told him! Apparently they email because they have computer class together. Telling your new girlfriend that her slutty friend emails you? That’s a no. The girls call Renata again that night, and she gives them the upsetting news that one of them is going to die next! I’d stop calling this lady, she is just full of bad news!

Clarissa finds her sister’s secret hiding spot that night. She finds a fake ID, a knife with the word SLASH on it, and her diary. Which of course she reads, because, hey, she’s dead! What does she care about privacy? Apparently Justine had this secret life where she snuck out of the house and partied and dated this guy named Slash. Who gave her a knife with his name engraved on it. (Guess what L.K.’s getting for Christmas this year?!) Clarissa is pretty upset because she thought she knew Justine pretty well, but apparently Justine was thinking about running away, and totally ditching her. Harsh! Will breaks into her room, and they argue a little because Mira told Will about calling Renata again, and Will doesn’t want her to go crazy again. Whatevs, Will, you just broke into her room.

Clarissa decides that the best plan to find her sister’s murderer, (and her maybe soon-to-be murderer) is to use the fake ID and go to the club to find out who this Slash guy is. She assumes he killed Justine because Justine’s diary discussed how mad Slash was when she wanted to see other people. So. I don’t understand what Clarissa’s plan was here. Step one: Find Slash, the man who murdered my sister. Step two: ? She doesn’t find out who Slash is, but she does run into Will there. He’s a musician (swoon!) and goes to the clubs all the time to check out places to play.

The next day, her new little brother Aaron arrives. He’s 5 years old, and super cute. Clarissa shows him around his new house and they hang out in her room. He picks up the phone in her room (the one they’ve been calling Renata on) and is instantly possessed by Justine. She tells Clarissa to be careful because someone is going to get murdered! Clarissa immediately calls Debra to warn her. Debra has some of her own information, too. She just ran into Justine’s high school boyfriend, who had something really important to say…. And then Debra gets pushed down the stairs. What?! Yup, Clarissa hears her argue with someone, then tumble down the stairs. She lives close by, so Clarissa books it over to Debs house, and finds her at the bottom of the stairs. Pretty suspicious for you, Clar, if you keep finding dead bodies at the bottom of the stairs.

First important murder of this series! Finally! Debra Lake who I think is dating that vampire guy is DEAD! Woot woot! Luckily for us, R.L. doesn’t waste too much time on that whole boring process of “mourning” and “grieving”. We get right back to the action, as Clarissa calls Justine’s old boyfriend to find out what he told Debra. He’s kind of uncomfortable because…it turns out that Slash is non-other than WILL! Ewwww, he dated the dead sister then moved on to the living!?

Clarissa puts two and two together and decides that Will is the murderer. Mira comes over to sleep with Clarissa because the two girls are convinced he’s going to kill them. And Will doesn’t help much, because that night, he decides to break into Clarissa’s room again! (Justine’s old room. No wonder he’s so good at getting in there). Mira and Clarissa stop him before he gets into the room tho, and push him off the trellis he was climbing.

This whole incident lands Clarissa back in the institution. Oh, also the fact that the phone they’ve been calling Renata and Justine on hasn’t been hooked up since Justine died. Soooo Clarissa’s parents figure that she might have gone off the deep end again. Will calls her though, and forgives her. (Does she forgive him for being a huge pervy creep that is using her to get over his dead girlfriend? Who knows!) Will actually believes her know and has his own theory: He thinks the killer is Mira. Will confesses that Mira is actually really into him, which he’s known about for a while. And was still emailing her? Nice. Way to lead both girls on. Clarissa thinks that’s crazy talk! (Haha, puns)

But Mira comes to visit Clarissa that day. She’s babysitting Aaron for Clarissa’s parents and brought him to see her. Mira’s bag falls open though, and Clarissa sees that Mira has stolen Justine’s phone! Which is weird, but Mira said that she wanted to have it in case Justine tried to contact them again. Nice thing to say to the girl in the institution.

After Mira and Aaron leave though, Clarissa decides that she doesn’t believe Mira and is worried about Aaron. She called Mira’s house and finds out that Mira is taking Aaron to Fear Lake for a boat ride. Innocent, right? Except I kinda forgot to mention that Aaron is a disturbed kid because he saw both his parents drown in front of him and now he’s deathly afraid of water, AND Mira knows it. (I guess that’s kind of an important plot point). So instead of calling her parents and telling them Aaron’s babysitter might be crazy, she breaks out of the institution. That’ll look good!

She sees their boat out in the middle of Fear Lake, so Clarissa jumps right in! Haha my notes actually say “does a shit job of saving Aaron”. Which is true! Mira tries to whack the shit out of her with the oars and confesses she killed Justine because she’s in love with Will and killed Debra because she was going to figure it out. Well, that was easy! Clarissa starts her terrible rescue attempt by pulling Aaron into the water, then losing him, then she almost drowns herself and they both need to be rescued by some random stranger. Her parents, as well as her doctors, are waiting for her on the shore. Mira rows up and starts yelling about how Clarissa is sooo crazy and tried to kill Aaron. Clarissa is about to be hauled back to the institution, (but this time with padded cells) when Aaron pipes up and said it was all Mira. I don’t know how Mira thought she would get away with just lying about the whole thing, and hoping Aaron would just go along with it. Another poor plan.

The book ends with Clarissa and Will dating (I still think it’s gross) and Aaron happily replacing Justine in Clarissa’s heart. Harsh. But I think this book was a success because we finally killed off one the main characters! A lot of stuff was left unexplained, and frankly, that’s the way I like my R.L. books. Completely nonsensical. 57 telephones to heaven out of 74!

The Thirst, or "Extra Sexy Valentine's Vampire Goodness"

2010-02-14T12:37:00.000-08:00

Can a vampire get enough? Enough what? Love? Blood? Reality TV? So many unanswered questions. Here’s a special Valentine’s Day treat – I tried to make it as sexy as possible.

Part 1

First day of school! Dana Palmer gets ready. To get you up to date, Dana is the slutty cheerleader twin, while Dierdre is her much less attractive identical twin because she likes to think. Dana is described almost exactly the way every Sweet Valley High book ever begins – gleaming blonde hair, sparkling eyes, slutty clothes. OMG guys, Dana is totally Jessica Wakefield! Dana harasses her dowdy twin, aka Elizabeth, for not being ready yet. Dierdre is spazzing because she wants to impress a guy, but refuses to say who.

Mickey Myers, Dana’s summertime guy, comes to pick them up. Dana bitches about an early cheerleading practice, really because she hates head cheerleader Phoebe Yamura because she wanted to be head cheerleader. Is it just me, or is Phoebe the first Asian in Shadyside, ever?

Mickey and Dana make fun of Debra Lake for being with Clark Dickson (Count Clarkula), the vampire-esque guy who may or may not have fangs and powers of hypnosis (see Episode One).

Dana rushes to cheerleading practice, and finds … the body of Danielle Cortez. The first actual death in this potentially over-hyped Seniors series. Danielle isn’t even in the yearbook at the front, which is kind of cheap.

Clark comes up behind a horrified Dana. He comments that Danielle is very pale … People are flashbacking to Trish’s psychic vision.

There’s a fender-bender in the parking lot. Gary and Trisha are clutching each other, and Mary, Gary’s girlfriend, moans and cries when she sees them. That’s an intense reaction. I’d dump his ass, but whatever. Dierdre goes to talk to the illicit couple, and apparently someone had cut his brakes. Things are finally starting to get interesting at Shadyside High.

A new guy comes up to Dierdre, and introduces himself as Jon Milano, of her study hall. He’s a real babe, as Dierdre puts it. He says he prefers Shadyside High to where he was before, which is saying a lot. He asks her out, and gets all sexy, starts to play with the mole on her face. Dierdre is all giggly blushy. Aw, young love.

Dierdre is handing out with Jennifer Fear and Stacy Malcolm at The Corner. Jon comes in and asks Dierdre if she’s going with anyone, then leaves with a Coke.

Mickey comes in and tells the girls that Danielle had all the blood drained from her body. Dierdre flashes to creepy, black-dressing Clark. And how Debra’s been all pale and limp since dating him. Maybe he is actually a vampire? Or just really wants to be? I mean, vampires are HOT right now.

Dierdre goes over to Clark and Debra’s table, but they’re gone. On the table is an extra sexy poem:

So cold, So pale/You lie before me./Your blood has vanished/People say/How? Where? They ask/They don’t ask me, but I could say/You blood gives life …

Ooh, Clark is so mysterious.

Part 2

Danielle’s death is all over the news. It’s being called “The Vampire Murder.” Ooh, sexy. The police apparently questioned Clark for hours, and ruled him out as a suspect. He was just innocently creeping around the body.

Dierdre and Jen get over the murder and start talking about what really matters: boys. Jon hasn’t asked Dierdre out yet, but brags about how awesome he is. He sounds like a guy. Dierdre confesses to being into her sis’ guy, Mickey. And of being really jealous of Dana. Hmph. Elizabeth Wakefield would never admit to that kind of thing.

Stacy comes in and they start talking about the seniors’ overnight trip to Fear Street Woods, and how they hope that will still happen. Cuz nothing will go wrong there! Dierdre gets a call, and someone is all whispery and stalkerish, tells her Danielle was delicious, and she was next. Clark? My money’s on the new guy.

Everyone goes to Danielle’s funeral, the third funeral in Shadyside ever. When Dana goes up to the coffin, she is horrified … by the Lindsay Lohan orange glow painted on her face. And then because Danielle gets up and starts talking to her, telling her she can’t sleep. Crazy hallucination, but Dierdre heard her too. So, just crazy.

Dierdre decides a séance is the best bet. Ooh, sexy. She asks Jen if they could go back to her creepy library on Fear Street, because that would be the scariest thing they could possible do. Dana freaks, because she just wants a normal senior year. Josie calls up Dierdre, and tells her that she completed the Doom Spell last June (that everyone else forgot about), and is afraid that she unleashed something that night. Dierdre is just obsessed with reaching Danielle, and so they do it.

Jen, Dierdre, Trisha and Josie meet up in the creepy Fear occult library. They do some chanting, then an eerie voice calls to them – a spirit that cannot rest. The spirit tells them Trisha is the murderer, then laughs crazy. The girls figure out the spirit isn’t Danielle. But – who was it? Maybe Trisha isn’t just an innocent psychic boyfriend stealer. Whatever. The girls decide to forget the whole thing.

Part 3

The senior campout in Fear Street Woods. Mickey and Dana cuddle by the campfire. Dana notices Gary and Trisha making eyes at each other, even though he’s hanging out with legit girlfriend Mary. Ooh, high school drama. Is anything sexier? Then, Dierdre catches fire.

Dierdre is pretty freaked out to be on fire. She smells her hair burning. Jon knocks her over and puts out her fire. Literally, I mean, not euphemistically. Even though her arm is all burnt, she wants to stay because Jon is cuddling her. Then the new red-headed girl, Anita, tells her it was her bad, she accidentally shoved Dierdre into the fire. Oops! Dierdre forgives her immediately, which I wouldn’t be likely to do. But Jon goes to get her some hot chocolate, and she appears to be in some kind of love-haze. Twitterpated, as a certain owl would put it. Please tell me, does anyone get the Disney-Valentine reference?

Can I just stop here to say that these kids are on their senior campout, and they are drinking hot chocolate. Lame. Jon kisses Dierdre, and she thinks it was worth being set on fire.

They take a walk to a decrepit cabin. Ooh, sexy. Dana interrupts them, worried about her twin. Jon roughly tells Dierdre not to tell anyone about his secret place. How very Unabomber of you, Jon.

In her sleeping bag, Dana feels like she can’t move, then feels a sharp sting at her neck. Her screams wake up the girls, then Clark opens her tent flap. Still being a creeper, then. Dana feels her neck and finds … a mosquito bite.

Next morning, Dana feels like crap and can’t eat anything. She stays at the campsite while everyone else goes for a hike, but not before she realizes Dierdre wants Mickey. She is contemptuous of her sister being able to steal a guy from her.

Everyone gets back from the hike, except for Dierdre. As Dana starts to look for her, Clark stumbles out of the woods with blood smeared on his mouth. Except he was only running away from a skunk, and tripped.

Dana runs into the woods to find her sister. They find her, unconscious and deathly pale. She doesn’t remember what happened, other than being stung by a bee on her neck. Only there are two red bumps on her neck. Hmmm….

Part 4

The home economics teacher at Shadyside High is feeling depressed because no one is really into her class. A student comes in looking for something to eat. The student grabs her, and fangs slide out of it’s mouth. The student bites her neck and drinks her all up.

The school now has private guards. Stacy gets bossy and makes Dierdre try out for the basketball team. On her way there, Jon grabs her, freaking her out. Jon believes the killer is a real vampire. Dierdre is offended, then Jon kisses her and takes off. What an odd fellow.

At try outs, the new girl Anita is there. She tells Dierdre she used to go with Jon. Soon after, she winds Dierdre. She keeps on having these little “accidents.” After taking Dierdre out again, Anita smiles.

Dierdre gets home after making the team. She finds in her bag a note: Your sister’s blood was so sweet/Yours will be even sweeter.

She’s hanging out with the girls, getting the gossip. Stacy thinks Anita is out to get Dierdre. They also discuss the morality of boyfriend stealing re: Trisha with Gary. Dierdre sticks up for Trisha and leaves in a huff, probs because she wants to steal her sister’s boyfriend.

Jon drives up in a Porsche. Ooh, sexy. He asks her to the mall, and then drives her out to the middle of nowhere and tries to get with her. Ooh, sexy. She tells him to take her to the mall.

They go to the Burger Barn, where the entire senior class seems to be. Clark stops Dierdre and asks her if she got his note. But it was just a note congratulating her on her basketball tryouts.

Jon thinks Clark isn’t scary, but a little sad, because he tries so hard to be different. That was actually really insightful. He then sees Anita and leaves to go to the men’s room, and never comes back. Ouch, not sexy of him.

Dierdre starts to walk home, and something grabs her, bites her neck and starts lapping at her blood.

Part 5

From the vampire’s perspective. It had just started to drink Dierdre, when her twin drives up. The vampire thinks that it must kill both twins. Then it eats a Spaniel.

Dierdre is having a hard time recovering from her attack. She reemed Jon out for leaving her, but he claimed he felt sick. He wants to get to know her better, so asks her to his Unabomber cabin.

The girls have a game. Anita and Stacy are both really aggressive, and Anita takes Stacy down. Stacy misses her chance to play in front of college recruiters. She vows to kill Anita, something that should never be done in Shadyside. Next day, Anita is found dead in the girls’ shower room. She was drained of blood like the rest.

Jon runs over with the news – the police caught the vampire. They are bringing Clark in. Then Mickey runs over with more news – Anita’s body has disappeared from the morgue. Dierdre tells Jon she can’t go to his cabin. Then she goes to his cabin with Dana in tow. Sexy? Or just weird.

The cabin is empty. Except for a coffin. The coffin opens, and inside is … Anita! She’s been after Dierdre, because she was stealing Jon away from her. Enter Jon. He tells Anita to get away from Dierdre and grabs a stake, ramming it into her chest. Anita turns into dust.

Jon comforts Dierdre, as he says it’s all over, the death, the ugly phone calls. All of a sudden, Dierdre freaks and stakes Jon. Dana is all – you crazy? Until Jon turns into dust too. Dierdre had figured it out when Jon mentioned the phone calls, which she had never mentioned to him. So he must be a vampire. I’m just glad she was right, because that was a pretty tenuous fact to kill someone on.

So, guys, three books in and not one single senior has been crossed off yet. No fair if you kill secondary characters that don’t even rate a photo in the yearbook. I feel cheated. For that, I give this 82 sexy vampires out of 147.

In Too Deep or "Sweet Homosexual Zombie Child Kisses!"

2010-01-27T15:38:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, nothing like a good ol’ Summer Camp book. Not usually R.L.’s style, but I like to think that he really added something to the Summer Camp genre. Namely…pedophilia. But we’ll get to that.

Since the first Seniors book was about the end of their Junior year of school, I assume this book takes place in July? Or August. It doesn’t say, and L.K. has the third book so I can’t read ahead to check! Anyhoo, Kenny Klein is main character and he is working at Shadyside Day Camp! (Not even overnight camp? How can you get into shenanigans during the day?) His girlfriend and love of his life, Jade, has gone to California for a month to take an SAT review course. That’s hardcore.

A lot of events happen in the first chapter. Jade leave, Kenny starts his first day of camp. Kenny’s boss reminds him about how he has a “disturbed” child in his group, which he should know about since he read the child profiles … right? Kenny nods along enthusiastically while remembering how he totally did NOT read them. He just figures that he’ll know who’s disturbed and act accordingly. Also, Kenny makes an enemy! Another one of the counselors, Tyler, challenges Kenny to a game of tetherball. Kenny gets really into it and accidentally gives Tyler a nosebleed. Tyler immediately vows revenge and life-long anger. Hmm. No over reaction there… He also meets the girl of his dreams. Wait. Didn’t Jade leave like an HOUR ago? Kenny chats up this new girl, Melly, by the lake. She’s another counselor and she totally hits on him. Kenny is suddenly excited about summer. But he really needs to focus because Melly distracts him while he’s helping Tyler… and he accidentally crushes Tylers hand! Whoops! Wayyy to make friends.

Kenny meets his cute kids – a bunch of 9 year olds. He has all the stereotypical children: Simon is the pushover, Graydon is the bully (I think its because he’s described as a chubby Ginger) etc. The last kid is a little different however. Vincent, is a small shy boy. Who wears a balaclava at all times. Guess we know who the disturbed child is!

After a non-eventful day with the kiddos, Kenny is out on the town with his friends, including Dana and Debra who both work at the camp with him. They decide to … head back to the camp to go swimming! Really? On their time off? Kenny is stoked though, because Melly is there, swimming by herself. That’s…also weird. Kenny wastes no time and sneaks off with her to make out. Jade left this morning, dude! Melly dares him to jump off the cliff with her. Kenny thinks this is the coolest thing ever, and they jump off together. Only, Kenny can’t find her when he surfaces. His friends rush over, and tell him that no one else jumped off the cliff with him. Kenny leaves with them, and stays up late into the night, wondering if Melly drowned after jumping off the cliff. WTF? He thought she may have drowned but he left her anyways??

Kenny looks for Melly as soon as he gets to work the next morning. She’s late for her shift at the art and crafts cabin, but while he goes to look for her, Vincent has an attention-spaz, and dumps red paint everywhere, pretending to be bleeding.

Kenny finds Melly and she’s okay. She says she was just embarrassed that Kenny jumped and when his friends came, she just left. Okay. That’s a weird thing to do. They make plans to meet up at the end of the day, but Dana catches on to Kenny’s plan. She threatens to tell Jade about Melly if Kenny won’t. Kenny thinks to himself “I should tell Melly about Jade. But what if she doesn’t want to see me after that?” Hmm. Good point.

Melly and Kenny go for a romantic walk on the camp grounds (again?) and end up exploring a cave. While they’re doing a little big of making out (maybe some light boob groping?) Graydon (the Ginger bully) comes in and catches them. He missed the bus so Kenny and Melly reschedule their illicit make out session. Kenny runs into Tyler on his way out and Tyler warns him about Melly. Which is weird, because earlier that day, Melly warned Kenny about Tyler. Hmmm. Seems like there is some old animosity between these two? Old lovers perhaps?

The next night is the first of a few overnighters at camp. In good ol’ camp fashion, Kenny tells his campers a scary story, then goes to make out with Melly. (I ALWAYS pretended camp counselors/drama theater teacher/anyone older than me, had the secret and passionate love affairs when I was kid) When Kenny gets back to the campfire though, he discovers a (poisonous, of course) snake! He manages to wrangle it into an empty cage in the art room, with plans to release it the next day. Who the hell knows how the wrangle poisonous snakes?

Our disturbed friend Vincent decides to up his “creep” factor by pulling out some Tarot cards and offering to read them. When Kenny’s turn comes around, he predictably pulls three black skulls – meaning “instant death”. I’ll admit, I would hold my breath for a minute or two after getting those cards. Kenny does not in fact die immediately…but does something that will bring about trouble.

He takes Melly into the wood after the kids go to sleep and dumps her! Well he starts off by telling her that he has a girlfriend, and when Melly is all “So what?” (Ice cooold!) he breaks it off. She doesn’t believe him however. She says she’ll change his mind, which is…pretty ballsy! When Kenny climbs into bed after that weird encounter, he gets another uncomfortable surprise. The poisonous snake is in his bed! After going to put it back in the art and craft cage, he finds the three skull cards are on his pillow. Ohhh Vincent. When did you learn how to wrangle snakes?! Is this something they teach in summer camp?

Kenny’s morning doesn’t go much better. He tells Vincent that his “prank” was dangerous and gets the “I know. You could be dead” response from him. CREEPY. Later, when he’s relaxing down at the beach, Melly comes by to act crazy. Kenny is serious in his dumping and refuses to be charmed by her feminine wiles. Which prompts Melly to start STRATCHING her face and screaming that she’ll die if he doesn’t care for her. OKAYYYY.

For some reason, Kenny feels bad later in the day for being responsible for Melly’s lil freak out. Fair enough. So he decides to go and see her at her house. Ummm. No. Do not lead this crazy girl on anymore! I think this is the best part of the book: when Kenny knocks on the door and asks for Melly, he gets the “How could you ask for that? Melly’s been dead for 10 years!”

How many Fear Street books did that happen in!? Right off the bat, I remember this happened in Blind Date and The Dead Lifeguard. I want to know how many times this happens in real life.

Kenny tries to not stress about it too much. He gets bigger things on his plate the next morning too, when he gets SHOT THROUGH THE SHOULDER WITH AN ARROW. Omygoodness! Melly or Vincent? He’s totally fine though, and I actually forgot about this incident until I re-read it just now. That seems like it should be a bigger deal though. He doesn’t even go to the hospital.

The next night is another camp sleepover, and while Vincent acts creepy again – pulling three more skulls for Kenny, nothing major happens. The next day however… boy is this a doozy!

All the campers are going for a river canoe ride. Kenny quickly jump into a canoe with two faceless campers so he doesn’t have to spend the day with Vincent the creepy or Graydon the bully. This plan doesn’t work out as perfectly as he hopes however, since his canoe is soon tipped over by a renegade speedboat. Driven by none other than: VINCENT in his creepy balaclava! Vincent barrels down over Kenny a few times in a vain effort to kill him. Since he’s not a good driver, the boat slows down, giving Kenny time to climb aboard (a moving speedboat? Really?) Vincent doesn’t notice, and Kenny takes control of the boat AND rips off Vincents balaclava. Except: it wasn’t Vincent at all! It was Graydon!

Graydon confesses that he was jealous of all the attention Vincent got from Kenny (although Kenny was actively avoiding him) so he decided to kill Kenny. That’s a leap. Once Kenny gets Graydon to shore, the head camp counselor is all “Well, I guess that’s why he’s disturbed!” Say wha!? Apparently Graydon was the kid Kenny was supposed to look out for, not Vincent. Kenny just assumed Vincent was disturbed because he wore a mask, but really, he’s just a sad boy that was horrifically injured in an accident. Nice going, Kenny.

O but the fun isn’t over yet! Kenny heads back down to the beach to go catch up with the rest of the group. (I don’t know what happened to the other kids in Kenny’s boat. I assumed they died) While he’s drying off, Kenny sees a body floating face down in the river. It’s Melly! He takes one of the camps other speedboats and pulls her out of the river. How does she repay him? By wrapping her cold lifeless fingers around his neck!

Yes, Melly is ALSO trying to kill Kenny. Apparently she died the summer when Kenny and her were both campers (aged 9) at Shadyside Camp. She had a desperate crush on him. But it wasn’t Kenny’s fault that she died, it was some counselors that made her go canoeing when she didn’t to. Melly is super mad that Kenny both didn’t recognize her AND rejected her. To be fair to non-crazy Kenny, she admits she stole this body from a cemetery, so it might not look anything like her! She throws him over board and attempts to drown him. Thankfully, grumpy Tyler (the one with the broken hand) comes and rescues Kenny. But tell him: there was no one else in the water with him! Well DUH, she’s a ghost/zombie (!).

STILL NOT DONE. Ty leaves Kenny on the shore to dry off while he runs to get help. His drying off gets disturbed by nonother than: VINCENT! Third person who wants to kill Kenny! Vincent attempts to drag Kenny into the water and during the ensuing fight, Kenny rips off his balaclava. Apparently, Vincent was a disgusting rotting corpse the whole time! AND it’s actually the spirit of Melly INSIDE this little boy’s corpse. W.T.F.

Yes, Melly/Vincent the child-corpse attempt to seduce Kenny and even go so far as to KISS him. Dear lord, what has happened to the world? Even though R.L. describes the zombie as “Melly”, she never switched bodies. The body that kissed Kenny is still that of a little boy’s. REALLY, R.L.? Kenny finally puts an end to this mess by throwing the small childs body into the running motor of the speed boat, raining shreds of decaying flesh all over the riverbank. FAN-tastic.

Really, the climax of this book had to be the homo-erotic, child kiss. Like, shit is getting WEIRD in these Seniors books. I love it! One complaint though: again, no one died! How could THREE (well 2.5) separate characters want to kill Kenny and no one follow though? Disappointment! I give this Senior’s book: 45 moldy balaclavas out of 56. Not too shabby!

Seniors, Episode One: Let’s Party!, or “Marla Newman is a Bitch”

2010-01-10T08:04:00.000-08:00

Hey Fear Street fans! I am saddened to tell you that A. M. and I are down to our very last Fear Street series – Seniors. We will be blogging these over the next few weeks, and then we will be done. I know - it’s hard to believe we’ve come this far.

I have never read the Seniors series, but I always loved the concept of them. Following one class of cursed Shadyside High seniors through the year as they try to survive their graduation. Each book has a Yearbook at the beginning, with all the students favorite memories and quotes having stuff to do with their experiences in the books. Cute, right? Every time a student dies, they are blacked out with a big REST IN PEACE over their picture for the rest of the series.

Part 1

It’s the last day of junior year. Josh, who behaves for the most part like a total douche, runs out of class to meet his girlfriend, Debra, at the tennis courts. She’s found acting suspiciously like she’s making out with some other guy, Clark, but apparently she only had something in her eye. I’m sure …

Trisha Conrad walks towards them, when all of a sudden she stops, a look of horror on her face, and collapses. Trish is nice for the rich girl that she is, but she believes she can see the future in psychic visions. She has just seen the entire Shadyside class lying rotting in their coffins, killed off one by one. The senior class is doomed! Trish wants to cancel her major summertime fun party because of this. She had seen a few days ago a girl dead at her party, and doesn’t want it to actually happen. Josh and Debra convince her she has to have it.

Josh drops Debra off at home, then goes to his friend Mickey’s house. Matty is there as well – he’s the nerdy kid desperate to be popular, always hanging around and annoying them. Josh is in a bad mood, not happy with seeing Debra with Clark. Clark is kinda a weird kid, intense and pale. Everyone calls him Count Clarkula (like a vampire, get it?) And Debra’s lately been pale and listless, so clearly Clark is actually a vampire. Mickey gets all intense as Josh tells him this, asking if Josh believes in vampires, then bites his neck. Mickey thinks this is hilarious. I think it was kind of homoerotic.

John gets out of there. The guys laugh, saying he was scared, but he was probs just weirded out his best friend came on to him. He gets home, and gets a random call: Debra is mine. If you try to stop me, I’ll drain you.

Part 2

Josie, Josh’s stepsister, is freaking out because she was given a D in trig. She’s storming back to the school to give her teacher a piece of her mind. Josie is big into black – it kinda seems like she’s a classic goth girl straight out of the late 90s.

She gets to Mr. Torkelson’s classroom and asks him to reconsider her mark because she had the flu the day of her finals. He tells her Marla Newman had the flu too, and she ended up with a perfect score. Josie loses it and runs out. Her parents won’t let her buy a car unless she’s on the honour roll, so she’s pretty upset about the whole thing.

Josie meets up with two friends – Dierdre, who is the twin of the most popular girl in school and nowhere near as popular as her, and Jennifer FEAR. Yes! Finally a Fear living openly in Shadyside, this should be great. This little group of goths and misfits sound like they are kinda the geeky girls in school. Jen hates all the stories about the Fear family, saying she is nothing like that. But she seems to be Simon and Angelica’s granddaughter, and knowing them I wouldn’t want to spend lots of time with her either. She lives in a mansion near the old Fear mansion, which I think is another strike against her. Why would you live on a street names after your crazy murderous family?

The house is gloomy and old. It has its own chapel, which is super creepy, and a decrepit ballroom. The girls talk about having their prom there. I’m sure that will go well. The girls stumble into an old library filled with books on witchcraft and the dark arts. Yah right your not evil, JEN. Jen remains outside, pretending she has nothing to do with her family’s evil reputation.

Josie the goth is in heaven, finds a spell book called, ever so originally, The Spell Book. She opens it to find The Doom Spell, which curses people. They decide to try it on Mr. Torkelson. They light some candles and do some chanting, but are interrupted by Jen’s mom. The other girls leave, but Josie goes back to finish the spell, cursing both Mr. Torkelson and Marla Newton, that bitch. She hallucinates a cloaked skeleton who attacks her. Hmm, that’s probably not good.

Part 3

Josie catches a ride with Josh and Mickey to the mall – she needs a job since Marla Newman, that bitch, stole hers from her. Everyone’s at the mall. Marla comes up to Josie and is a megabitch to her, before prancing off. Josh and Mickey stumble onto … Debra and Clark, shopping together. Josh confronts them and Debra says she’s drawn to him. Josh isn’t okay with that, and I don’t really blame him. They have a big fight in the music store.

Josh drives home and gets another weird vampire call. This time the caller says he’s coming – and the doorbell rings. It’s Clark …

Part 4

… returning a sleeping bag. Lame, R. L.

Josie goes to school early next morning to help a friend with something. Mr. Torkelson is driving by her when he gets into a horrific accident, right in front of her, and is killed. Josie thinks she’s a murderer.

Josh is stood up by Debra. He goes to Clark’s house, just to see, and finds them making out inside. Josh is convinced Clark is a vampire controlling Debra’s mind. He breaks into Clark’s house later with Matty and Mickey, I’m assuming this is after Debra has left. In Clark’s room they find a black cape, books on vampires, and dirt in his bed. Ooh, kinky.

To the boys this is irrefutable proof of vampirism. Debra calls Josh that night, telling him she saw him spying on her and it wasn’t cool. Josh tries to tell her that cheating on him with a vampire isn’t cool. Debra tells him he’s an idiot and that it’s over.

Meanwhile Josie is having her own meltdown. She goes for an interview for a law office job. Yah, right, a law firm’s gonna want a high school student around, let alone a goth high school student. She hallucinates the cloaked skeleton again and runs away.

Part 5

The night of Trish’s party. Josh pulls up to her mansion and wanders out to her sweet backyard. He sees Mickey fighting with a red-haired girl. Trish is dancing with Gary Fresno, who you to go with Mary O’Connor, but I guess Mary didn’t get an invite to this party.

The red-haired girl comes over to Josh, introduces herself as Saralynn from Waynesbridge. She’s really pretty and Josh decides to use her to make Debra jealous. He goes to get her a beer. GASP! Underage drinking!!!

It starts to rain so everyone goes inside. Trisha announces they are going to play a murder game. Um, if you suspect someone is ACTUALLY going to be murdered at your party, isn’t it a little tacky to warm up by playing at murder first?

They all choose cards – suspects, victim, investigators. Marla is the victim. They have to make up a story about why she was killed, and the investigators guess. Mickey wanders in from outside, covered in blood. He claims he fell down.

Next thing you know, Marla Newman, that bitch, is actually dead. No one knows what happened – they left her in the dining room, and then she was dead. Josie tells everyone she killed her with the Doom Spell. Everyone thinks Josie is nuts.

They go to call the police, but the lines are dead. And nobody has their cell phone with them, how convenient. There is a mass stampede to leave out in the rain, but somebody’s locked the walled estate. They all herd back to find Marla’s body is gone. Mickey is the only person that is dry, so they assume he moved the body. A blood smear is found on a closet door, and inside is the body of Saralynn. Her throat had been slashed. This party is a little crazy for me. Mickey admits to killing them both because he’s out of control, and grabs Josie. Josh attacks him and they wrestle. Mickey leans in to … kiss him again. Mickey is totally in love with Josh, fyi. No, he actually only laughs in his face, but once again my gaydar is totally pinging about this guy. Anyways, Marla appears and Saralynn get up. It was all a joke, planned by Trisha.

She had had that vision – she just wanted to act it out first so maybe it wouldn’t come true. Just then Clark floats down the stairs dressed up as a vampire, with gleaming curled fangs. That had been a joke on Josh too – Clark was in on it. Josie is being made fun of for casting a spell on Marla and locks herself in the bathroom. It’s not a good night for these stepsiblings.

Josie comes out of the bathroom. The cloaked skeleton comes to the party and rips everyone apart. Bummer. Josie heads over to the Fear house to find a spell to make it better. She casts a spell to make it an hour earlier. She is pulled back to the bathroom at Trisha’s. So, she went back in time to save everyone, and this time the skeleton doesn’t come in to the party. Josie is either a mega-witch, or mega-unbalanced. All is well and good.

Josh finds some fake vampire teeth, that Clark used to dress up with. Only – the package was unopened. Those fangs were Clark’s real teeth! This isn’t over …

Okay, after reading several of R. L.’s less than stellar adult novels, I was SO happy to come back and read a Fear Street. These things are like candy, only awesomer. I love the concept that this will continue on throughout the year. I did not love the fact that no one actually died, it was all just elaborate set-ups or mentally unbalanced goths. Still, I had a lot of fun with this one, can’t wait to read the rest! 18 mysteriously unopened vampire teeth out of 20.

Eye Candy, or “Endless Stalking Leaves Readers With Better Things to Do With Their Time”

2010-01-03T14:18:00.000-08:00

As a New Years treat for R. L. fans, I have reviewed another one of his “adult” novels. All I can say is, you should all get down on your knees and thank me for reading this so that you don’t have to. You don’t even have to read the rest of this blog, I’m warning you right now, you will probably regret it.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Part 1

This “thriller” starts off with a man and a woman on a date, having met online. It’s from the guy’s perspective. His thoughts are pretty crude, thinking about what he wants to do with her, until he notices she has giant man hands, and that kills it for him. They go back to her place, where he strangles her, disappointed she wasn’t the perfect girl for him. So, your stereotypical sexist psychopath, awesome. He leaves, thinking he needs to find more women on that dating site …

So, this book is about the dangers of online dating? That is so early 2000.

Lindy, our “heroine,” is on a date of her own, bored to tears by her pretentious date Jack and the musical they were seeing about the U.S. Constitution. (Note: Is there in fact a musical about the U.S. Constitution. Because if so … I don’t want to see it.) She found this guy online, and she can’t stand him, but she’s still dating him and two other men from the same site. Because one of them is going to kill her if she doesn’t.

A little background about Lindy. She’s, like, the most beautiful woman in the world, and life was absolutely perfect until her beautiful cop boyfriend was killed in a car chase. Even though the love of her life died almost A YEAR AGO, Lindy STILL hasn’t gotten over it. Can you imagine?

Lindy lives with two girlfriends, Ann-Marie and Luisa, in an apartment in NYC. Lindy works in children’s publishing and her biggest problem is she is SO beautiful she intimidates guys (cue eye roll). Ann-Marie places a personals ad for Lindy on a dating site, and calls her “Eye Candy.” Lindy acts fake horrified, like: “Oh, that’s so arrogant, I’m not really that beautiful, am I?” but actually is probably flipping around her blonde hair and loving it.

Ann-Marie has a boyfriend, Lou, that she is obsessively in love with, even though he spends most of his time hitting on Lindy. Hmm, I see potential conflict there …

Killer guy is back, reading about his latest victim in the paper. He had cut off her man hands the night before, and is playing them like drumsticks on the table. Is it just me, or does grown up R. L. have a think for disembodied hands?

Lindy and the girls are making fun of the guys on the dating site. She finally finds a normal looking guy, Jack Smith. Also Colin O’Connor, a mortgage banker, and Brad Fisher, a journalist. She emails the three.

Her first date was with Brad. He was nervous and energetic, and took her to a sports bar so loud they couldn’t hear each other. When he said goodbye, he kissed her, a hard dry kiss so hard he cut her. Hawt! Also, he’s a bit of a sexist.

Then comes Jack of the deathly boredom. He lives free off his daddy’s back and is a marketer for Cat Chow. So, a total catch. She is ready to never speak to him again.

Lindy comes home from her date to find Lou and Ann-Marie stoned on the couch. Ann-Marie apparently was pretty neglected as a child, and has some issues because of this, but is doing realy good now. Lindy is happy Ann-Marie found Lou, but at the moment wishes he would stop perving on her tits.

Lindy has one more date, with Colin O’Connor at an Irish pub. She sees the guy alone in a booth and he nods to her. They have a short conversation in the din. He is pretty funny, but she quickly realizes he’s not actually Colin, but some guy named Shelly (ugh, what a horrible name!) She realizes her mistake and sees the real Colin. Shelly gives her his number before she leaves him.

Colin himself is handsome, and they go for Japanese food and have too much sake. Enough sake that Lindy goes back to his place for a magical night. Tsk tsk tsk, on the first date? She’s worried about him thinking of her as just a fling, but for the most part she’s incredibly happy. They make plans for the next afternoon.

They have a great lunch date the next day, and Lindy thinks she’s falling for him. Things get a little creepy as Lindy starts to feel she’s being followed, and when Colin pops into a store, Jack runs up to her. He asks her out again, and she has to decline as Colin comes out and takes her hand. Ooh, so awkward. Lindy and Colin go back to his place again and spend the rest of the day in bed. Quote I find most incongruous with R. L. ever: “Sex in the daytime with someone you barely know seems so much more decadent … and delicious … and … other adjectives.”

She gets home and Shelly calls her, having tracked her number down. Since she’s apparently feeling decadent from her afternoon delight with Colin, she agrees to go out with Shelly next weekend. Only then does she see she has a voice message: a raspy threat that if Lindy ever says no, she’ll be messed up. Only problem is Lindy has no idea which guy sent it.

Part 2

I know. We’re only at part 2 by now. I’m telling you, if want to stop reading now, I won’t blame you.

Ann-Marie wants Lindy to call the police, so Lindy called her dead boyfriend’s former partner, Tommy. Tommy stops by and gets the name of the online boyfriends but tells her not to worry, it’s probs just some random creep. Lindy swears off internet guys, except for maybe Colin of the decadent sex.

Crazy killer guy is back, out on another date. The woman looks like a horse but has a sexy voice so he’s willing to give her a go. Then he realizes she’s taller than him. Unacceptable. Jesus, this guy is like Seinfeld with the pickiness over the women, only, you know, probably crazier than Seinfeld. He doesn’t kill her, he runs away instead. Alright, then. That would suck if you were on a date, and he actually just physically ran away from you.

Lindy goes out with Shelly for the first time. He takes her into Central Park, and she starts to freak at being alone in there with him, but he was only going to the hot dog stand. For their first date. Kind of kitchy, but I’m not sure the absolute first impression you want to make is HOTDOGS. Just saying. Shelly is a writer, although he gets pissed when she wants to talk about it. Their talk gets serious really fast, and Lindy is feeling that Shelly is a little too intense. She takes him to a dance club. Shelly is a good dancer, but Lindy still feels there’s something disturbing about him.

As Lindy gets home later that night, she meets Lou on his way out. He grabs her and starts molesting her. He’s drunk and tells her he’s only with Ann-Marie to be close to her. She drags him downstairs and throws him in a cab, because he’s incapable of doing that himself.

Lindy is sickened, but can’t tell Ann-Marie because her fragile self-esteem couldn’t take it. She gets to her room, only to find her window open and all her underwear stolen. In place of lingerie is a note – if she doesn’t keep saying yes, he’ll kill her. Charming.

Part 3

Lindy freaks out, wakes up Ann-Marie. She thinks Lou is the culprit, but when she tells Ann-Marie about her boyfriend’s behaviour, Ann-Marie doesn’t take it well at all. Lindy has to apologize and recant her ass off to even get her to speak with her.

The only thing Lindy is really sure of is it couldn’t be Shelly, because he was with her all night. She speaks to Tommy, and they figured there were no muddy footprints even though it was raining outside. Could this have been an inside job?

Tommy says he’ll run profiles for all the guys, and advises Lindy to say no to all of them. So when Brad calls up for a date, she makes up a lame excuse because she’s not quite up to saying full out NO to someone who may have threatened to kill her. But when Colin asks her out, she just can’t say no. She also has a second date with Shelly, where he’s alternately funny and creepy disturbing. He also lies about his job, as an electronics salesman. So he still has a big question mark over his head.

Lindy gets home one night to find Ann-Marie dead on the carpet. Just kidding, gotcha, she was only attacked and unconscious. A man broke in wearing a stocking over his head, which is the creepiest thing ever, by the way. He beat her up, cut her arm with a box cutter, and told her to tell Lindy not to say no. Ann-Marie does remember he had a scratchy beard … just like Colin!

Part 4

Next thing you know, Lindy is out with Colin. Wtf, right? Apparently Tommy’s new strategy is to use her as bait, and her crazy will reveal himself. It always works in the movies! Lindy is miserable on her date, because she really liked Colin, but you know. Crazy. It wouldn’t have worked out. Colin really wants them to be together. When she says no, he asks her if she got his note. Dun dun DUN!

Well, of course he wasn’t talking about the crazy note. He had invited her to an office party is all. He goes outside to grab a cab, and by the time she gets out there, he’s gone. A hooded man runs after her with a box cutter, and she flees, immediately falling on her face. Someone grabs her, but it’s Tommy. No hooded man to be seen. Maybe Lindy is the crazy one.

Crazy killer guy is out on another date, but can only think of Lindy, who he was out with last night. He fucks the girl he’s with, but her hair grosses him out, so she has to die. He breaks her neck, then cuts off all her hair and mails it to someone in her address book.

Meanwhile, Lindy’s been out with all her men, and still Tommy hasn’t figured this out. Lindy’s out with Brad on Saturday night, they’re hanging out on some pier, when someone pushes her into the river. Eww! She’s fished out, and Brad said she was pushed by a hooded man. But is he telling the truth. She gets the police to drive her home, then calls Shelly and invites him over for wine. She has decided to confide in Shelly, telling him everything, because she trusts him. Bad move, because on the other end of the line, Shelly hangs up and reveals himself to be crazy killer guy, on his way over to Lindy’s.

Part 5

Next scene, Lindy is … not dead, but on her way to the Hamptons with Luisa, Ann-Marie and Lou. The group has a picnic on the beach, which turns into a beach party. Lindy goes to the house to grab a sweatshirt and is once again accosted by Lou. They are interrupted by Ann-Marie, but it’s likely she saw what a swell guy her boyfriend is.

Shelly, aka crazy killer guy, takes another girl out, and is grossed out by the way she eats popcorn. So he invites he back to his place and strangles her. Okay, how is Shelly getting all these women to put out on the first date? Anyways, he disposes of the girl in the back alley, then glances up to see Lindy running away after seeing him. She’ll have to die now too.

Next weekend, Lindy is once again in the Hamptons with Luisa and Ann-Marie, minus Lou. Ann-Marie finally figured out what a bad loser he was and let him go. Brad calls Lindy, telling her he’s in the Hamptons too and needs to tell her something important. She reluctantly goes for a walk with him on a deserted beach (Lindy really has issues with self-preservation), and he starts to get really distressed. Brad tells her … he’s going back to his old girlfriend.

Shelly decides to kill Lindy on Monday night. He calls and invites himself over. She’s alone, and he strangles her, watching her pretty face go purple. Once she’s dead, he leaves whistling.

Part 6

Luisa gets home wonders where everyone is. She finds Lindy sprawled on her bed and starts shaking her. Lindy wakes up, having passed out after work. She’s been feeling sick, but wanted some fresh air, so she walks over to Shelly’s place. She goes to his apartment, and finds the door open so walks right on in. The apartment seems empty, only it is full of body parts – hands, heads, hair, little bits and pieces. There is a poster-sized picture of Lindy painted in blood on the wall.

Shelly walks in, and is pleasantly surprised to see her. There is no comment about the sheer craziness surrounding them. Lindy edges out and calls Tommy, telling him she knows the murderer’s identity.

Shelly confesses to killing six women. Only, they’re all still alive. Shelly is a sick delusional puppy, and has been writing short stories about murdering the women he goes out with. A harmless psychopath. Awesomely, Tommy describes the writing of Shelly as “not even that well written.” Awesome because all of Tommy’s writing is written BY R. L., in the style of R. L. Did R. L. just make a dig at himself? Love him so much. Shelly is locked up in an asylum, case closed.

Lindy is so happy she can now be with Colin. She goes to him office party at the Met (which would be so cool!), where Colin is all stressy about something. He claims he’s not good at parties.

Lindy gets turned around on her way to the ladies’, and finds herself in the Egyptian wing. She hears footsteps behind her, then the raspy voice telling her she’s going to be fucked up. Our idiotic heroine once again falls over at the sign of any trouble and hits her head. When she finally looks up, Colin is hovering over her, all concern. Lindy runs away.

She goes to the Hamptons with Ann-Marie that weekend. They go to a party, and when they get back all of Lindy’s clothes are gone. As she screams, Ann-Marie grabs her arm and pulls her outside towards the ocean. It takes Lindy FOREVER to figure out is was Ann-Marie making all the threats. Us Fear Street experts had this one figured out from the beginning, right? It was always poor unstable Ann-Marie, who could never deal with her devastatingly beautiful friend, that her boyfriend was in love with, who always got the guy. So Lindy had to suffer. Lindy falls under the waves, but is rescued by … Shelly? He had escaped from Bellevue, and was now strangling Ann-Marie. Lindy stops him before he can kill her, and this is one of the most ridiculous endings I have ever read.

Lindy and Colin live happily ever after.

Seriously, What. The. Fuck. That was terrible. The book was nearly impossible to wade through, the plot was infantile, and the ending was ridiculous. There were no actual deaths at all, they were all imaginary. And the issues that are heroine had to deal with, these are not realistic issues. R. L., you are awesome, but if you’re going to write something else, please please stick to young adult. I give this book two fantastically unrealistic endings out of 89, and I’m sorry to everyone who read this far.

Superstition Part Deux, or "Most Badass Campus Cop is Given a Minor Role"

2009-12-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

Alright, here is the second posting of Superstitious, ooh so excited to see how it ends! Scroll down to catch up on the first posting if you missed it, or click here.

Part 4

Liam proposes to Sara, and wants them to get married immediately. She gets him to wait a few weeks, until Thanksgiving, so her family can be there. Margaret comes by the next day to congratulate her. Margaret is looking younger, and gorgeous, and Sara wonders how she hadn’t noticed before. Marg tells her she’ll try to stay out of her way once the baby arrived, then leaves quickly. Sara’s all, whatever, but I’d be a little more concerned how involved my sister-in-law was in her brother’s sex life and potential children.

Sara is in heaven, so she doesn’t really notice anything. Until, she’s walking home one night, and hears footsteps behind her. She runs, but something grabs her. It’s … Chip, her ex and former stalker, also would-be drowner. If I was Sara, I’d keep on running. Chip insists that she come back to him, and grabs her.

Another murder has happened. The victim is Devra Brookes, a professor in the college who also knew Liam from his days at Chicago, where he lived before Freewood. She may or may not have been fucking him. Regardless, she didn’t survive the acquaintance. Her eyeball was ripped out and stuffed in her mouth. Ick. So, all three victims were women connected to Liam O’Connor, and all were to varying degrees sexually promiscuous. What could this mean? Devra’s body has fingerprints on her, but they are not human fingerprints.

The college is aroar about the murders, but Sara can’t think much beyond her upcoming nuptials. And then, about the four bloody rabbit feet that were sent her in the mail. For luck? Oh ya, and Liam owns a rabbit, or did own a rabbit. Interestingly enough, his rabbit had to be put down that very day. Because she no longer had feet, maybe?

Sara and Liam fly off to Indiana for him to meet her mother. Sara’s father passed away a few years ago, otherwise I’d assume that her dad might have something to say about the very-quick engagement. Her mother, brother and sister in law are all nice and warm, and Liam is his charming self. That is, until the black cat jumps on his lap, and he freezes in horror. Guess the cat broke a superstition. That night, something rips the head off the cat. Hmmm.

The day of the wedding, Liam is getting ready, making sure every superstition is followed. The event is happening at Milton’s estate in the woods, outside on a cold snowy day. Milton was very generous to offer his house, but is probably still angling to somehow screw Sara. As Liam dresses, his brown eyes turn blue, and he freaks. A purple forked tongue falls out of his mouth, and he barely gets it back in in time for Milton to miss it.

Part 5

The wedding goes off without a hitch. Everything is beautiful and perfect in the sunlit snow. The newlyweds try to leave the party for the honeymoon, a weekend out in the country, but there are so many well-wishers that Milton sneaks them out the back, after propositioning Sara again. Liam freaks because they didn’t leave the same way they came in, and makes them go back in and leave again.

At the inn they’re staying at, they make love in the light of 16 white candles as Liam chants. Nothing gets me in the mood like some sexy chanting. He tells Sara he wants to have a baby, and she tells him she wants what he wants. Ya, that’s healthy.

A witness comes forward to the police, tells them he heard a scream the night of the latest murder, and saw someone in a monster costume with glowing eyes and long teeth. I wonder if it had a purple forked tongue?

Sara and Liam’s marriage starts off rocky, largely because of all his superstitions that Sara has to follow now, which would be irritating, and the fact that his sister is living with them, always hovering over them. One night, Chip accosts the three of them, drunk, telling Sara Liam is too old for her, and he knows the REAL reason Liam had to leave Chicago.

Liam finally explains to Sara that he had to leave Chicago because a woman he had an affair became obsessed with him and had to be hospitalized. There are a lot of obsessive stalkers in this book. Sara suspects this woman of threatening her about Liam.

Milton has a dinner for them at the local pub. Liam breaks a superstition by taking soap from another person and starts to turn into a monster, but he gets a hand on it. Chip, meanwhile is lurking outside the pub, drunk once again, trying to get up the courage to go in there and tell Sara Liam’s secret. That is, until he is attacked and slashed apart.

Garrett is upset that his police force is being replaced by the Feds, but thinks it’s probably justified. He thinks something different killed Chip because he was slashed apart with a weapon, not ripped apart by something with inhuman fingerprints. He’s going house to house questioning people. He speaks to Liam, and discovers that Liam knew all four victims. Coincidence? Garrett doesn’t think so, but doesn’t know how the sensitive professor could rip people apart with super strength. Liam becomes the number one suspect.

Sara gets a call from a woman named Kristen, who claims that she used to be with Liam, and she had to warn Sara. Sara thinks she’s just jealous that she ended up with her hunk of a man.

Garrett questions Milton about Liam, who of course thinks the allegations are ridiculous of course, but just in case he checks with the dean of Liam’s former school in Chicago. Apparently, there were gruesome murders there too, and Liam knew all three victims. Milton freaks out, because knowing seven of the seven victims was just too much of a coincidence. He goes out to warn Sara.

Sara meanwhile has done some “accidental” snooping and discovers a pictures of a sexy woman in Liam’s desk. On the back is written “Love Kristen”. She confronts Liam with this, but he charms her as always, telling her it was Margaret’s picture. He then gives her a present of a human hand, and they make love in candlelight next to the hand. Okay, what the fuck? How delightful, I’ve always wanted my own disembodied human hand? Honey, you shouldn’t have, take me now. I can’t see this actually ever happening.

Garrett is still doing house to house work. He is attacked by a creature that bites his ear off. Garrett punches into the creatures mouth and rips out its throat. Okay, Garrett is bad ass.

Sara inspects her new human hand, which supposedly belonged to a mannequin. But she finds in fact it used to belong to Chip. Okay, honey, time to get out of this relationship.

Part 6

Sara goes to MB, freaking out, and tells her about Kristen. MB tells her that Kristen is the name of a woman who had just been found butchered. Sara irrationally wants to talk this one out with Liam. Surely her friend will convince her that going to discuss her husband’s murdering ways with said husband is a bad idea. Unfortunately, MB has a flight to catch, so she LEAVES Sara. Like, what kind of friend is that. Who does that? Sorry, you’ll have to deal with your impending murder on your own. And Sara is just plain retarded.

Sara goes home to find Liam in bed with Margaret, his sister. Things just keep getting bad to worse. An incestuous murderous husband is such an inconvenient thing to have around. She breaks the mirror in the bedroom (seven years bad luck …) and runs into the cold. She realizes soon enough that she’ll have to go back for her wallet, etc. So she goes back, to find the house empty. Well, almost empty. She does find Margaret’s corpse, still naked, impaled on the shower nozzle. Ugh, what a way to go.

Sara runs, goes to Milton’s house because she still has his inappropriate house key. Liam is already there, unfortunately, and Milton did not make it, is torn open. Liam attacks her, then holds her down to “explain” everything.

Margaret was always his wife, not a sister but the neighbour girl from Ireland. They ran away to America to escape Liam’s curse. They needed to have a child, but he didn’t want to do that to Margaret, because he loved her. Apparently, Liam is cursed by all the demons of superstition, that are released when superstitions are broken around him. The demons would be passed on to a child of his if the child was born in wedlock, so he had to get another wife preggers. Apparently bigamy is allowed. Liam had actually tried to warn Sara away, he was the one who made the threatening calls. Of course, he didn’t actually stop himself from marrying her and trying to impregnate her, so I'm still not seeing him as a stand-up guy in this one.

When others started to ruin the plan, Margaret stepped in. She was the one who killed Chip and Kristen, which is why they were slashed and not ripped apart. Liam believes that Margaret and Milton were killed by demons released when Sara broke the mirror, so this really was her fault. Sara breaks all the mirrors around them to prove him wrong.

Bad news. A demon that looks like runny eggs with two tongues crawls out of Liam’s mouth and attacks her. Liam pulls the demon off her and the demon breaks his back, killing him. All the demons pour out of his mouth and chase her. Sara runs outside, falls and hits her head, proving she is entirely useless as a heroine.

Sara wakes up in the hospital. She survived the demon attack for no apparent reason! A smiling nurse tells her not to worry, because not only was she alright, but so was the baby! Sara screams.

Good start, but poor finish, R. L. I mean why did Sara survive? The having people go unconscious is the oldest trick in the book, and it is just plain lazy. And this whole monster crawling out of mouth thing was a bit lame. I wanted to know more about Garrett, who was by far the coolest person in the whole book. What happened to him after he punched out the monster's throat. Superstition might have been marginally better than your average Fear Street, but loses points for being so effing long, meaning I couldn’t read the whole damn thing in an hour. 30 runny egg monsters out of 43.

Superstition, or “Don’t Have Sex with Superstition-Addled Professors”

2009-12-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

Okay, Fear Street fans, it's been, ahem, awhile since I've posted. Oops! To make it up to you, I have reviewed the longest R. L. book, like, ever. This is his very adult novel, Superstitious. I had to break this blog up because it is the longest blog ever, and I don't want you guys to get bored, or read this so long that your boss discovers what you're up to and you get in trouble at work. This would be not good. So here is Superstitious, part one:

Charlotte wakes up in bed next to a repulsive one-night stand again, trying not to feel disgusted with herself. It’s hard to not feel disgusted for her when her charming gent clearly has a wedding band mark and asks for a blowjob on her way out. Delightful. Charlotte gives herself a pep talk as she walks home. She just got a new job as secretary for the mysteriously handsome Irish professor Liam O’Connor, connoisseur of Old World legends and superstitions. Charlotte starts to cheer up, until something grabs her in the dark, rips her scalp off, rips her eyes out and breaks her spine in two.

And just like that does Superstition start. This book, Stine fans, is a holy hell of an adult novel, if that intro has anything to say for it. Blowjobs? I feel a little dirty reading this, and totally cannot wait for the rest of it. Superstitious is supposed to be the most scariest of all R. L. works, so lets see what he has in store for us, shall we?

Part 1

Sara is enjoying herself at a bar with her friend Mary Beth. Sara and MB were old college chums, and now are back together again at Moore State college (in the fictional town of Freewood, Pennsylvania) – this time MB is working there as media director, and Sara is working on her graduate degree in psychology.

The girls are just catching up when Sara is sprayed by salt, thrown over the shoulder of the man behind her. He is immediately all apologies, charm and flirt as he introduces himself as Liam O’Connor. MB already knows him, as it is a very small college. Liam is eating with his sister Margaret, and Milton, the Dean of Students. Milton immediately offers Sara a part-time job, which was only partly fortuitous because it is clear that Milton is a big fat pervert, deliberately pawing all over Sara and staring at her tits. (tee hee, R. L. said tits!) The only question on Sara’s mind was whether Liam is single and straight?

Garrett is getting ready for the late-night shift as cop in the campus town of Freewood, where not very much ever happens. He’s a loving husband and doting father to his one-year-old son, but he can’t quite stop thinking that he should be making more of himself for his wife, Angel. He leaves his home just as two students running home to their dorm find the gruesome mangled corpse of Charlotte.

Margaret is in their house, watching two girls running by their window, thinking that they’re not late enough to miss their curfew and aren’t curfews in modern college dorms ridiculous anyways. Liam is ranting about a superstition, something that never seems to get tiresome for him, when they get a knock on the door. It’s Andrea, the slutty single landlady, who stopped by to see if she could fuck Liam, but obstensibly to see how they were settling in. Margaret sends her on her way as Liam admits to being attracted to her cougarly ways, but nothing will happen because he’s in love with Sara. Hmm, that happened fast. They agree that she will “do nicely”, and both knock on wood three times.

Part 2

The rather incompetent campus police, lead by Garrett, try to deal with Charlotte’s murder, which mainly involves asking each other what they should be doing, and vomiting. Ooh, apparently she was disemboweled too. The quiet town of Freewood is all abuzz over the horrific murder, which three days later STILL hadn’t been solved.

Sara and MB are sitting around gossiping, when Sara decides to reveal happened to her since she last left the college. Up to this point, we’ve only heard that she was living in New York City, and MB saved her life.

While in NY, she was dating spoiled rich beautiful all-American boy Chip, while barely scraping by as an editorial assistant in a publishing company. He takes her to the Hamptons for the weekend, where she realizes she doesn’t love him, largely because he’s such a spoiled little rich boy. They do make love next to the ocean, with the waves euphemistically spraying nearby. Chip proposes and she says no, so of course he tries to drown her.

Charming! This is just like a Fear Street man, of course he would try to drown her. Also, he has dry lips. And, just like any awesome boy from a Fear Street book, he starts to stalk Sara. Sara is laid off from her job when her old college chum MB calls her, just at the right time. MB pulls some strings and gets her into the graduate program and “saves her life.”

Now Sara is getting into college life. She gets her job with Milton, and is kinda grossed out by him. He’s huge, but it’s actually not fat, but muscle. He’s like a big wrestler dean of students. He also obsessively works out in his office. Note: there is nothing sexier than hearing some guy grunting in his office. He also is the proud owner of an extensive knife collection. On the up side, Liam asks her out, so Sara finally feels things are going her way.

Andrea, cougar extraordinaire, heads over to Liam’s one night, done up like a harlot and high on coke, hoping to get lucky. Instead, Liam reads her a fairy tale about money. This guy sure knows how to have a good time, let me tell you. The two of them are interrupted by Margaret just as Andrea jumps him. Andrea goes home frustrated, with a headache and a blue box. (Is there such thing as blue box – like the female version of blue balls? Whatever it is, Andrea has it.)

Milton has a party at his estate. He creepily lives out in the middle of the woods, where he can polish his weapons in private. We see all this from Milton’s perspective, and learn just what a pervert he actually is. He graphically imagines what he would like to do with each woman he sees, and reflects on his masturbation habits. Polishing his weapon – get it? Liam and Sara are at the party, and he asks her to go to dinner. Then he absolutely freaks out because someone has left his hat on the bed. Sara thinks it’s cute how into superstitions he is. I think it would get old, like, real fast.

Flash to Andrea, cougar slash landlady, who is walking home bitter after showing a home to a potential buyer, when a large creature grabs her in the dark, and peels off all her skin while she’s still alive. She is also gutted. These are some pretty graphic murders.

Part 3

Sara gets a threatening call, telling her to stay away from Liam. She figures it must be a female admirer of Liam, and chooses to ignore the warning. Sara thinks the dinner with Liam went well, but she is starting to get unsettled by his obsession with superstitions. Thank god for that. One superstition was that they had to pour their tea together, his hand over hers. Hardly harmful, but I would get irritated by that all the time.

As Sara is getting ready for bed, Milton shows up late at her door, saying he was out jogging in the middle of the night. This guy has got to stop working out! He’s bleeding from a cut on his hand, apparently he didn’t notice getting cut in the first place. He gives her some office keys because he’s leaving unexpectedly for Atlanta. He also gives her his house key, in case, you know, she wants to come by and “surprise” him sometime. Sara can’t imagine anything she’d rather do less.

Awake after that little interlude, Sara looks up some superstitions. She discovers the pouring the tea together custom was for that a child would be born between the couple. Liam wants to knock her up? Sara is actually pretty stoked about this – I mean, he MUST like me if he wants me to be his baby mama, right?

Liam and Margaret are talking at their house. Liam is in a foul mood and Margaret reminds him he needs to focus on the Sara project. Ooh, nothing is sexier than being referred to as a project. They see a news clip about Andrea and Liam gets inappropriately upset. Margaret keeps on repeating “what’s done is done.” What an odd sibling pair.

Liam shows up at Sara’s door with flowers for their dinner date. They have a great time, and he charms the pants off of her, literally. They make sweet sweet love together. Thankfully, R. L. is never TOO graphic about these scenes, but it still makes me giggle to think about him writing about Liam moving inside Sara, and releasing suddenly. Hah. There should be way more sex in Fear Street novels. Once he’s done, Liam leaves, which makes Sara harrumph a bit, because she could have used more cuddling. She then gets another threatening phone call to stay away from Liam if she didn’t want to die.

Flashback to Liam growing up in Ireland. Life was hard when he was ten, as he and Margaret ran across the countryside. He had just lost his mother, and the soil in their farm had run out of luck. His father was a stern man, but a wonderful story-teller, and knew all the superstitions, ever. There is a horrific murder in town. His father grimly brings Liam to the scene of the crime and tells him it was his fault.

Darkest Dawn or "Seriously Jamie? Put On Your Logic Hat. COMMON"

2009-12-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

Finally, the conclusion to what I believe is the LAST R.L. trilogy we had to review! Craziness, I know. Darkest Dawn was filled with some completely insane plot twists…and some plot twists that were incredibly easy to figure out. I wasn’t sure if the murderer was supposed to be a surprise or not. I wasn’t surprised. Maybe young children would have been? Pssshhh my university education completely prepared me for reading between the lines of R.L. books.

The book cover again, is nothing special, just has that annoying shiny factor. But the girls on the front are totally drinking RyePops! Ooooh, scandalous!

The intro of the book starts with “someone” creepily peering at Dana Fear and Jamie while they get ready for the Valentine’s Day dance. They talk about how geeky going to the dance is (Were high school dances geeky? At my school, they were the opportunity to get drunk, and slobber all over the cute boy from Math class. They usually got cancelled after the Christmas dance because of all the puke in the halls. Classy.) The creepster who’s watching the girls decides to sprinkle a little magic on their evening – in the form of maggots in their hair. We “discover” that the person watching them isn’t a person at all. It’s the one-eyed blackbird who grabbed the pendant at the end of the last book! It gave him a lot of power apparently. And now he plans to kill them one by one for looting his home on Fear Street. Gee. I wonder who it could be inside the bird’s body. (P.S. It’s never a good sign when the main antagonist of the book could be easily killed by a pellet gun.)

Part One
Jamie and her friends (boyfriend Lewis, Shark, Dana, her boyfriend Clark) are hanging out in Lewis’ new house. Jamie catches the reader up on what happened in the last two books: murders most deadly AND the fact she was unknowingly possessed for about a year by Angelica Fear. Jamie also thinks about how there’s been a wall between her and Lewis. He’s been different ever since that night they both fell into the pit with the two skeletons and she got possessed by Angelica but he was fine. :| Riiight.

Jamie is still a little bit paranoid about Angelica Fear though (understandably). She keeps seeing her everywhere she goes! Lewis convinces her that the only way to be SURE that Angelica is gone, is to try a spell out of her spellbook. This seems like a poor plan. But Jamie goes for it, and when nothing happens, she’s convinced that Angelica isn’t really around anymore. I don’t really understand the logic behind this whole situation, but okay, whatever, good for Jamie. Moving on is good. Except that while no one else is looking, the book’s letters spell out “THE EVIL LIVES”. Dun dun dunnnnn!

Part Two
Dana and Jamie are getting excited about a big pep-rally/bon fire for Dana’s boyfriend and the basketball team. Dana is less stoked about Nate, who she kinda dated last year, but things took a sour turn when he thought she murdered his girlfriend. They all go out to Nights that evening, which we all know by now, is the one bar in town. And only teenagers go there. Prrrretty cool!

So all the teens get smashed at the bar, and decided to steal a few bikes and race them down the street. This part is pretty pointless, but Dana’s boyfriend Clark crashes his bike and Jamie thinks he’s dead. He’s not, but someone called the cops so they all skatter. (seriously, that was like 6 chapters)

Jamie is on her way home, by herself, when she sees the one-eyed blackbird. Where is your slingshot when you need it!? She is of course uber afraid, even though it doesn’t attack her. Just kinda watches her. Like what normal birds do.

The next day, Jamie and Dana go to the Flea Market (in the school parking lot? Okay.) to take their minds off the crazy blackbird that Jamie thinks is following her. Jamie finds a bracelet however, that looks exactly like Angelica’s amulet! So not really taking her mind off anything. The bracelet is way out of her price range though, so she can’t get it. Uhhhh, WHY would she want to in the first place? Does this girl have a death wish? “Hey that looks JUST LIKE my old evil amulet! How much!?”

She doesn’t have to worry about the price for too long though, because Lewis steals it for her. Hmm, if my boyfriend stole me a piece of evil jewelry, I would assume it’s because he also wanted me dead. I’d be watching my back.

Dana convinces Jamie that she needs to come watch Clark’s last practice in the gym before the team goes to Finals or State or whatever. Jamie is kinda confused, because she totally busted Dana making out with Nate the night before! Hooch! Jamie goes anyways, and Dana is busy trying to be an awesome girlfriend to make up for the fact that she’s a shitty one.

During the game, Jamie starts to feel all dizzy and lightheaded. She thinks she’s sick, (I think possession!) so she starts to go down to the washrooms. And just in a nick of time because the bleachers everyone is sitting on start to collapse! Mostly everyone jumps off in time…except for Shark’s girlfriend Nikki. Her face got smushed by the metal benches. That is…quite the way to go. At least you know your friends will NEVER FORGET that sight!

Part Three
After Nikki’s funeral, Jamie and Dana sit down to put all the pieces together. Even though Nikki didn’t go to Shadyside High, she was still killed. “OMG!” gasps Dana! She just remembered that Angelica TOLD HER WHY SHE WAS KILLING PEOPLE. Seriously? Dana FORGOT that kind of info? Angelica is killing the people who stole shiz from the Fear Mansion. They realize that they are all (except Dana, lucky bitch) in grave danger.

Jamie needs something to take her mind off of Angelica that night, so she sneaks out in the middle of the night to find Lewis. As she makes her way to Nights, on Fear Street, she gets a little confused. She’s ON Fear Street… but the mall isn’t there anymore. Instead, the Fear Street Mansion is BACK.

What? Yeah, I don’t know either. Jamie gets magically pulled into it and stumbles around in the dark. After endless chapters of her being freaked out and not knowing whats going on, she runs into: SIMON FEAR. But what is he doing there? Only Angelica escaped their grave, right? :|

Jamie somehow just runs out of the house at that moment. Lame spell, Simon. She goes to get Lewis and bring him back to the Fear Street Mansion. Of course, by the time they get there, everything is back to normal. Did Jamie not realize it was a spell? Simon Fear didn’t really tear down a mall, and rebuild his house in an evening. She knows that, …right?

Part Four

Jamie, Lewis, Shark, Dana, Nate, Aaron and Galen all go to this fantastic pep rally/bonfire extravaganza that Dana has been so pumped about it. Field + Fire + Teenagers + Booze? Sounds like every party I went to in high school. We just didn’t cheer. Apparently the bon fire, which hasn’t been lit yet, is made of 30 feet of hay. This seems like a bad idea. And it is!

As soon as the hay lights on fire, the whole bonfire collapses. Right onto a bunch of cheerleaders. Jamie and Dana get separated from the rest of their friends, and can’t find Lewis or Clark. (Haha! Historical reference!) They find Lewis first, who said he was helping the burning cheerleaders. Shark and Clark come running up, so they just need to find Nate, Aaron and Galen. They only find Aaron and Galen though…they’re shoved onto huge poles and stuff with straw like scarecrows. Again, you’re friends will never forget you! No matter how hard they try…

BTW: these were really secondary characters. Like, I guess they were mentioned when all the friends would get together, and Galen was the kid that lost his lips in the first book, but I don’t understand why Clark or Nate wouldn’t have been killed. It’s not like R.L. to shy away from killing main characters. Weird.

Jamie decides that since she is the only one who knows everything about these murders, then she is the only one who can stop them. She grabs her bracelet amulet and heads down to Fear Street at 4 am, chanting “Return, return”. She is apparently talking to the house.

The house is there when she arrives… as is Lewis. She’s all “What are you doing here, lover?” REALLY? You don’t get it yet, Jamie? Maybe it was a good thing you were held back a year. Lewis brings her to a back room where Dana, Shark and Nate are already gathered. He keeps on saying cryptic things like “Jamie will show you the way… OUT” and she’s still not getting it. She FINALLY understand when she sees that Lewis’ eyes are pale and silvery, instead of normal eyes. “YOU’RE SIMON FEAR!” Well no shit, Jamie. Common now!

Simon/Lewis tell Jamie she’s going to kill them all because they stole from him. Dana argues (don’t draw attention to yourself) that she wasn’t even there! Simon counters with a YEAH but you killed Angelica last year. Touche!

Jamie tries out the plan she had all along. She grabs her bracelet amulet and tries to recite a spell she learned from the book. Of course, since she’s not magic, nothing happens except Simon laughs in her face. Ooo, awkward. Simon then gives her the original amulet and tells her to kill her friends!

Of course, now that she has the real amulet, she actually is magic. Simon starts to leave Lewis’ body through a green gas… but that gas is pouring into the blackbird! Quickly Jamie recites the only other spell she knows and POOF! The blackbird explodes.

Seriously. Pellet gun. Probably could have ended this a lot sooner.

After the blackbird/Simon Fear has exploded, the Fear Mansion disappeared, and everyone but Jamie loses their memory. But they’re cool with not remembering, because they’re at the door of Nights! Hooray for teen alcoholism!

The End

Not the best trilogy (How could you top the 99 Fear Street series when it has ZOMBIES) but still pretty rad. Also, there was teen drinking, and sexual innuendos galore! And while I often wanted to shake Jamie so she would FRIGGEN UNDERSTAND, she wasn’t the worst heroine. I give Darkest Dawn 16 easily-killed one-eyed blackbirds out of 23.

P.S. I have good news for Shadyside lovers… after a THREE month hiatus (shame!) L.K. Stine has promised me she’s going to blog this week. So make sure to shame her into this, okay? GREAT!

Midnight Games or "Team Ada!"

2009-11-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

The second book in this trilogy is actually a little better than the first. Which is unusual, I usually feel like the second anything in a trilogy is the weakest. For example: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom? No thanks! The Empire Strikes Back? Snore. … Those are really the only two I can think of, but you get my drift.

But this Midnight Games… well it was full of gruesome and increasingly odd murders. This always equals AWESOME. These covers aren’t very interesting, though. They aren’t hilarious paintings, which is lame. And they have some weird shiny purple stuff all over it. I prefer my R.L. to be classic, but maybe that’s just me?

The book starts off from Nate’s point of view. He’s haunted by the thought that Cindy died, and she wasn’t even evil. (She was kind of a bitch though) To escape his terrifying nightmares, he goes to Nights, the new Fear Street bar. Where they only cater to minors apparently. On his walk over to the bar he gets attacked! Which sounds awful, but then we find out that he’s being attacked by a bird. With one-eye. Really? A pre-injured bird? It scratches up his face (a minor annoyance) and he races out of the woods…only once he gets out, he can’t remember what happened to him in there! He knows he was scared, and now his face is bloody, but he can’t quite remember… Personally, I blame all the underage drinking.

When he gets to Nights, he sees all his friends: Shark, Lewis, Jamie and his new girlfriend Ada! They ask what happened to his face, and he tells them he fell in the woods. Wouldn’t you assume you had some sort of concussion? I know weird things happen in Shadyside but cut head+lack of memory usually = concussion. Go to the hospital! Nate freaks his friends out even more when he sees the one-eyed bird appear at the door of the bar. He, of course, screams bloody murder even though he’s not sure exactly what he’s afraid of. It turns out it was a girl who walked into the bar, not a bird. The girl makes a beeline to their table and Jamie introduces her cousin…Dana FEAR! Dun dun dunnnnnn!

Part Two of the book is told through Dana’s eyes. She had to come live with Jamie after her mom died and her Dad didn’t want to take care of her. Needless to say, she’s a little bitter. Dana is ultra nervous about starting at a new school, so Jamie throws her a welcoming party so she can meet all of her friends. Dana has an insta-crush on Nate because he reminds her of her old boyfriend Dustin. When she hears that Nate is dating Ada, she decides she probably isn’t going to like her. Uhh…more like she isn’t going to like you, homewrecker!

The party basically consists of the Shadyside kids being creeped about because Dana is a Fear. That sounds… unfun. Dana and Nate bond alone, but he creeps HER out by asking way too personal info about her Fear family. And guess what? Ada sees them together outside, and shocking doesn’t like Dana! Things take a turn for the weird though, when Ada falls down a flight of stairs … and Dana’s at the top. Ada says that Dana pushed her but Dana conveniently can’t remember a thing!

The next few days/weeks are rough on Dana because she starting at a new school. And because a bunch of kids think she tried to kill Ada. It gets even more awkward when Dana tries out for chorus (which Ada and her bitchy friend Whitney are in) and it’s revealed that all three of them are trying out for a singing scholarship. After her tryout, Dana runs into Nate. Even though he hasn’t talked to her since Dana may have/may have not tried to kill his girlfriend, he asks her out to a skating party on Saturday. Dana says yes but asks about Ada. Nate charmingly says that Ada “doesn’t own him”. He cheats on his own accord! Dana tries to tell Jamie her good news but Jamie is busy in her personal pottery studio in the backyard garage. Jamie is super squirrelly about the studio and won’t let anyone in. As in when Dana tries to get in, Jamie gets enraged. Hmmm. Not normal.

Dana meets up with Nate and the boys at Nights again, and her and Nate are super flirty. Ada happens to walk in at an inopportune time; just as Nate is kissing Dana on the cheek! She proceeds to ream him out in front of the bar and Dana wonders what she will EVER do about Ada? Except you’re kinda the villain in this story, darling. New in town, trying to take her boyfriend AND her scholarship? I am totally Team Ada. I might even have a shirt made up like that!

Saturday arrives and Dana is late to the skating party. Nate and her take off for some skating/makeoutage across the lake but Jamie interrupts them to tell them that Ada arrived and is PISSED. Nate (again, what a gentleman!) tells her that he doesn’t need this and takes off. Unfortunately for Dana, she’s a shit skater and she gets taken down by Ada in a mad rage. Dana is getting choked by Ada and feels all woozy and blurry…

She gets woken up on the ice by Jamie, who comes back because she heard screams. They discover Ada’s body nearby…with a skate driven in her skull. BLERG. Dana again has to admit that while she’s innocent, she has no recollection of the accident. Does that excuse really work? Well, it is Shadyside. So yeah, it probably works 95% of the time.

Dana is upset…mostly because Nate didn’t call. Really? After everyone (but the police) think you murdered his girlfriend, you’re SURPRISED he didn’t call? She sees him at Nights and while their talking they get confronted by Whitney (bitchy friend of Ada’s who sings). Whitney tells Dana that they know what happened to her boyfriend back home! Say whhha? Yes, apparently Dustin, who Nate reminds her so much of, drowned in Dana’s pool a few years ago. Hmm that doesn’t help her story of “innocence” so much, does it?

The next week, Dana and Whitney compete for the very prestigious singing scholarship which I can’t be bothered to find the name of right now. Dana sings first and takes her seat afterwards. Whitney starts to sing…but keeps violently sneezing! After a few sneezes she pulls a feather out of her nose! And keeps pulling out feathers until they turn red with blood and the blood pours down her face and she screams out that “Dana FEAR is doing it!” Yeowza! That would be dramatic. I would totally believe Whitney in this one too. I think I just don’t like Dana…

The kids have some more fun out at Nights and Nate freaks everyone out by hallucinating one-eyed birds again. This part is kinda dull. No one cares Nate!

But then we get to the good stuff again. Dana goes to watch a bunch of people play basketball, including Nate…and Whitney. Whitney does the mean girl thing, where she throws the ball at Dana and then claims it “slipped”. Ugh I hate that! Just punch her in the face. Get it out in the open. After the game is over, Dana is waiting for Nate to come out of the showers and Whitney is working on her jumpshot. Dana starts to feel woozy and blurry again…

She gets woken up by Nate this time. And looks over to see Whitney’s body on the floor…and her head in the basket! Nice! Sports themed murders!

Somehow the police STILL don’t detain Dana, even though there is a clear pattern here: Other girls up for the singing scholarship. Dana can’t sleep well that night, so she goes to wake up Jamie to talk about her problems. Hmmm. That’s never a very welcome idea. But when she goes to Jamie’s room, she sees her rocking and chanting around…and her face isn’t her face. It’s an old woman’s face! Dana creeps back to her room only to see Jamie come in a few minutes later. Jamie/old woman chant creepily again and pour powder all over the clothes Dana picked out for the next day (who does that by the way?).

Dana decides she needs to get out of that house! Unfortunately for her, her dad still doesn’t care about her and won’t come get her immediately. And worst of all, he calls Jamie’s mom to tell her that Dana accused Jamie of poisoning her! Ooo now Jamie hates Dana too. Jamie’s family starts to prepare to cart her off to the mental hospital, which I think is a little harsh. They make her stay home from school that day, but it works out perfectly because Dana can now search through Jamie’s room! She finds the spell Jamie was casting the night before. It was to make someone forget things! She figures out that Jamie was the one killing the girls but can’t imagine why.

Dana goes to confront Jamie that afternoon. She picks Jamie’s studio, I suppose for the drama. Against the backdrop of the burning kiln (aka hell) Dana sees three sculptures of the dead girls heads: Candy, Ada and Whitney. When she gets close, she sees it’s the girls heads FOR REAL! Ooo Jamie was out grave-robbin’!

Jamie transforms in front of Dana’s eyes to…you guessed it, Angelica Fear. She explains to Dana (so helpful!) that she’s been killing everyone who took her things from the Fear Mansion all those months ago. But I guess Angelica isn’t too picky, considering Dana wasn’t around back then…

Angelica tries to push Dana into the kiln, but due to some fancy footwork, Dana actually pushes HER into the fire! Angelica screams and lots of green and red smoke billows out. Then the door opens, and Jamie emerges. Unscathed? Apparently! Jamie doesn’t remember anything since her accident when she fell into a pit full of skeletons. Dana tells her the whole story, which kinda sounds really unbelievable. Especially if you don’t remember any of the incidents. Like, if you woke up next to a kiln, you’re burnt, you’re surrounded by decapitated heads, and you’re cousin that you haven’t seen in years is bending over you, telling you that you did this while being possessed by a spirit? I would kinda just BEAT IT. Dana totally looks guilty.

The book ends on a creepy note when the three decapitated girls re-animate and start to chant “The evil lives! The evil lives!” Does it? I guess we’ll find out in… Darkest Dawn!

Moonlight Secrets or "Nate is Surprisingly Cool With Cockroaches"

2009-11-06T12:46:00.000-08:00

Fear Street Nights Series! These little gems are pretty fantastic, mostly because they were written in 2005. What? I know! They have cell phones and everything. (Sidenote: Anyone read the updated Sweet Valley High books? They have cell phones too… which makes everything super tricky, because most of the shenanigans those girls got into could easily be solved by having a cell phone. So the story would always have to have a line about their phones being dead, or I think one time a cell phone flew out a car window? Classic!)

Anyways, R.L. must have realized that high school kids aren’t really the goody-goodies by day, mass-murders by night that he had been portraying them for all these years. So he has added…underage drinking! Dum dum dummm!

Moonlight Secrets doesn’t really have an interesting cover, just a girl mid-dance(?) and a picture of a BAR. Which is called “Nights”. Again with the terrible names for people and things. This has Bobby Newkick and his “Bad to the Bone” band disaster allll over it.

The book starts from the perspective of our friend Lewis. He and his girlfriend Jamie start sneaking out after midnight to have the town to themselves. They call themselves “The Night People”. UGH, really? Like 17 year olds would call themselves something that lame. Anyways, more and more kids start hanging out with them, wandering the streets at night. They would often end up on…FEAR STREET.

Since this book takes place a couple of years later, we find out that most of Fear Street has been torn up (that’s a bad idea if I ever heard one). They are getting rid of the neighbourhood to build a huge shopping complex. Soo, soon there will be Fear Streets about a haunted shopping mall? I feel a sense of déjà vu…

The last building to be torn down is the Fear Mansion. Lewis and Jamie and their friends start hanging out in the abandoned mansion, drinking beer and hooking up. Hey… that actually seems like something normal teenagers would do! One night, one of the juniors that hangs out with them, Shark, takes a tumble and discovers a hidden room! It’s full of jewelry, gold, expensive clothes and books on the occult. Since the building is about to be bulldozed, they figure it doesn’t count as “stealing” so they all loot the place.

It turns out that Lewis’ girlfriend Jamie is kinda obsessed with the occult. Her cousin died a few months earlier, and this girl promised Jamie to reach her from the dead. Hey. That is a promise that I want NO ONE to make to me. Any of you die? Don’t promise to come creep the fuck outta me later. I don’t want that. But Jamie was really into it, so she makes Lewis go back to the mansion after its been torn down, because all the ghosts will have been disturbed. Sounds about right.

They bring a tape recorder, and while they don’t hear anything at first, when they listen to it back in Jamie’s room, they realize they recorded a voice. FROM BEYOND. The voice says “If you took what’s mine, you’ll pay”. They have no clue what that could mean. REALLY? After raiding that same spot like 2 days previous? They couldn’t put these pieces of the puzzle together? UGH. I would be shoving the shit I took back into the smoldering wreck of a mansion as fast as I could.

They decide go back for more creepy voices since Jamie is convinces her cousin would try to contact her there. They don’t hear any voices but they do find a pit. Full of bones. Yikes! Instead of hauling ass outta there, Jamie decides that she really wants to see this cool silver pendent with blue stones on it…. (o we know what that is!)

Jamie predicatablly falls into the pit of bones. Surprisingly though, the bones come to life and start to strangle her! Ah! I see we have a “supernatural” Fear Street as opposed to the “regular, crazed murderer” Fear Street. Good to know. Lewis tries to fight the skeletons off Jamie, but ends up being choked too. The chapter ends with the pit collapsing on Jamie and Lewis, most likely killing them both.

One Year Later

Here, I’ll do you guys a favor and tell you up front that we’ve changed perspectives. Now the narrator is Nate, a senior at Shadyside. R.L. didn’t let the reader know this lil fact, so I read like 2 chapters thinking it was still Lewis and being ultra confused. (Although that I’m looking back, I realize that they were called the character Nate, and it’s my fault I didn’t catch on sooner. Whoops!)

Anyways. Nate is at the new Shadyside bar called Nights. Built right over top the Fear Mansion. Nate is friends with Shark and goes to hang out with him in the back booth. But before he can, Nate needs to kiss the picture of Simon and Angelica Fear. Apparently it’s tradition that everyone kisses it. Blech. I would so not kiss that thing.

Nate kinda gets us up to speed with “Nights”. The bartender Ryland knows that they all have fake IDs but he doesn’t care as long as there’s no trouble. And him and all his friends (The Night People) sneak out every night and come drink there WITHOUT permission from their parents!

Jamie comes into the bar, which I guess means she survived her brush with skeletons! She walks with a limp, and doesn’t remember the accident, but besides that both her and Lewis are fine. Which I guess is pretty lucky! She sits with Shark, Nate and this HAWTie Nikki and Shark tells the table how he screwed over his ex-girlfriend. I guess this girl, Candy, dumped Shark and then wanted him back. So he told her to meet him at the movies, but never showed! Ha.Ha.Ha. Hilarious. No one has ever stood up a date before.

Oooh, he also changed his voicemail to “Have a nice day, Candy, you slut.” Which is actually pretty brutal because everyone else who called him would get that message too! After he finishing telling this story, guess who storms into the bar? No other than our lovely lady Candy. She is mega pissed off. Jamie momentarily destracts her by asking about her cool pendent necklace! Candy says she got it at a store, and then goes back to being crazy. She exacts revenge by…making out with Shark? O wait, its so violent that she basically rips off his lips and has blood running down her face. Blech. When she takes off, Shark and Nate go outside and throw bricks at her car. Nate’s smashes in her back window and she vows revenge. Never a good idea to get into a revenge-match with a woman with blood running out her mouth…

Candy makes Nate and Shark pay for her broken window (did she have to pay for Shark’s medical bill?) because she threatens to tell everyone’s parents about The Night People. I’d call her bluff. No one would willingly piss off that many people. Shark pays for it though and decides to exact MORE revenge! This time by putting Candy’s face on a pic of a pig and sending around the school. Really? Is this the 1890s? I’m sure Shark has some sexting photos from Candy on his cell phone. Common now.

Somehow they track the picture down to Nate’s computer, and rather than rat out his friend, Nate takes the blame. And Candy’s wrath. She confronts him at Nights but Nate isn’t very apologetic. He should have been. Cindy watches him from another booth which smiling and playing with a pendent around her neck. With blue stones… And then Nate starts pulling cockroaches out of his mouth. BAH! Again with the cockroaches! He leaves the bar and pukes cockroaches everywhere…

The next day he seems fine though… did he forget what happened? He doesn’t even bother to explain it. He, Shark, Jamie and their friend Ada decide to skip a class and go down by Onononka River to hang out. It seems fun, until they try to leave. Then when Nate tries to back out onto the road, the car will only go forward. And the brakes won’t work! So they take a lil dip in the good ol’ Onononka! Ada, Nate and Shark all manage to get out, but Jamie has a little more trouble. As in she’s trapped and they have to go back to rescue her lifeless body. They actually manage to revive her, and she of course, doesn’t remember anything. Jamie decides that Candy is a witch that has put a curse on Nate. I would stop hanging around Nate.

Suspecious things continue happening around Nate. Candy extends an olive branch to him and Shark, and invites them to a party she’s having. Right after they laugh in her face and say no way, blood starts spurting out of both of Nate’s ears. Splashing Shark and Ada and everyone else around. Blerg. Also, when they’re friend Galen comes into Nights to tell Nate that he’s “figured it out” his lips get stuck to the portrait of the Fears. Like to free himself, he rips off his lips and they STAY ATTACHED TO THE PORTRAIT. That might be the grossest part of the book.

When he’s finally able to talk again, Galen tells Shark and Nate how Candy has been doing all this legitimately evil witchcraft. He found a pic of Angelica Fear and she’s wearing the same pendent that Candy wears! Unfailable proof of eviltude, for sure!

The next night, Shark, Nate and Nikki (the girl Shark is kinda dating) decide that they have to break into Candy’s house and steal the necklace so she can’t be evil anymore! That’s not really the kind of date I’d want to go on with someone I was casually seeing. It’s oddly easy to break into Candy’s house, as there is a ladder leaning up against the side. It’s like they’re asking for it. All goes well for our young robbers, and they manage to get the necklace from Candy’s room. Unfortunately… she wakes up. And is pissed off at the Break and Enter! She and Shark struggle for the necklace. Candy manages to grab it back… but unfortunately takes a tumble down her stairs. (I’m always telling you guys. Never lunge at the top of stairs/cliffs! You always go over!)

Candy breaks her neck on the way down. She also broke…the pendent. Turns out it was just a cheap metal and plastic knockoff! It wasn’t really evil magic at all! The book ends with our three thieves and now accessory-to-manslaughterers fleeing the scene. And realizing that Candy wasn’t to blame… O and then Nate finds a slaughtered pigs head in his bed. TO BE CONTINUED!

So this one was good right? I always enjoy a good supernatural one.

The Sitter or "A Lame, Long-winded Version of The Babysitter Series. With Sex."

2009-10-29T11:39:00.000-07:00

Many apologies to our Shadyside Fans! It has taken me absolutely FOREVER to read this book. Apparently October is a crazy busy time for me. Who knew? I also blame The Sitter. This book was ridiculous, three times as long as a Fear Street and with itty bitty print. I swear, it was like R.L. was punishing me for all the things I’ve said about him in the past year. I said them out of love!

So yes, this book was about ANOTHER babysitter. WTF is up with R.L. and his love of torturing babysitters? You know this didn’t sit well with anyone who came over to look after little Matthew. But The Sitter is hugely different from Fear Street books, mostly because it’s pretty much an Adult book. Or a pretty racy YA book. R.L. not only mentions sex, but ORAL sex as well as having an almost gratuitous sex scene! Yewoza. I know. You’re picturing R.L. writing a sex scene, aren’t you? You perv.

The book centers around Ellie, a troubled young woman, looking for escape. From her shitty job, from her offensive ex-boyfriend, from her mother, etc. Her best friend Teresa gives her the idea to get a job in the Hamptons for the summer. While in town on a different job interview, Ellie runs into a woman named Abby, who immediately gives her a job as a nanny. No references or anything. Well. That seems …unusual.

She meets the kids, Brandon and Heather, pretty soon and moves into the Harper household. The husband, Chip, is consistently drunk and constantly hitting on Ellie. Great work environment. Also: a few months previously, Brandon, who is four years old, became mute. He pretty much just stares and nods creepily. Ellie thinks that luckily Heather, who is two, is very cute. Yeah. Except she’s TWO and two-year olds are never cute for long. Then they’re snotty and cry-y.

Remember how I mentioned Ellie was a troubled girl? Well we find out why. When Ellie was 17, she was in a car wreck with her high school boyfriend Will. While she made it out pretty unscathed, Will was killed. Ellie has spent the last seven years blaming herself for Will’s death. Except she wasn’t driving, so that seems pretty self-involved. Or, maybe that’s just how people react, I wouldn’t know, I rarely kill people.

Unsurprisingly, creepy stuff happens around the house, mostly centered around Brandon The Mute. He shows her his pet chick, but squeezes it to death in his hands. Which, okay, has probably happened before. But most kids don’t throw their heads back and laugh manically after doing so… Also, when Brandon and Heather are playing down at the beach with a big group of kids, Brandon The Mute STABS a wounded bird. That’s certainly traumatizing.

Ellie’s day doesn’t get much better when she gets sent flowers in the mail. O I know, flowers sound so lovely! Just the thing to pick up your day! Unfortunately for Ellie, these flowers were spray painted black and were full of COCKROACHES! (Sidenote: Blerg, I have only seen one cockroach in my life and it was SO GROSS. I was in Jamaica, and my instinct reaction was to stomp on it as hard as I could. Only after did I think “Well thank GOD I’m wearing shoes right now!” Lack of foresight.) Ellie seems to think that it might be a sick joke from her obnoxious ex-boyfriend, Clay. He still calls her all the time, trying to get back together. So obviously, he thought the Flowers of Death would do the trick!

Later that week, Ellie runs into an elderly woman, Mrs. Bricker, who was the nanny before Ellie. She warns her away from the family. Mrs. Bricker also forces Ellie to have tea with her and listen to her ghost stories about the Harper place. Basically, about a 150 years ago, this crazy old sailor build the Harper guest house out of materials stolen from coffins. That’s never a wise idea. The old sailor’s wife left him, and he began sleeping with the nanny, Ann-Marie who became like a mother to the sailor’s son, Jeremiah. Then Jeremiah caught Ann-Marie having an affair with good looking Italian (who was probably not old and crazy like the sailor). Jeremiah (who was four, BTW) decided to heave a whaling harpoon at the nanny and Italian while in flagrante, only it killed the Italian instead of Ann-Marie who he was aiming for. Oh and all this happened in the guest house made of coffins. Now Mrs. Bricker thinks that Brandon is possessed by the spirit of Jeremiah. You know, usually I call shenanigans on ghost stories, but that one might actually convince me. A house of COFFINS?

We find out a lil more about our poor Ellie. She meets a handsome fella named Jackson at the bar one night, but while out with him, she sees Will (her dead ex) and takes off after him. That’s kinda hard to explain to a date, dontcha think? It turns out that when Ellie and Will were in this horrible accident, Ellie had actually grabbed the wheel before they crashed. Well, now her guilt makes sense! She is totally responsible for Will’s death. Not just self-involved! Whew.

Even the high of meeting a new guy can’t keep our poor Ellie happy for long though. The next day is her birthday and she gets a cakebox in the mail! She thinks it’s from her mom, even though her mom is totally insufferable. Except… whoops, looks like someone sent Ellie the hand of Mrs. Bricker as a present! Let’s certainly hope that’s not from her mother.

Most unfortunate events happen to the Harpers and Ellie. Brandon tries to drown Heather in a lake (isn’t that how most siblings play?) and Ellie’s ex-bf, Clay, comes to the Hamptons to win her back. And by win her back, I mean shows up belligerently drunk. And get in a fight with new guy Jackson. And then tries to run Jackson and Ellie off the road with his SUV. He IS a catch!

The day after almost get driven off the road by Clay, Ellie actually sees him in town. He’s all “Hey! Sorry I was so drunk the other night, that was embarrassing!” After getting over the shock of how PSYCHO this guy is, Ellie loses her shiz on him. She yells at him about the flowers, and fighting Jackson and running them off the road and yes, she even suggests she cut off poor Mrs. Bricker’s hand! (BTW, Mrs. Bricker survived. Pretty badass, if I may say so.) Clay looks confused about everything. He also points to how his SUV is undamaged, and wasn’t even in town during the whole Ms. Bricker-hand debacle. So Clay is pretty much in the clear. Still crazy, but not hand-cut-off crazy.

Soon comes the final straw for Ellie. She had gotten her mom to send her Lucky, her childhood pet. She comes home one day, and sees the carrier on the doorstep. So excited, she opens it… and it’s only Lucky’s head. Someone decapitated the cat! (One pet murder – check!) Ellie slowly realizes the only person home that day was… Chip, the pervy father! She checks his SUV and yup, it’s all damaged, probably from attempting to run people off the road. She does some more sleuthing (which she or THE POLICE should have really done early) and notices that both the flowers, and the cakebox which had the hand were both sent to her by CHIP HARPER. So, she goes home to pack her bags right? Or just hops on the next bus outta there, right?

NOPE. First she confesses all to Abby, Chip’s wife. Abby is all “Aww, not again!” Say what?? Yeah, Chip isn’t taking his “meds”. Abby asks Ellie to stay a few more days, while she makes arraigments for Chip. You know. For the kids. Abby promises that she’ll protect Ellie. From the man that has already decapitated a cat and MAIMED A WOMAN! Of course Ellie agrees. Because she is an absolute fool.

She decides to compound her foolishness by bringing Jackson back to the GUEST HOUSE OF HORROR after a date and having sex with him there. REALLY? (FYI: this is also the oral sex scene. Bah!) Of course they get interrupted by the pitterpatter of little feet. Only then does Ellie decide it’s “creepy”. Ugh. Ellie deserves whatever is coming for her. When she goes to check on Brandon, it get’s creepier. He speaks for the first time in months. He says “I saw you.” and “Don’t call me Brandon. My name is Jeremiah” in a creepy, raspy voice. Yup, that seems about right. Oh and the next day, he doesn’t remember, or talk, but he does uncover a skeleton in the backyard! It was just a dog skeleton, but seriously, HOW is Ellie still there?? She can’t be doing it for the kids because they are UBER creepy!

That same day, Ellie is looking out the window when she sees someone who she thinks is Jackson. Then she thinks she sees Chip, running towards Jackson, and suddenly, Chip stabs Jackson! (And THAT is why you don’t hang around foolish girls). Ellie runs outside to save Jackson. Chip is already gone, and Jackson turns out to be…Clay. So while sad, not really that sad. Because Clay was still a crazy stalker.

Ellie looks around to find Chip (why) but instead finds a pretty big shock. Inside the guest house is: Will! Who survived the car accident, albeit with some pretty hideous scars and now lives in the Harper’s guest house? And carries some pretty big resentment against Ellie. I guess he blamed her for the crash too! Looks like Will and Abby are secret lovers, and Chip has no idea that Will has been living in the guest house for months. She asks if he’s been torturing her the past few months. He seems surprised, saying that he just wanted her out of his life forever. He wasn’t doing the crazy things. So that leaves…

Abby. Okay it gets confusing here. Abby comes in, taking credit for all the evil stuff that’s been happening to Ellie. Apparently, Abby and Will were high school sweethearts until Ellie came along and stole Will away from her. And to add insult to injury, Ellie didn’t even recognize Abby the whole time! So that pushed her a lil over the edge. Abby and Ellie start grappling, while Will watches, kinda confused. He said didn’t know anything about Abby’s plan, but you’d think he’d lend a hand. To either of them!

As they’re wrestling, creepy Brandon the Mute comes floating in the guest house, and picks up a whaling harpoon. Then he transforms into a creepy ginger kid (of course the evil kid is a Ging), who I’m guessing is Jeremiah. Brandon/Jeremiah heave the harpoon and spear Abby! Abby rolls off, injuried and the Ging kid turns back into Brandon. Who can suddenly talk normally and is very confused. Ellie asks Brandon to get help for his mommy, and Brandon tells Ellie that Abby isn’t his mommy, but his NANNY. WHAA?

So Chip finally comes around. (BTW, Abby stabbed Clay. So Ellie just has the WORST people recognition skills. Ever.) It comes out that he and Abby had an affair the year before and his wife Jenny caught them. Abby told him that Jenny had run off after catching them. Yeahhhh, that was a lie. Turns out, Jenny is buried right underneath that dog skeleton! So Abby’s been crazy for a while then?

Let’s recap. Abby and Will have been together since the crash. Abby becomes the Harper’s nanny, has an affair with Chip, kills his wife and convinces him to marry her. While she’s with Will. And this is ALL before she even saw Ellie. So when she saw Ellie, she immediately decided to hire and torture her. While Will lives secretly in the guest house?

Questions: Why would Abby kill Jenny the year before? She had no idea Ellie would be coming into their lives. Also: Why don’t Abby and Will just live happily ever after? I mean, I know it sucks that he has a scarred face. But people with scarred faces can have normal lives, they don’t need to live in creepy guest houses like a low-budget version of the Phantom of the Opera.

And why did R.L. feel the need to combine a good old fashioned revenge murderer plotline with a convoluted ghost plot line? I guess maybe since this was an “adult” book, he felt he needed it to be more confusing.

All in all, this book took FOREVER to read. I wasn’t a fan. And I also never want to read “And then, still holding each other, we were on the bed, and I lowered my lips down his body…” in another one of R.L.’s book again. EVER. You know where it goes from there. I give this book 12 poor decision to stick around out of 31. FAIL.

Heart of the Hunter or "A Lesbian Fear Street?! ... No... Not At All..."

2009-09-17T07:11:00.000-07:00

Ahhh the Sagas. Can I just say that I am so glad that this is the last Saga I ever have to read? As someone who enjoys historical fiction, these are seriously killing me. FOR REAL. I’ve developed some sort of sniffle while reading this. I choose to think of it as an OMG-how-many-effing-sagas-did-R.L.-write cough. All in all, this book was kinda insane/great but I am DONE.

This one varies slightly from the formula because it’s told from the perspective of a boy, although his name IS Jamie. (Sidenote: For the first chapter I thought Jamie was a girl. And then I read about Jamie’s crush on Laura. And for the BRIEFIEST of moments, I thought R.L. had written a lesbian Fear Street. Then I came to my senses, since Fear Streets don’t even effing DRINK, they certainly don’t experiment with their sexuality. But how great would that have been!?) Heart of the Hunter though, is also about werewolves! Kinda! And Indians! (for our Canadian readers, let me just make it clear that Indian is apparently NOT an offensive word. Still. Aboriginals!) And pioneering! So really, I shouldn’t be complaining. At least it isn’t about Vampires (cough*L.K.*cough)

The cover depicts our hero’s second love interest, Whispering Wind. Which is funny, since she’s in like 6 chapters in the middle and then gets horrifically murdered. Maybe Fear Streets with icky boys on the cover don’t sell? P.S. I love her dress. And hair. I think I might have a crush on Whispering Wind…

The book starts with Jamie FIER and his parents on the road (in a caravan of covered wagons! I don’t know why that excites me…) to Kentucky in 1792. His mother desperately didn’t want to leave their home in … Eastern what-was-to-become-the-U.S. but Jamie’s father, John, made them, since they were starving. Jamie’s mother keeps saying they’re gonna die in Kentucky since the Fier’s are cursed! (So where does it matter that you live then?) On the road, Jamie voices-over his extreme lust for the beautiful Laura GOODE and how much he’s annoyed by her younger sister Amanda. Lucien Goode, their father, hates the Fier’s because they’re good at rationing, and therefore still have food and everyone else doesn’t. What’s the reasonable plan then? Well, Lucien wants to kill John and his family for the food, so John whips out his gun to protect his stuff… and predictably shoots his wife. Whoopsie!

So John and Jamie continue on the trail, sans mother/wife, while John slowly goes crazy. Eventually, their wagon breaks but no one will help them fix it or let them ride with them. The Fier men are abandoned. To add to their bad luck, John wanders into the woods that night and gets MURDERED by a wolf! (So… worse for John, still bad for Jamie). Not even eaten though, just cold-blooded murdered. Wolf ripped his throat out and left the delicious man-meat.

After Jamie discovers his poor, crazy father’s remnants, he’s promptly captured by some Native Americans. I give R.L. some props because the tribe, the Shawnee, actually did live in the area that is now Kentucky! I was almost expecting him to create a fictional tribe called the “Shawfear Streetnee”. Which would have been awesome. The warriors take him to see an elderly woman named “Whithering Woman”. Who hurriedly drinks his blood and proclaims him to be the “chosen one.” Wayyyy to give Aboriginals a bad name there, R.L. By “chosen one”, this means he’ll be the one that will find the buffalo herd, and save the tribe from starvation.

Except… he’s not really good at that. The next few chapters are about how Jamie gains acceptance into the tribe by competing in something called the Warrior’s Gauntlet. Where he needs to run through a group of them and avoid their tomahawks. Easy! He obviously passes and over the next few months becomes a member of their tribe. He also falls in love with Whispering Wind. But since she is all in love with the chief of their tribe (who wouldn’t be?) he doesn’t really stand a chance. Until the crazy old Whithering Woman offers him a solution.

She tells him that she has a way to make Whispering Wind fall madly in love with him. The price? HIS SOUL. He oddly agrees rather quickly… The solution also involves drinking blood (he wonders whose blood it is, but then decides it doesn’t matter. It ALWAYS matters whose blood it is!) and again, there are very few reservations. In a few moments he begins to transform…into a wolf! Whithering Woman tells him that now, as a wolf, he’ll be able to find the buffalo herd, and impressed Whispering Wind (seriously, that was the plan all along? Impress her with buffalo?) She also adds in the warning that he’ll only be a wolf on the full moon nights, but if his true love ever sees him in this form… he’ll be a wolf forever! Way to come through with the fine print after the deal is done there, Whispering Woman. Jerrrk.

Anyways, Jamie finds the buffalo, and thank GOD Whitering Woman’s plan worked, so Whispering Wind falls in love with him. They get married immediately (as you do) and live blissfully… until the next full moon. Where Whispering Wind follows him outside, sees his transformation, and goes to tell the tribe! Jamie is in such an animalistic rage (get it?) that he rips out her throat. Not soo funny. He doesn’t, however, stay a wolf. Whithering Woman laughs at him, saying that Whispering Wind wasn’t his true love, because there was magic involved (OBVS)!

Jamie pitches a fit and leaves the tribe. Over the next while, he lives off the land and slowly becomes more wolf-like after every full moon. Eventually he stumbles upon a familiar smell: Lucien Goode! He decides to take revenge for his parents, and for the shitty life he leads now (although I think its kinda his fault since he traded in his SOUL and all).

For a few months, he tortures Lucien by killing his animals and making sure his family starts to slowly starve. After Lucien posts a notice saying he’ll pay $500 in GOLD to anyone who can stop the wolf that’s been hunting on his property. Jamie goes to the Goode’s house, where Amanda remembers him (and still Luuuurves him) and Lucien and Laura don’t want him around. Jamie says he’ll kill the wolf for Lucien… but he wants one of his daughters for marriage instead of the gold.

So here’s Jamies plan. Make Amanda think he wants to marry her, because she has some school-girl crush on him. Kill some other wolf, tell Lucien it’s the wolf that stalking him, and then when he offers one of his daughters, Jamie will choose LAURA. Since Laura hates him, she will be miserable, and so will Amanda because she will be heartbroken. Then he’ll kill Lucien, and take all his money. And maybe kill Laura and Amanda, he really goes back and forth on that idea.

Jamie pretty much pulls this plan off! Kills wolf, marries Laura, and on their wedding night, kills Lucien. All good right? Except… when he investigates the house after murdering Lucien, he notices that Laura is DEAD too! She died after being poisoned by Amanda! Man, Amanda does not like lose hey? Amanda finds him, and confesses that she’ll always love him, even after what he did to her. Even though she killed her father. And she killed Laura. NUTTERS.

Jamie starts to panic since it’s the full moon (of COURSE it is) and he’s about to change into the wolf! If his TRUE love Amanda sees him, he’ll be a wolf forever! He charges out of the house… and into a cage. Apparently, Amanda knew all along that he was a werewolf since Whithering Woman used to be their housekeeper when she was little (random). Jamie changes into a wolf in front of Amanda, and knows that he is trapped like that forever. Amanda says that it may not be the way she imagined it, but at least they get to spend the rest of their lives together! Do you think she knows that wolves only live around 20 years?

And END OF SAGAS! Woot woot! Now that these are done, I’m really excited to start on the seniors and some of the other rando Fear Streets we’ve collected. Heart of the Hunters was pretty fun to read, to be honest, and who doesn’t love a good pioneering book? I give this book 35 wolf-murders out of 49. Not bad!

The Taste of Night, or “Undead Bar Stars”

2009-09-08T18:01:00.000-07:00

I seem to be continuing on my vampire theme for the next little bit. The Taste of Night is the sequel to Dangerous Girls. Click here to catch up on what those naughty quasi-vampire twins have been up to lately. I just have to say that this book is NOT written chronologically, but builds suspense by giving away the ending first. Ooh, R. L., way to use the big guns in this one. Maybe it’s because it’s not a Fear Street, and he wanted to be a bit fancier with this.

July

Destiny is all sad that her sis, Livvy, chose to become a vampire, instead of being a good little girl like her. She is also sad that Livvy stole her boy of choice and made him a vampire too – how very rude of her. Her dad (Dr. Weller) has been working into the night to find a cure for vampirism, because he is (rather randomly, I think), the “Restorer”. However, he really wears two hats in the community, because he is also the chief vampire killer in town. Lately, Dr. Weller has been feeling that his two roles conflict with each other, and has decided to concentrate on only one of them – killing. The vampires in town have been getting out of control, and the good townspeople have decided to ambush them in their apartment building, the morning of the full moon. (Sidenote: everyone knows the vampires live in this one building? Why don’t they just go burn it down? C’mon guys, think!)

The morning after the full moon, the vampire hunters go into the building to stake all the sleeping vampires, instead of doing something sensible like torching it. Dr. Weller finds his other daughter, Livvy, asleep. He’s all sad about the sacrifices he has to make, but is determined to kill her to. He goes to kiss her goodbye, but she wakes up and throttles him.

One Month Earlier

Vampire Livvy is hanging with her vamp besties, Suzie and Monica, in their apartment. They are going out clubbing that night, and getting ready, like all girls do before they go out clubbing, only without the use of mirrors. It is the night of Livvy’s graduation, and she’s kind of spun about it, but she won’t admit it.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, Destiny is being a mopey suck at graduation about staying in town to go to community college instead of going to Dartmouth. She feels she can’t leave her father and brother in the state that they are in. She goes home with her boyfriend, Ari. When they get to her place, they find all her walls are painted with images of black demons. Apparently, her little brother, Mikey, really lost it when Livvy became a vampire, and is convinced alternately that he is a demon, or is catatonically terrified of everything. Delightful little guy. D is convinced she needs to find Liv, to bring her home to provide some closure for her family.

Ari and her go out to a nightclub that night. Ari used to be a big fantasy nerd, but apparently finding out he was right about all that stuff snapped him out of it. Now he’s cool, and uses a fake ID to get beers. Destiny tries to have fun, but is still a huge Debbie downer. She’s so dull Ari gets drunk and leaves her to go have fun elsewhere – namely all over some cute redhead. D is now both mopey and pissed, and leaves the club.

Meanwhile, in same nightclub, Livvy realizes that Suzie has her vampire claws in Ari, and thinks it’s kind of funny. She is all over some hot college guy named Patrick. The vamp girls’ mantra is: The hotter the guy, the richer the blood. So, they are like total undead bar stars. Livvy decides that Patrick is too hot to die, and that Ross, her former lover she turned into a vampire, is history. She goes outside to wait for Patrick, and bumps directly into her twin.

D pleads with Liv to come home, while Liv tries to get her to fuck off. Eventually, she just goes to bite D, which gets through to her as she flees her undead twin. Patrick comes out then, and Livvy puts on her sexy face. They go to the woods and Liv goes for the bite – only to discover that Patrick is a vampire too. That must be a majorly embarrassing mistake for a vampire. Patrick tells Livvy he likes her, and he’s going to shake things up in town now. Liv is interested.

Destiny starts her new sad-girl job as a waitress, at a diner on the college campus. She gets even more depressing there. I really prefer her bad-girl twin. Seriously, D needs to lighten up. She goes to apologize to Ari after work, for being depressing I guess. She gets a pretty big shock, though, since Ari was found dead the night before, his body drained of blood. Destiny wonders whether it was her sister.

Two Weeks Later

There’s a new short order cook and the diner, Harrison, and he is HOT. He’s a sophomore at the college, and they immediately start seeing each other. Not everything is looking up, though, since Dr. Weller tells Destiny he’s going to kill all the vamps in town, including Livvy. D must do something, so she heads to the vampire apartment (that everyone knows about) and tries to warn Livvy. Instead, she runs into Ross. Ross is pretty depressing too. He hates being a vampire, and wishes he could see his family again, because he’s homesick. Awww. Destiny and Ross reminisce about the good old days – then she warns him that he and Livvy have to leave the apartment.

Livvy watches D leave, and is suspicious of what she was doing there. Actually, she thinks her twin is having an affair with her vampire boyfriend, until she goes to their room and finds his stake-riddled corpse (or, whatever it is that vampires have when they die). She’s pretty mad at D, and ready to go riddle her with stakes, until she runs into Patrick. They make out a bit, which is appropriate in the circumstances, I think. They plot revenge. Livvy spies on D, as a mouse in the diner. She gets lusty feelings for Harrison, and decides to turn him into a vampire to get back at her sister.

At a party at Harrison’s, Destiny is having an awesome time, thinking college won’t be so bad. Until Harrison is gone for awhile, coming back with the beer she had asked for, but hadn’t actually asked for. Dun dun DUN! Realizing Liv is at the party, she goes to talk to her, only to see a bat flying away. Livvy returns to her apartment, to find Patrick waiting for her. He tells her she will never be truly immortal until she can get rid of her human feelings. She must get over her love for her sister, and he has the perfect plan – he’ll turn Destiny into a vampire. So that he can have the hot twins to himself! I’m surprised that Livvy goes along with this plan, but he encourages her to go after Harrison, so she’s okay with sharing.

The next morning at the diner, Destiny meets a cute but intense TA from the college – named Patrick. He asks her out for Friday, and makes D feel all floaty and weird until she agrees that going out on Friday would be excellent. That same Friday night, Livvy goes out with Harrison, pretending she’s Destiny. She’s having more fun than Destiny, who has to break her date with Patrick because her brother’s babysitter cancelled. Patrick forces her to agree to go out on Sunday – the night of the full moon, the only night someone can become a vampire.

Saturday morning, Harrison comes skipping into work, raving about their awesome date last night. Destiny sees the pinpricks on his neck, and knows he saw her sister instead. It must sting a little that her sister got her boyfriend so worked up. I mean, she’s already stolen one guy from her, right? But there must be something to it – I suspect Livvy is way more fun to be around.

Saturday night, Livvy finds her friend Monica staked in her apartment. Patrick and Suzie are struggling, fighting to the death. Livvy watches in horror as he stakes her, for being weak like the rest of them. Liv immediately realizes that Patrick killed Ross all along. The plan to turn Destiny and Harrison is to test how bad she really is. If Livvy doesn’t go through with it, she’ll likely be the next to wake up with a stake in her heart.

The night of the full moon, Destiny stands Harrison up at the movies – he goes to her house to see what’s up. Meanwhile, Destiny is out with Patrick, dancing at the club. They decide to go on a romantic moonlit walk through the park. Patrick eagerly bites her, then reels back – it’s actually Livvy! She tries to stake him, but they struggle and he’s stronger than her. She transforms into a bat, then transforms back lightning quick to get the jump on him and stakes him.

On to Dr. Weller, killing vampires in the apartment. He sees Livvy, and goes to kiss her one last time, but she wakes up and grabs him. It’s actually Destiny – she took her twin’s place in order to save her life. Although, wouldn’t it have been better if neither of them had been in the apartment, so neither would have been in danger? No matter – the girls saved each other’s lives that night, because love is more powerful than death and vampirism.

The next night, Livvy comes as a blackbird to see Destiny. Mikey comes in to see her – Liv lies and tells him there’s no such thing as vampires, she just ran away from home. Destiny wants her to stay, but Livvy has had a taste of night, and can never go back. She flies away. Destiny and Harrison are reunited, with much explaining as to what happened. They live happily ever after, or at the very least hopefully a little less depressing.

Okay, I appreciate what R. L. did here, teasing us early with Livvy attacking Dr. Weller. I wouldn’t call it masterful, per say, but I like where he was going with it. Destiny is like the worst character ever, and would probably be much better off if she just loosened up a bit. Taste of Night did not live up to Dangerous Girls at all, I thought. I was kind of bored, and wanted the girls to get over themselves and do something interesting. Well, that’s a sequel for you – never as good as the real thing. I give this 23 richly-blooded hot guys out of 38.

One Last Kiss, or “Another Generic Vampire Love Story Have We Not Have Enough Of These Yet”

2009-08-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Let’s take a look to analyze this cover, shall we? I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume this book is about VAMPIRES. I’m comfortable with this assumption. What I can’t get over is what is going on with this girl’s teeth? Girl is probably Eleanor Rawlin, who (according to backflap) just wants an ordinary life but is pulled into a life of vengeance against all vampires. Has Eleanor been eating dirt? Why are her teeth all grey and nasty. She makes me kinda queasy, and her necklace does not go with her dress. I don’t like her.

Shadow Glen, Colony of Virginia, 1730

Poor Eleanor, life is very hard for her. Her mother was murdered by vampires when she was very young, she doesn’t even remember her. Now her and her father flee vampires, moving often, never long enough for Eleanor to make a friend. And her father makes her wear a necklace of garlic, to boot. To top it all off, Eleanor doesn’t even believe in vampires – she thinks her father was driven mad with grief after his wife’s murder, and now thinks monsters were behind it.

Shadow Glen is where Eleanor was born and her mother was killed. Eleanor has made a friend, Annie, and has been invited to a ball at the Fier Manor, so she’s pretty unhappy when her father forbids her to go, and tells her they have to move once again. Poor Cinderella, cries herself to sleep because she can’t go to the ball.

She is woken by a carriage pulling up to their house, and a strange man slipping into their garden. She sneaks into her father’s study to eavesdrop. The man tells her father he’s not safe, there’s no way he can take on the vampires. Eleanor is shocked this man believes in vampires and seems to hate them more than her father. The man sees Eleanor and their eyes lock. The handsome young stranger decides Eleanor is too pretty, the vampires will be after her for sure.

Eleanor scoffs at him, until strange man is introduced as Trevor Fier. Eleanor then hopes her invitation to his ball won’t be taken away. But, he thinks she’s cute, and they (obviously) fall in love. After Trevor leaves, her father warns her to stay the hell away from Trevor.

Eleanor intrigued that someone other than her father believes in vampires, so she reads the journal Trevor left behind, supposedly containing everything he knows about vampires in it – The Journal of Richard Fier, an ancestor of Trevor’s.

Wickham Village, Massachusetts Colony, 1624

Richard Fier has just become a vampire, and is writing about the experience. He met a beautiful woman last night, and she ate him up. It’s an age old story.

Eleanor wakes up, having fallen asleep over the journal. Her father comes in, shouts a bit, then tells her he’s inviting Trevor over for dinner. So Eleanor pops into town to pick up a turkey, where she runs into her friend Annie, an indentured servant from Ireland. Annie tells her she believes in vampires, and Eleanor does some more scoffing. Until she’s walking home at dusk, and the wind starts whispering her name. Actually, the “wind” calls out: Eleanor Rawlins, you cannot escape us. So, probs not the wind, Eleanor, just a heads up. Once again that night she sneaks into her father’s study to read more of Richard Fier’s journal:

Wickham Village, Massachusetts Colony, 1625

Richard finally gives in and feeds on another man. His beautiful vampire lady friend, Gwendolyn, serves up a terrified miller for him to snack on. But Richard refuses to take his life, and runs for it. He comes upon a wild board and drinks that instead. He cries at his fate, even if vampires have no tears to shed. Wah wah wah, whiny vampire.

Eleanor falls for it, feels she is falling in love with the sensitive vampire who refuses to eat humans. Swoon, how romantic … wait, have I read this somewhere else? Hmmm. Also, isn’t in convenient that she is falling in love with the man who wrote the journal, an immortal, while also feeling naughty feelings for this immortal’s “descendant” of 100 years later?

Trevor Fier comes to dinner and asks her to invite him in. Yup, Trevor is totally the vampire. Also, he won’t eat the dinner she prepared. Because he wants to snack at her neck, I’m gonna guess. Trevor and Eleanor’s father get to business about vampires. Dad wants to know how to kill them. He realizes his daughter is miserable, and just wants the vampires dead and be done with it so they can lead normal lives. Trevor says there is no way, that Eleanor will die if she stays in Shadow Glen, just like her mother, then storms out of the house.

Eleanor rushes out after Trevor, only to immediately get lost in mist. So, Eleanor is fairly useless. Someone grabs her, but it is only Trevor. He is all brooding and lonely, then starts making out with her, then runs away. Sigh, how romantic. No, wait, actually who would want a boyfriend like that? Eleanor goes home all hot and bothered, only to find her father had been staked and lies bleeding to death on the floor. His last word is “Trevor…”

Trevor runs into the room, and Eleanor assumes he killed her father – no more of this vampire crap. Somehow, within a page, Trevor convinces her vampires are real, they killed her father, that they had been after her since her mother died, and were waiting for her to grow up. Basically, she’s screwed. That’s a lot to take in in one page, but Eleanor does remarkably well. It only helps that Trevor spends the night to protect her (ooh la la!).

She’s woken the next day by the Reverend – Trevor took care of all the funeral arrangements for that afternoon. Only her friend Annie shows up for the funeral, and most of the town makes it clear they’re happy the crazy man is gone, suggesting it would be better for her if she were to disappear too. Pretty callous bunch in Shadow Glen. Also of note: Trevor does not show up for the daytime funeral he arranged.

That night a devastatingly beautiful woman breaks into Eleanor’s house. She’s Priscilla Fier, the hostess of the Fier ball. Priscilla brought Eleanor some food stuff to help her get by. In the middle of the night, like a normal person. Priscilla is very sweet, and insists that Eleanor, little pauper that she is, move to Fier Manor. Ooh, nothing’s going to go wrong THERE.

Eleanor moves in that night, to the palatial manor that is more like a prison. There’s tons of servants around, and Eleanor’s poor head is turned by all the luxury. Once settled in her room, she feels safe for the first time in the long time. She doesn’t wake up until mid-afternoon. Trevor is shut up in his study and can’t be disturbed until dusk. “Study” totes means “coffin.” She is given breakfast at dinnertime, which is really the best dinner ever anyways. Mmm, breakfast for dinner. She passes the time reading Richard’s diary.

Wickham Village, Massachusetts Colony, 1627

Richard is needing more and more blood, as Gwendolyn brings over more people to the darker side of night. Richard continues to kill only animals, although he is mocked for it. Richard tries to kill himself by staying out in the morning sunlight, but is too much of a pussy for that. So instead he gets up in the middle of the day and stakes Gwendolyn. Oops, I totally thought Gwendolyn was Priscilla now, guess I was wrong about that. Anyways, Richard is all torn up about murdering someone, vampire or not.

Eleanor is saddened by what she reads and runs to find Trevor in his study. She finds the room dark and empty, but she also finds a mysterious secret passageway behind the bookshelves. So cool, I’ve always wanted one of those. The hallway is narrow, dark, and covered with slime and foul odours. It leads underground the manor, to a small chamber with one coffin in it. Guesses as to who’s in it?

Poor little Eleanor is shocked, shocked, when Trevor wakes up in his coffin and pronounces he is actually Richard Fier. But we already knew that, so no surprises for the reader. Eleanor’s candle goes out, and she’s left in the darkness with a monstrous (but hot) vampire. Richard/Trevor gets all sexy with Eleanor’s neck, and asks her if she wants to join him … in immortality.

She freaks, and he jumps away, lighting a candle. He tells her he only got all sexy with her to prove he could hurt her – but never would. Oh, swoon. Who doesn’t want a potentially abusive boyfriend? Eleanor, walk the hell away. Of course Eleanor doesn’t walk away, but tells him he’s so sensitive and wonderful. I wonder if he sparkles? Eleanor then tells him she’s going to find her father’s murderer and kill them. Trevor lunges for her and starts shaking the hit out of her. Then he proclaims his love for her. Jesus, it didn’t take long for that abusive behaviour to start, did it? He tells her he didn’t kill her parents, and they make out for awhile.

They get back up to the study eventually, and Priscilla interrupts them. She realizes Trevor is in love with Eleanor, so they must marry immediately. Priscilla decides to throw them an engagement party. Eleanor’s kind of like – wait, what? I’m marrying a vampire? Oh, but I luuurve him, and he’s sooo wonderful, this will be fine!

At her engagement party, everyone comes dresses as a vampire, because they are “all the rage in Paris.” Priscilla claims she doesn’t believe in actual vampires, despite living with one. It’s all just a masque. The punch is blood-flavoured, which is nasty. Maybe that’s how her teeth got all stained and gross on the front cover. Eleanor is creeped out by everyone there, sensible girl. She goes outside to find Trevor, who confesses his eternal love, then goes to hunt. Eleanor goes into the hall, and stumbles over the body of a heartless man. As in, someone has removed his heart.

Trevor and Priscilla get really mad, demanding their vampire-obsessed guests to leave. I mean, don’t they know how rude it is to gore up the help? Trevor picks Eleanor up, claiming he’ll do anything to protect her, although admits it looks like the Fier Manor might have some security issues. She gets a little freaked by him, but he assures her he didn’t kill the man, and she would have to trust him. So she does, la la la. He brings her into the kitchen and leaves her again. Eleanor finds the heart roasting in the coals of the oven.

She finally flees the manor in the daylight to find her friend Annie. Unfortunately, she finds Annie under a bridge, frozen in the river, as a storm blows up. Trevor finds Eleanor as night falls, and gets them, and the corpse, to shelter, then heads out into the winter storm to get help – leaving Eleanor alone with Annie’s corpse. Not for long, though. Annie wakes up.

Annie the vampire tried to drink Eleanor’s blood, claiming immortality is awesome. Eleanor pushes her into the sunlight, and Annie finds immortality to be very quick indeed. The Fier’s driver comes to rescue Eleanor. She realizes she must see Trevor again, and goes down to his coffin room to visit his corpse. Only, the coffin is empty! Priscilla finds her there, and is all – what the fuck is this place? Getting over that pretty quick, Priscilla asks Eleanor to help fix the hem of her dress, but when they go to the mirror, Eleanor sees only her reflection.

Priscilla the vampire gets all seductive, and tries to turn Eleanor. She runs away, only to be grabbed by a massive bird who takes her to the roof. Only the bird is actually Trevor. Eleanor gets all mad at Trevor for bringing her close to another vampire, but then she learns the truth … Priscilla is her mother! Priscilla loved being a vampire, and was in charge of this whole operation. She had been waiting for her little girl to grow up to turn her. Trevor was the lucky vampire with the mission to turn her, but he fell in love with her instead. Priscilla is more powerful than him, and she joins them on the roof. She goes to drink Eleanor’s blood, but Eleanor fights her off and pushes her off the roof – to be staked on an iron stake. That just makes her kind of mad, and slows her down some.

Trevor wakes up, but is weak. He tells her to kill Priscilla, and takes her to her mother. His last message to her is: I have always hated what I became and I will always love you. They try to force Priscilla into the sunlight, but she manages to stake Trevor. Eleanor goes into mad rage and tackles her vampire mother, who tries to drink her blood again. Trevor gets up enough strength to take down Priscilla, as they both burn up in the morning sun. As Trevor’s flesh is burned away, he pulls Eleanor in for one last kiss. Hot.

Kind of a gag-worthy romance, wasn’t it? Eternal love, blah blah, I’ll die for you, blah blah. I kind of love that Priscilla was Eleanor’s mother, and was a bad ass vampire the whole time. And it was good that Trevor died in the end, big heroic sacrifice, these eternal love stories are always better with poignant endings, dontcha think? 10 flesh-decayed kisses out of 14.

The Babysitter IV or "Who Hates Sweaty Kids? R.L. Hates Sweaty Kids."

2009-08-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

The Babysitter IV. Thank god it’s the last in this series! For those who need a refresher, I wrote about the Babysitter III allll the way back in November. For those of you too lazy to read the old recap I’ll give away the surprise ending: Jenny snapped. She went nuts and stole a baby. That’s about all that happened.

This installment of the Babysitter series is a little more random. As in, supernatural. Jenny gets out of the hospital after spending a full year there. (Shouldn’t she be like 20 by now? This is the fourth summer that crazy crap has happened to her!) Anyhoo, her new next door neighbour is a single mom with three kids and no shame in asking Jenny to babysit all the time with no advanced warning. I’d be telling this mom to EFF off, especially about babysitting. She babysits for the twins Sean and Seth and their younger sister Meredith. The kids are pretty cute, but soon mysterious stuff starts happening around the house. Some highlights: when trying to cut cake, Jenny’s hand with the knife tries to stab her heart out; when trying to wash dishes, Jenny’s hand tries to shove itself down the garburator! (recycling ideas much, R.L.?) Luckily, she has enough common sense to turn off the garburator with her non-Idle hand. She keeps being woken up in the middle of the night by howls (caused by dogs, you idiot) but she also sees a young girls face in the attic window of her neighbours house. Is the girl howling? Answer: no. When she tells anyone about her fears, and the fact she’s hearing voices inside the house, they all think she’s back to being nutters. To be fair, I would too. And then we find out that Ms. Next Door only has two kids! Jenny has made up one of the twins in her mind! Except the other kids interacted with him, sooo that can’t be right. Either way, Jenny’s mom is having her re-committed ASAP. Jenny knows something is up, and goes to investigate after Ms. Next Door takes her two real children away for the night. She finds Seth is still hanging out there, and that he’s a ghost. She goes to find out about the girl in the attic, and Seth tells her that she’s a ghost too, but she’s locked in the attic because she killed Seth while babysitting him! Jenny is all “Maybe, but I want to hear her admit it” and releases this other ghost girl. Long story short, Seth is the true evil ghost, and after wrestling with the babysitter ghost for a few minutes, they both go off to where ever the hell ghosts disappear too. I can only assume purgatory. Jenny is found amid the wreckage of the house by her mom and is all “It’s okay now Mom, I’m totally not crazy anymore!” and her mom agrees. WTF Mom? That’s just poor parenting. COMMIT YOUR KID.

Babysitter IV gets a little bit higher marks for a) being about ghost which is super cool and b) having another haunted GARBURATOR scene! So I’ll give it 13 hideous children out of 22. (This will make more sense in a minute)

Let’s talk awesome descriptions. Unfortunately, this book didn’t have as many sweet 90s references or denim nightmares. But it still had some pretty good character descriptions.

1. Meredith. This poor child. Let’s read exactly what R.L. wrote about her:

“She was five or six, plump, with a round face like her mother’s. She had curly, light brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail and tiny dark eyes close together around a pudgy stub of a nose.
Meredith wore a sleeveless yellow T-shirt and matching yellow shorts. Her sneakers were yellow, too.
She’s not very pretty, Jenny thought. Meredith had a red scratch across one chubby knee. She had a small Band-Aid on her chin. Beads of sweat glistened above her upper lip.”

Yikes! What else do you want to add in there, R.L.? She’s chubby, sweaty, pig-like. Does she also have sideburns? How about a rash somewhere, huh? Like, why does he have such a hate on for this poor character??

2. We find out that Jenny wears pink mid-drift tops and shorty-short cutoffs to hang around her house. Is she trying to turn tricks in her kitchen?
3. Apparently shorty-short cutoffs were all the rage back in 1995: Clair wears hers with an oversized white tee-shirt over a blue sleeveless T-shirt. R.L. would like you to know that the shorts emphasis her long, lean legs. Of course he does. Perv.

And those were the only good outfit descriptions! (Although, every time Jenny’s BF Cal is mention, it talks about how much he smells like gasoline.) Lame, I know. But you get to read about how much R.L. hates sweaty children. Yay!

Blind Date or "FISTS OF STEEL"

2009-08-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

Here’s another Point Horror that I think you all will enjoy. Because it was totally ridiculous.

The book starts with our main character Kerry breaking another boy’s leg during football practice. He didn’t mean to, but that fact doesn’t stop his teammates from going crazy on him, accusing him of hurting their star player, Sal Murdoch. Even the coach gets in on the whole dumping all over Kerry party, and actually kicks him off the team because the other players are mad at him. What? Isn’t it kinda expected that people would get hurt during football? Isn’t that kinda the point of the game? Things get worse when good ol’ Sal goes into a coma. From a broken leg? Sure, why not.

Later when Kerry is moping around his room, we get a little more insight into his life. Apparently, he looks just like Ralph Macchio: The Karate Kid! I’m a little ashamed to say that I’ve never actually seen the Karate Kid, so I had to go look this kid up on Google.

So The Karate Kid is about a small child’s love affair with a much older Asian man? It seems weird that so many people enjoyed that movie…

Kerry also hates it when anyone talks about his older brother Donald. You see, there was a “tragedy” that happened last year, but Kerry can’t remember it. And his doctors think it’s a good idea that no one else tell him ‘til he remembers it on his own. Blind Date is the male version of The Face! Where did these doctors go to school?? Anyways, Kerry can’t remember anything from the previous year, and since he only has one friend, I guess it’s not a big deal to keep that year a secret.

In addition to his one friend Josh, Kerry has a younger brother Sean (who is 14 and has chips and beer for dinner. A Stine book with BEER in it? Almost unheard of!) and a father, who is awkward around him. Probably because of all the secret keeping. Kerry’s mother left the family soon after the “tragedy”. So that’s cold. No wonder Sean drinks BEER at 14! He’s in a non-nuclear family!

The night after he breaks ol’ Sals leg, he gets a mysterious phone call from his Blind Date. Apparently, she has the sexiest voice Kerry’s ever heard! But when you think that she’s 16 and probably still sounds like a child, that’s a lil’ creepy. She says that his friend Margo gave her his number since she’s moving to town and needs someone to show her around. So he asks her out for Saturday night (before asking for her NAME, might I add) and she says yes, rattles off her name and address and hangs up. He thinks her name might be Amanda. Real smooth.

The next night he gets another random call, but this one is a little less sexy. A pinchy, nasaly voice tells Kerry that “Sticks and stones can break YOUR bones!”, which is pretty creepy. Kerry just assumes that the prank caller is Sal’s girlfriend Sharon and shrugs it off. I guess back before there was caller ID people made a lot more prank/threatening phone calls?

On Saturday night, Kerry takes his dad’s sweet Mustang out to pick up maybe-Amanda. When he gets to her house, he’s a little surprised because its basically a hovel, and there are no lights on. It gets weirder when an old mysterious couple answers the door. When they hear that he’s there to pick up Amanda for their date, the couple freaks out and tells him that Amanda is dead. Then they seem to recognize him, and scream “Why did you come back here to torture us?!”. Well, that’s a little offputting. I would REALLY be wondering what I had been up to for the previous year that I can’t remember, but Kerry doesn’t seem that perturbed. He’s not even that annoyed when he gets home to another prank call with the disturbing children’s lyrics. Weirdo.

His blind date, Mandy, calls him on Sunday evening, asking him where he was. Turns out he mixed up both her name and address. She gives him another chance and they decide to meet at school on Monday before classes start. Kerry goes to shoot some hoops with Josh for the afternoon and ends up getting beat up by some of Sal’s friends who are pissed their friend is still in a coma. Not really an important chapter, but I’ll point out that Kerry had a fantasy about kicking their asses which included yelling “FISTS OF STEEL” while punching one of them. I REALLY want to get into a fight now, just so I can yell that while punching someone. Amazing.

Kerry has to meet up with Mandy while his face looks like garbage, which she kindly points out. She’s not what he expected: she’s all pale, blond and doll-like. Except she’s wearing dark lipstick (which in R.L.’s world = whore). They hang out and Kerry asks her to be his date for the upcoming dance. It just isn’t a 90s teen book until there’s a dance! Kerry’s feeling all good, until he opens his locker and the entire thing is covered in blood red paint. That’s kinda hard to explain to a new girl, hey?

The next day, Kerry wakes up to his Dad looking like he has some serious bad news: Donald has escaped. From where you ask? So does Kerry. You see, Kerry had forgotten what happened to his brother. “Kerry realized – for the first time – that he didn’t know where his brother was. How could that be? Had he been living in a dream-world for an entire year?” Indeed, how the EFF could that happen? Kerry thinks about Donald ALL THE TIME. I’m not writing about it, because Kerry’s dreams about his older brother make for boring blogs. But he’s always thinking about him, and he never once was like “Gee, where did that guy get to?” Ugh, R.L.

Kerry’s dad finally kinda tells him what happened. There was a car accident with Kerry, Donald and Donald’s girlfriend. Kerry and Donald were both untouched, but the girlfriend was killed. Donald snapped and had to be sent to a mental institution. Kerry asks what the girls name was, even though he kinda already knows: Amanda. Dun dun dunnn!

On Friday night, Kerry meets Mandy in front of the school for their dance date. During a slow song, she totally pushes Kerry into a dark corner and makes out with him so hard that his lips bleed. Then she runs away. Kerry thinks this is hot, which I CANNOT believe, because bleeding lips are not sexy! (I bet his lips were dry)

While searching for his nutters date, Kerry gets chased around by the mean bullies who beat him up at the basketball court. They tell him that Sal got out of his coma, and explained to him that Kerry didn’t break his leg on purpose, so all is forgiven. No hard feelings, right? Ohhh, boys… Kerry finally finds Mandy and they decide to go home. When they get to his car, they see that all his tires have been slashed. Violently. Mandy freaks out and runs across the parking lot and hops on the first bus she sees. Which is seriously WEIRD behaviour, but Kerry’s still all smitten. The creepy death threat that he gets when he’s home doesn’t even bum him out that much! His dad does warn him to watch out for Donald though, which I thought was very cryptic.

The next day, Kerry runs into Margo, the girl that set Kerry up with Mandy. Except she’s never heard of this Mandy girl and has no idea what he’s talking about. Again, all these signs are BAD. When you start dating a new person, and death threats begin at the same time… chances are your new girlfriend is NUTS. Yet he still agrees to go on a car ride with her that night. Aw, I remember when I first got my license and we’d just go out for car rides! And now, my work commute has ruined driving for me.

Kerry gets another threatening phone call that night, but this time from Donald! He says “Be careful, I’m coming.” Which isn’t so much a threat as it is a statement. It’s all in the inflection. Anyways, Kerry freaks out and slams down the phone before he can find out whether or not it was a TRUE threat. Fool.

On their car ride, Kerry discovers that Mandy is a terrible driver, as she’s continually swerving around, almost landing them in the ditch. She’s all skittish, and confesses that she thinks DONALD is following her. Even though she just moved there. And has never met Donald. And Kerry obviously didn’t tell her about him because he can’t even remember where that kid went! But Kerry believes her and promises to protect her.

Mandy again swerves into oncoming traffic after her confession, but the headlights of the oncoming car actually jog Kerry’s memory! He sees the accident and the aftermath of dead Amanda. And he knows why Donald would be so mad at him… because Kerry was driving when Amanda was killed!

Kerry tells his dad about getting some of his memory back as well as Donald’s call. His dad lets him know that after the accident, Donald had tried to strangle Kerry to death, but was foiled when the police arrived! Ooo, that is pretty traumatic.

The next night, Kerry is hanging around his house, thinking about how his brother tried to kill him. Mandy calls him up and says that Donald is IN her house right now! She trapped him in the basement and she’s coming to Kerry’s house. (Call the police.) She gets there and they discover that Kerry’s phone cord has been cut! (Go to the police.) Instead of taking my helpful advice, the two kids decide to head out to Mandy’s hunting cabin in the secluded woods. Face palm!

Of course Mandy feeds Kerry drugged hot chocolate as soon as they get there. When he comes to, he’s tied to the chair and Mandy sings for him: “Sticks and stone will break YOUR bones” and whips out a mallet. Well, that’s potentially the scariest thing I’ve read in a R.L. book in a long time! He asks to at least know what he did wrong (because he thinks this about a bad date??) and she lets him know her secret: she’s Amanda’s sister! Their parent’s named them Amanda and Mandy? That seems … silly.

Mandy starts in on her promise of breaking all of Kerry’s bones. She smashes the toes on his right foot! To make the next mallet hit more exciting, she puts a stuffed moose head over Kerry’s face so he won’t know when the hit is coming. That’s just cruel! FYI the head is full of bugs too. Mandy is a stone cold bitch.

Luckily, who comes to rescue Kerry? Brother Donald! He subdues Mandy (Kerry doesn’t see how, but I like to think it was a FISTS OF STEEL punch) and takes the buggy moose head off. Apparently, Donald had called Kerry to warn him about nutters Mandy, who is actually named Nancy. Nancy was a fellow patient in the hospital, and Donald told the whole car accident story to her. Since she’s REALLY crazy, she took on the role of Amanda’s sister (with a poorly thought-out name) and decided to extract some revenge. She couldn’t have taken on the role of Amanda’s sister and quietly grieved? Does everything HAVE to be crazy with this girl?

The book ends with Kerry and Sal meeting on crutches and having a laugh about their bad luck. Then Josh asks Kerry if he wants to be set up with his new cousin that’s moving to town… dun dun dun!

Okay, Blind Date wasn’t terrible, but there seemed to be some gaping plot holes that were just ignored. Like Kerry not caring where his brother disappeared to. Or what happened to Donald after he saved Kerry, because I think escaping from a mental hospital is frowned upon. My most burning question: did they let him back on the team now that the bullies like him again?!

I give Blind Date 38 ½ bleeding lips out of 77. Exactly mediocre.

Fear Street Sagas: Circle of Fire, or “The Craft, circa 18-something”

2009-08-07T09:39:00.000-07:00

Prologue

Emma Fier Reade hides her secret magic evil spellbook in 1745 in her attic, then dies of unknown causes. That’s pretty much all that happens here.

Sometime Later, Presumably Like 100 Years Maybe

So, thanks ghost writer for not actually putting in any dates. I like knowing exactly when these sagas supposedly happened, not being forced to make educated guesses. Because, let’s be honest, not a whole lot of education went into that guess. If they did put the date in there somewhere, hidden by all that insightful text, and you think to yourself “L. K. was just way too lazy to actually find the date”, well, guilty as charged.

Mia Saxton is late – once again – at Miss Pemberthy’s School for Young Ladies. This school is located in an old estate, maybe where a wealthy (yet evil) family once inhabited. Her classmates go all mean-girls on Mia, sniggering about how she was born on a farm. Chief mean girl is Alicia Bainbridge, who seems to me to be a know-it-all bitch, but she is rich and back in the 19th century people used to equate popularity with wealth. Thank goodness that never happens anymore. Mia has no friends and feels awkward and overgrown and hates Miss Pemberthy’s. Even her roommate Clara, arguably even less popular than her because she’s dumb and fat, won’t speak to her. Although Clara never speaks to anyone because she’s too shy, so she hardly counts.

Until one day Mia has had enough of Alicia and stands up to her for Clara. Clara shyly asks whether she wants to be friends. Aww, how sweet. They eat lunches together, and adopt a stray cat they find. Mia is happy everything seems to be turning around for her.

One night, Mia spots a group of girls heading out to the barn at night, a group of cool girls who hold themselves aloof of Alicia and her bitchy clique. Mia’s curiosity is piqued, so she head out into the winter storm to spy on them. She discovers that they are practising magic spells. The chanting makes Mia all hot and tingly. Hmm. Magic sounds like fun. When the girls stop chanting, Mia falls over and is discovered.

There are four girls there – Phoebe, Irene, Anabel, and their leader Joanne. The girls are about to mean-girl beat Mia up, until all the candles point in her direction, and a piece of metal levitates and points at her. The girls are terrified/delighted, because they had never made actual real magic happen before. They decide the magic chose Mia, and that was good enough for them. Mia joins their little coven, and swears on evil magic she won’t tell anyone about it. They show her the spellbook they found in the attic of Miss Pemberthy’s. Mia is repulsed by it, but it also makes her hot and tingly again, so she goes with it.

As they sneak back into the estate, they find Miss Pemberthy herself waiting with snotty Alicia, who had totally tattled on them. Tell me why anyone would enjoy being around this bitch. The girls are put on kitchen duty for the next two days, which is pretty much the worst thing that could ever happen. The girls are pretty mad at Alicia, until she informs them that she can do whatever she wants because her father is the richest man in the state, and then they’re cool with her. Oh, no wait, they’re not. They vow revenge. Mia goes up to her room, where poor pathetic Clara is eagerly waiting for her. She tells Clara she can’t know where she went, or why she has a new group of friends. This puts a significant wedge in their friendship.

The next night the girls meet at the barn again, to try a spell they have chosen at random, since none of them know the language the chants are written in. They chant, Mia gets all flushed and excited again, and they make a field mouse dance for them in the middle of their weird circle. They think this is awesome, until the mouse plops down dead. Mia’s ready to call things quits, until the mouse jumps back up and scurries away, so everyone assumes no harm was done. They try another spell, near the back of the book. Mia finds she knows the chant without looking at the lines, and this one gives her the heeby-jeebies. She stops them in the nick of time, as she realized they were summoning something very dark, and very dangerous. The girls all think she’s ridiculous, as they hadn’t noticed anything happening, but when they leave the barn all the trees nearby had been gouged by some very large claws, and they are pretty thankful they didn’t get to know what caused those. Mia has concerns about continuing their little game.

The next day Mia loses her temper at Alicia, who is picking on Clara once again. While working in the kitchen, the girls decide to try a spell on Alicia, the one to make her dance. They chant until they hear screaming coming from the classroom. Alicia is hellbent on jumping and twirling, as everyone else laughs and the teachers yell at her to stop. Alicia is clearly terrified, and Mia feels pity for her and stops the spell. She realizes that some of the symbols from the spellbook at marked on her skin, like tattoos, and that she needs to stop. However, none of the other girls are marked, but they are getting off on this new power they’ve found. They’re in no rush to stop the coven, or their spells.

Miss Pemberthy tells the girls the story of the estate they were staying in. It was built by one Jacob Reade, who had come there from Salem, Massachusetts. Some people said that his wife practiced dark magic, but that of course was ridiculous. Alicia starts to look suspicious, like she’s catching on to what’s happening, but then she sees a spider and shrieks like a little girl. Mia tells the girls she thinks Alicia might tell on their magic-practicing ways.

The coven is getting better at calling spells, although it’s always Mia that seems to make these things happen. One night they try a new spell, and Mia feels an overwhelming sense of wrongness with what they did, although they aren’t sure what actually happened. She’s compelled to walk outside, where there is a dark moving mass in the midst of the snow. Spiders, hundreds of them, roiling over a person – the body of Alicia. Mia nearly faints, as she realizes they had Alicia killed, without knowing exactly what they were doing. Ugh, death by spiders. I think I have a new worst death ever.

All the girls promise to never tell what actually happened to Alicia. As far as anyone could see, it was a random mugging by spiders. The other girls agree the Alicia really got what she deserved, so they weren’t going to feel bad about it. Mia is horrified, and tells them she will never do another spell. The mean-girls turn into mean-witches, and tell her she’ll be sorry ... and to watch out for spiders.

Alicia’s coffin is set up in the front parlour, surrounded by roses, and Mia goes to apologize to her (body). As she does so, the roses start attacking her, wrapping her up in their vines and pricking her with their thorns. The roses start to drink her blood, as she gets more and more feeble against the floral assault. She just escapes, and is found by Clara. Mia thinks Clara is so sweet, and a true friend, not at all like the girls who tried to kill her with roses.

That night Mia feels the pull of evil magic, and knows the girls are trying another spell out on her. She has to know what it is, so she creeps out to the barn to find out. Another girl has taken her place, so there are five of them again. She feels they are calling something evil. As she tries to escape, a wave of snow crashes over her, then another. She is being drowned in a sea of snow. Every time she digs herself out of her snowy grave, a fresh layer covers her. Mia gets mad, and is able to fight the snow off, and makes a dash for Miss Pemberthy’s. She thinks she’s safe once she’s inside, but she comes face to face with the girls, her former friends, all burning with hatred. She realizes the power and magic had turned them evil.

The girls start chanting, and the kitchen comes alive, with cutlery and appliances attacking Mia. This totally reminds me of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, except obviously in that movie the appliances were the good guys. Mia screams, and fire shoots from her hands, stopping everything. Magic flows through her, and she has command of everything around her. One of the girls is wrapped up by a big rug, others are pinned down by kitchen chairs. The mean girls are all of a sudden not so scary anymore. Mia takes the spell book from Joanne, and destroys it with her fire. She blacks out from the effort, but when she wakes up, Joanne has gone insane, laughing hysterically, unable to recognize anything.

The five girls are taken away from Miss Pemberthy’s by their parents. Mia is relieved the nightmare is over, and wants to start afresh. A week afterwards, though, she hears chanting in the house, coming from the attic. She must know who it is, and creeps upstairs. The wooden floor stretches and becomes a face that whispers her name, then belches graveyard rot onto her. As she tries to escape the floor liquefies beneath her, trapping her legs. Someone approaches her – Clara!

Poor, insignificant Clara. She had become magic at the same time as Mia, called by the spellbook, and had been making all the horrible things happen. The others were just little girls, playing with powers too great for them. Clara would now make Mia pay, for choosing the others over her. She calls the shadows against Mia, to kill her. Well, Mia, being magic too, fights back against the shadows with her fire. The shadows turn on Clara, wrapping her up and wringing her out, before disappearing with her.

Mia leaves Miss Pemberthy’s after that, deciding she’s had entirely enough of a young woman’s education at that place. She vows to never use the power she has again ... unless she has to.

Call Waiting, or “Unbalanced Teenaged Stalkers Learn A Thing or Two About Life”

2009-07-21T18:15:00.001-07:00

Karen and Micah are on a stakeout, stalking Karen’s boyfriend Ethan. Yup, she’s stalking her own boyfriend. She’s obsessed with him, convinced that he is out with someone else, because he told her he had to work the night shift. Micah is convinced her best friend is nutters. They are freezing in the winter night since they would run out of gas if they leave the car running. Oh, to be seventeen again. Ethan comes home a half hour before his work shift should have been, and Karen takes this as proof that he’s cheating. She drives like a lunatic on icy roads, and gets into a (minor) accident. I believe this chapter is to best capture how psycho our heroine of the story truly is.

Ethan comes over the next day. Karen questions (sneakily) where he was the night before, and he answers at work, but unfortunately for him, Ethan’s friend Jake pops in right behind him to hand him his wallet THAT HE LEFT AT HIS PLACE LAST NIGHT. Karen reels with the knowledge that Ethan is both cheating on her, and lying about it. Ethan wants to talk about something serious with Karen, and she knows he’s about to break up with her ... but they are interrupted by Karen’s prankster older brother, so they don’t have that talk, yet. Karen threatens to kill that bitch Wendy Talbot, who she thinks Ethan is seeing behind her back, further proving her mental stability to us all.

Karen’s cousin Adam recently moved to their town, so Karen shows up at school early to show him around. While wandering the school, Karen spies Ethan and Wendy talking together, and goes into a blind rage. She manages to wait until lunchtime, when she goes to confront Wendy. They have words at the top of a stairwell, and all of a sudden Wendy finds herself at the bottom of the stairwell, with head injuries. Karen does exactly what any innocent person would do, and runs away. She was so angry she can’t remember exactly what had happened at the stairwell. Interesting side note: Karen is wearing blue Doc Martens. These little details are not lost on me, R. L.

Karen leaves school for the day, and gets home to find her mother waiting for her. Micah had called her to let her know what went down at school, because she was really worried about her. What is this: a responsible friend? I’ve never seen anything like it before. Karen responds well, in that she feels completely betrayed and freaks out on Micah, telling her they’ll never be friends again. To make the day even better, Ethan shows up and breaks up with her. Karen LOSES IT. Ethan gets the hell away from her (reasonably, in this case), then calls her from a safe distance to see how she is doing a half hour into the break up. Karen is doing surprisingly much better, she’s calm and apologizes for her previous behaviour ... until the call comes.

A call comes in on call waiting, so she switches over to get it. When she comes back on the line, she’s all breathy and frightened – whoever was on the other line threatened to hurt her! Ya, right, typical teenage drama. While her story is so flimsy it should be wearing a bra, Ethan eats it up and comes rushing to her side to protect the poor damsel in distress. They decide it was probably a joke, and they shouldn’t get the police involved.

And so the Ethan-Karen romance continues. Every time he tries to distance himself from her, like clockwork a threatening call would come in. Ethan wanders around like he’s suffocating, clearly not enjoying his time with crazy. Meanwhile Micah is trying to restore their friendship, but Karen will have none of it. She actually runs away from her, because that is how mature people handle awkward situations. She promptly runs into Wendy, holding a gun! Karen assumes Wendy is going to kill her, until she’s reminded that Wendy’s the propmaster for the school’s production of Guys and Dolls. Wendy also has some timely advice for Karen – not everything is all about her. And also, although she knows she didn’t push her down the stairs, Karen was a bitch for running away and not helping her. I like Wendy.

Karen goes that night to see Ethan at his work, like the stalker that she is, only to be told he quit two weeks ago. Not only is Karen a stalker, she’s a shitty stalker. She calls Ethan to demand an explanation, and guess what? The call waiting stalker calls her at that very time. She pleads with him to come over, which he refuses, but he does agree to take her out on Saturday night.

Saturday rolls around, and Karen is primping for her date, not yet ready. Ethan comes over and is talking to her brother, mentions the threatening call waiting calls Karen has been getting. Big brother is all “But we don’t have call waiting.” Dun dun DUN! Karen’s shallow excuse for keeping her dying relationship going is exposed. She fesses up when confronted by Ethan, her mom, and her brother, admitting to making the calls up in order to keep Ethan with her. They all are pretty convinced she’s unstable, and her mom makes her see a shrink to talk about it, but Ethan STILL TAKES HER OUT THAT NIGHT. Being handed solid evidence your boyfriend/girlfriend is so wtf crazy they make up threatening calls to keep you with them is a fully legitimate reason to break a date, but Ethan is kind of okay with it. What does that say about Ethan?

Two weeks later, Ethan is uncomfortably over at Karen’s. Her mom thanks him for spending so much time with Karen, like he’s doing her a favour. As he heads up to Karen’s room, Karen gets a call: Karen, this is your imagination calling. I’m inside your brain. I’m going to kill you. I’m really going to kill you. I love how Karen’s imagination had to specify where it is, inside her brain, as opposed to somewhere else. Ethan obvs doesn’t believe her when she tells him, and she’s not even sure of herself that much.

At school, people are treating her differently, like she’s a crazy person. They clearly got the memo, then. Even Ethan’s friend Jake gives her the cold shoulder, but Ethan is still spending everysingleminute with her. A girl comes to get her at lunch, saying there’s a call for her in the principal’s office. The call is the same voice, same imagination-going-to-kill-you threat. Karen starts to freak out, until the secretary tells her not to use the phone she’s holding, since it is out of order. Karen really freaks out.

Her cousin Adam sees her in the hallway, and offers to take her home because she’s pretty incoherent. Karen is really worried about her head-state, and speaks with her psychologist, which is pretty responsible too, and not really the actions of a crazy person. Which we find out she may not be, when the next day the secretary at the office tells her that the phone actually had been working yesterday. Vindication! Karen’s happy she’s not for reals crazy, but it also means she’s getting for reals threatening phone calls.

Ethan still won’t believe her. As she gets clingier, he clearly can’t stand to be around her, ditching her as much as possible. He’s just blown her off another night when she gets another phone call. She starts to cry, because she’s so alone and such a victim, when she hears a noise in the background and stops. SHE KNOWS WHO IT IS.

She dashes out to confront the caller, and drives to ... Micah’s house. She runs in and babbles out an accusation. Karen knew it was Micah because she heard the weird cuckoo clock of her father’s in the background, while Micah was threatening her with imagination-death. Micah turns evil mean girl, and says she did it all for Ethan. Ethan was going to leave Karen not for Wendy, but for Micah, but then decided against it when Karen got all the poor-me threatening phone calls. Micah figured Karen was already mentally unstable, so what was the difference if a few phone calls pushed her over the edge? Ethan would be hers!

Karen lunges for Micah, who strikes back with a hot poker from the fire. Wow, that was an escalation. Hot poker = automatic fight to the death. Micah’s about to brain Karen, when Ethan rushes in to stop her. Both girls immediately burst that the other was trying to kill them, and Ethan sides with ...

Karen! That’s pretty surprising. He was on the phone with Micah when Karen burst in, and she never hung up, so he heard Micah’s evil confession. Note to evildoers – don’t ever tell us your whole plan. It will come back to bite you in the ass. Ethan hadn’t stayed with Karen because he felt sorry for her, but because he cared about her. Awww, that’s so sweet. So he wasn’t feeling suffocated by the crazy so that he had to blow her off all the time. Apparently Ethan is just a bad boyfriend. Ethan and Karen leave hand in hand and live happily ever after.

Worst ending ever! Actually, worst plot line ever. I wish that Karen really had been crazy, that would have been the actual twist for me. I feel certain that this is a normal occasion at high school these days. A bunch of teen drama queens who are way too into themselves and have way too much time on their hands make up a bunch of crap to keep their partners on a leash, and fence with hot fire pokers. This happens all the freakin’ time, give me something a little more creative! 11 imagination death threats out of 68.

Fear Street Sagas: Children of Fear, or “By Nature Evil”

2009-07-17T11:48:00.000-07:00

Prologue

We begin with Luke Fier, hero of the novel, trapped in a dark cellar with a tangle of snakes, who are all intent at killing him as soon as the candle he has burns out. Why is it that snakes are afraid of a little fire, do you think? I’m remembering Indiana Jones here, how snakes don’t slither into the torchlight, but is that really accurate? As a rattlesnake, I’m not sure the weak flicker of one candle would get between me and my dinner, but as a rattlesnake, I’d probably be awesome, so I’m not sure if that means anything. Anyways, Luke here is protected by the candlelight, and decides that he is going to write his life story on the wall while he waits to die, because someone needs to know the truth! He uses a rusty nail and his own blood. Since he’s about to be eaten by snakes, he has no fear of tetanus.

Western Pennsylvania, 1876

Luke is tilling his farm, as he contemplates his parent’s tragic death 6 months ago. The horses pulling their carriage went mad as they were driving along a ravine, and the carriage rolled over, killing everyone inside. This leaves Luke as a 16 year old farmer and sole provider for his younger siblings, Leah and Corey. Unfortunately, farming is not Luke’s forte, and they are thisclose to losing the farm. Luke is also anxious about Corey, as the little guy has been mute since their parents died. He and Leah constantly try to get him to speak, but he stubbornly refuses. Being the responsible guardian that he is, Luke takes them all to the county fair, where Leah enters into a horse race with a winning of $50, enough to save the farm!

Leah has a special talent with animals, a gift one could say, inherited from her father, and feels confident she can win this. So do the mean bullying brothers Thomas and Earl Wade, who at first won’t let her enter the race, because “yer a gurl.” She does enter, and is ready to kick some ass, when the Wade brothers (I’m sorry, they just sound dumb, don’t they) try to take her down. They keep grabbing her horse’s bridle as she rides, nearly causing her to fall. Then, all of a sudden, Thomas’ horse attacks Earl’s horse, and they all come tumbling down, except for sure-footed Leah, who goes on to win the race. Only everyone in town says she’s evil, and the mayor won’t give her the prize money. That’s one way to save a buck, I guess. Try using that one tomorrow at Starbucks: “I’m not going to give you this money because I’m pretty sure you’re evil.”

Well, it works for the poor Fier kids, who go home in defeat. Just then, Luke’s neighbour Jack comes riding in to warn Luke about a strange sickness that is affecting all the cows in the village. Apparently green slime comes out of the noses, then they go crazy and have to be put down. Like, mad cow? Luke’s cows are fine, but as they are checking on them, Jack sees Leah feeding a wolf and freaks out. I guess that’s valid. Leah checks over the cows and is confident that they will be fine, and she’s right. But it becomes a little suspicious when they are the only cows in town that are spared the illness.

It also doesn’t help her case when they go to the general store, and a huge poisonous snake is found in there. As all the townspeople flee, Leah just wraps the snake around her, saying she’ll release it out in the wilderness where it belongs. So, it doesn’t take long for an angry group of men to show up there in the dead of night to kill Luke’s cows, leaving a head on the porch (ooooh, early-times mafia!) Attached is a note: Our cows die – your cows die. Stop your sister. Or we will.

That week Luke gives out the last of his money to keep the farm. That night, a mob of villagers burn down their house, demanding Leah. The Fier children come choking out of the burning building to see all their animals slaughtered, and the men prepared to hang them all. This is definitely the correct way to deal with mad cow, let me tell you. As they converge on the three of them, all of the men’s horses flip out and run away, leaving them alone. The Fiers flee, taking refuge in the forest. A wolf brings Leah food to feed them. That’s actually a pretty handy gift to have.

The next morning, the Fiers happen across the orphan train. Well isn’t that convenient. The orphan train is a train that keeps poor parent-less children on board, stopping in towns to see if anyone wants to buy cheap labour (ahem!) I mean adopt them. Dear god, was this early Child Services? Jesus it sounds a little too much like a slave train to me, but the Fiers have nowhere else to go, so they hop aboard. Luke promises Leah and Corey that they will not be separated, no matter what. Once on the train, they are bullied by a group of boys, one of whom holds Corey over the side of the train. They are all attacked by bees. Leah finds this endlessly amusing, saying they deserved it.

Luke ponders his situation at night, and spots a beautiful girl his age. He gets up the nerve to go talk to her – her name is Mary, and is sweet but shy. They fall in love. Luke is happier on the orphan train then he has in a long time. They stop the next morning at the next town, and everyone gets off to be inspected, weighed, and potentially “adopted.” Leah dislikes being shown off like a hog at a fair (her words, not mine), and I have to agree with her. One of the bullies from the other day looks like he might be bought, when all of a sudden a good-natured dog goes berserk and rips his cheek off. Leah thinks this is brilliant, while Luke begins to wonder if Leah is using her powers for evil.

Leah attacks Luke that night for thinking she’s evil, throttling him while he’s asleep. Um, probably not helping your cause there, Leah. Luke is more convinced that Leah is unhinged, and he should be on the lookout for bees or wild dogs and such. Another bully steals Luke’s porridge the next morning, but it turns out to be full of leeches. Yeech! Nightmares about porridge for days now. Luke thinks that Leah had something to do with the leeches, that they were in fact intended for him.

The matron of the train demands Corey speak, or he’ll be removed from the train – take that, Child Services! Next thing you know, she is murdered by a murder of crows. Hmmm, the evidence is mounting. Luke is certain that Leah is evil, but still loves his sister and doesn’t know what to do. He goes to talk to Mary about it, but at that moment she is unfortunately bit by a black widow spider. Luke climbs to the roof of the train and heroically jumps to the engine car to get the engineer to stop as someone needs medical attention. Alas, too late! Mary dies. Her last words are “I saw the evil, Luke. You must kill ...”

Luke is certain Leah is the killer, but he doesn’t want to kill her. They get off the orphan train at the next town, ominously named “Last Chance.” They bury Mary, then go find work. They meet the Greens, a lovely child-less couple, who immediately take them in. Because it’s always that easy. They are mainly happy with the Greens, although Mrs. Green wants Leah to be a lady, and Leah isn’t very lady-like. She does play with wolves, after all. Mrs. Green gets fed up and threatens to send Leah away for being wilful. Leah runs to the barn, and because she is so upset, all the animals in the barn start to act strange, being so affected by her mood. Luke worries. He does this a lot, actually. Not a take-action kind of man.

Next morning, Luke and Corey go to feed the hogs, but they go insane. They break out of their pen and chase down Mrs. Green, trampling her to death. One can only assume they eat her body afterwards (I have a small fear of enormous hogs. Poll: What’s scarier: cats or pigs?) Luke can’t handle the guilt of what he knows, and tells Mr. Green everything, including his suspicions that Leah is behind his wife’s death. They decide to take Leah to the insane asylum, conveniently located down the street. Of course, Luke waits until they are in a horse-drawn carriage to tell Leah he’s locking her up, because he’s a moron. The horses go crazy and plunge through the plate glass of the general store. The store somehow catches fire (??). Luke manages to get himself and Corey out before the kerosene in the store explodes, but Leah is nowhere to be seen ... because she’s being hauled away into the insane asylum.

Luke tucks Corey into bed that night, promising him a better life, starting now. Well, maybe not now. Luke is awoken to Mr. Green’s scream, coming from the cellar. He creeps down there to find Mr. Green’s body, and innocent mute little Corey kissing and talking to a group of rattlesnakes.

I so knew that! I’m pretty sure I read this a long time ago, and pretty much the whole book my thought was, “It’s the kid, right? I’m sure it’s the kid.” Called it. Well, I guess it’s not really “calling it” so much as “read the book before and remembered how it ended.” Anyways, I should have known anyways, because mutes are kind of like mimes, and mimes are creepy.

So, apparently Corey also inherited a gift with animals, and would use it whenever people were mean to him, or to his beloved sister. And Luke had just been really mean to Leah. Corey locks Luke in the cellar with the rattlers, which is where we find him at the beginning of the book. The candle finally wears out, and the snakes are free to descend on Luke. Just then, Leah bursts into the cellar. Corey and Leah have an animal-off, as she tries to convince them to stop, and he tries to convince them to kill. Leah gets through to the snakes at the last second, reminding them they are creatures of nature, not of evil, and should not be used this way. Aw, that sounds like a nice message.

Corey screams that he hates them, and runs away. Luke and Leah are reunited. He’s wondering whether she got a bear or something to break her out, but apparently Leah just calmly explained to the doctors that she wasn’t crazy, she just had a gift with animals, so they let her go. Because that’s how it works in 19th century insane asylums. They decide to live in the Green’s house and take over the farm (despite never actually being adopted) and live pretty happily, despite Luke’s tragic tetanus (no, I made that up). But always waiting, wondering what will happen when Corey comes back ...

I remember liking this book when I was younger, and then secretly kind of liking it again now. Largely because I think being able to command animals is cool. However, I found the whole concept of the orphan train really disturbing. Did this really happen? And how is it that they can sell orphans like livestock, but a 13 year old girl can still talk her way out of a mental institute. It’s like no one was paying attention. Did you even try, ghost writer? An orphan train seems kind of gimmicky. I like that the creepy mute toddler was the bad guy, though. 13 candle-fearing rattlers out of 17.

Cat or "C-A-T Never Spells Murder. That's Just Silly."

2009-07-13T21:05:00.000-07:00

I think the tagline of this Fear Street book really sums up the entirely of the book:

“C-A-T spells murder.”

Um, no. That makes no sense. But as you’ll see, this book is basically about cats, murder and nonsense. So, I guess we can give the tagline author a pat on the back?

My first reaction to the cover of Cat was that the girl was hot but also kinda old. Those cat eyes are giving her some major face-lift face. I also assumed by the cover that at some point, this covergirl (Kit) and the cat would change places/morph/body snatch. Swear to goodness! My first note about the book says “Hot  switch places?”

Cat is a unique Fear Street in that its main character is boy. Marty is a hotshot on the basketball team and has two best friends: Barry who is tall, with anger issues and Dwayne who is funny but chubby and always wearing Hawaiian shirts. How… unfortunate. Other important characters are Kit, the new hawt-ie that everyone is intimidated by, Gayle the bleeding-heart animal rights activist, and Riki, Gayle’s friend who is now stalking Marty after been dumped.

The book starts at basketball practice, where Gayle and Riki come to interview Marty for the school paper. They discuss the stray cat who recently began squatting under the bleachers and has been a menace to the basketball team ever since. Even though Marty is an All. Star. Athlete. he can never seem to catch the cat, who keeps running across the court during practices and games.

Pretty much just to prove his point, the cat gets tangled in Marty’s feet while he’s trying to do some basketball move, and Marty bangs up his knee. He’s super stressed about this because he’s in the running for a scholarship and can’t afford to miss any games. So obviously, he vows revenge on the cat.

Later that afternoon, he successfully gets it! The boys (who call themselves the Three Musketeers, by the way. UGH) are in the gym with Gayle and Riki when the cat scampers by and leads them on a chase. Marty actually catches it for once (with a bum knee? That cat wanted to be caught) but then loses his balance and has to drop the cat to save himself. “I thought cats always landed on their feet.” Except when their thrown from great heights, I guess. Anyways, the cat is dead, Dwayne and Barry are insensitive about it and Gayle freaks the fudge out and accuses Marty of killing it on purpose.

Gayle actually goes ape-shit about this cat killing business, although it seems pretty obvious that Marty dropped the cat to save himself, like a normal person would do. Gayle however tells the school that Marty is a cat killer and everyone is all judge-y. They end up taking Marty to Student Court! Which is totally awesome. Both Gayle and Marty tell their stories and the jury decides that while Marty did not kill the cat on purpose, he is guilty of animal cruelty and being a total jerk. Ha. Marty has to do 30 hours of community service at the animal shelter (cause I’m sure they’d want him). Can Student Courts do that? Impose punishments? Anyone have a Student Court at their high school?

Right after the “sentence” is read, Marty sees a cat under a chair in the room. It’s the same silver cat with diamond shaped black sploch on its face that Marty killed just the day before! Everyone kinda looks at Marty like he’s nuts and ignores him.

Everything seems to be going back to normal for Marty. Until he starts hearing cat noises… mewing and hissing. He even gets an obscene phone call! I was kinda hoping the person would meow at him. But it ends up being Riki, whose pissed off because she saw Marty talking to another girl. Marty reminds her that they only went on a few dates, and he is therefore NOT HER BOYFRIEND. She says some crazy things and Marty ends up telling her to get a life. Which she needed to hear, I think.

Marty has to start his community service the next night. His boss Carolyn is surprisingly nice to him, considering he’s there because he was cruel to animals. And of course she just leaves him alone there! As soon as Carolyn leaves the building, all the dogs and cats start to go nuts. Barking, hissing, heaving, drooling, the works. Marty gets Carolyn to come straight back, but of course when she gets there… they all mysteriously stop freaking out. Carolyn thinks Marty is crazy.

Things look up for Marty romantically though, as he and Kit flirt a little bit in the cafeteria and decide to go for ice cream later that day. When Marty walks her home though, he’s dismayed to find out she owns like a bizillion cats. Who all freak out when Marty comes inside the house. He makes a quick exit, which is probably exactly what I would do too. (Confession: I am totally terrified of cats. This book gave me the extreme heebie jeebies)

Marty’s walking home a little later, when he hears a little “mew”. He turns around to see a cat following him. Creepy. It gets even more terrifying when a bunch of the cat’s friends join up. Marty looks behind and see about 10 cats closing in on him. He decides to make a break for it and outrun the cats. “’They’re only cats’, I told myself. OR WERE THEY?” Subtle, R.L. Marty makes it to his front door, with cats scratching up his pants/shirt, but when he turns to face them, he sees that they’re… gone. OR WERE THEY EVER THERE??

The big game is the next night, and Marty has been given the OK to play! With his help, they win the game and have a “wild celebration in the locker room.” Hmmm. Marty has to go back to school after the game though, because he forgot his knapsack. He sees Gayle run out of the gym and wonders what she was doing there that late. Things take a turn for the worse when he stumbles across a body. A body wearing… a Hawaiian shirt! It’s Dwayne! He’s so slashed to hell, Marty can barely recognize him. A cat meows in the distance. (For real.)

Marty has the least intense confrontation with Gayle the next day. He doesn’t tell the police about seeing Gayle run out but needs to make sure she wasn’t involved. He goes to Gayle and asks her if she did it. She says no. He believes her. Case closed, Detective Marty!

At basketball practice, Marty and Barry make the decision with the team to continue to chase the championships without Dwayne. “In his honor!” Or so you can get your scholarship, Marty. After practice Marty walks in on Barry making out with Riki in the hallways. Two things about this: Obviously Riki is doing this to make Marty jealous. And further more, Barry’s friend was JUST MURDERED. COOL YOUR HORMONES. Jeez!

Marty has some more community service hours at the animal shelter. Carolyn again leaves him alone. Only this time, instead of the animals freaking out on Marty, someone (or something) mysterious, lets all the cats out of their cages! They start to slowly creep up and surround Marty. Marty does what any man would do: grabs a broom and swats ‘em!

Luckily, Carolyn comes in to find Marty batting the cats around. Whoops, did I say luckily? I meant unfortunately. That’s got to look bad! After being let off community service early, Marty goes to Barry’s house and walks in on Barry and Riki making out. Really, guys? Common, now!

Early the next morning, the police come to Marty’s house to tell them the bad news: Barry’s been murdered. All slashed up apparently. Actually, their words were “He was clawed to pieces.” Is that really appropriate to tell a loved one?? The officers ask Marty some questions, since you know, he was one of the last people to see Barry alive, AND he found Dwayne’s body. And killed that cat (what does the have to do with anything, copper?). Anyways, Marty’s all like “I didn’t kill anyone, I swear!” And the cops tell him that they know he’s innocent, they just have to ask. WHAT? How do they “know”? Did THEY kill his best friends?

Marty goes back to work at the animal shelter a few days later. Which I think is weird because he was busted ABUSING the animals, after been sent there for that SAME reason. Carolyn has no sense. Anyways, he’s sweeping up when the cats all start hissing. They know something’s up. And that something is… Kit! Yes, the girl that made an appearance for all of 2 chapters.

She tells him that it’s his turn to be punished. See, she’s … well, why don’t I let her explain it to you:

“I’m the cat, Marty,” she repeated. “You met my family – remember? The other cats in the house? Those are my brothers and sisters.” She raised a hand and clawed the air. “I’m a shape-shifter. I’m one of the last shape-shifters on earth. I shift between a girl and a cat. It’s so easy for me.” She took a step closer. “Why did you kill me, Marty?”

Right. So she’s the cat from under the bleachers… of course. I also don’t know why she’s so mad. She tells him that she has nine lives. So yeah, like one was wasted, that sucks. But is it really worth the murder of three boys? … Maybe.

The final fight scene is hilarious, though. Kit shrinks down into the cat, and then attacks Marty. And as far as I can tell, this cat has no special powers. So Marty is fighting… a regular house cat. She slashes his face and he drops to his knees and stares at her. Okayyy, not exactly the best plan.

Since Marty is so obviously out of his league in this fight, he does the only rational thing. He releases the disturbed dog that likes to kill everything, and I guess just hopes it kills the cat instead of him. Which is does. Marty’s lucky night!

The book ends with Marty playing in the basketball championships, and winning the game! But his moment of happiness is ruined when he looks under the bleachers and sees… Kit the Cat! She raises her blood smeared claws! Marty screams like a girl and wets his pants. Well, one of those things happens.

This book probably wasn’t scary for anyone else to read, but I hate cats so it was a little nervewracking for me. It was also strange how Kit was only in the book for a few pages. There were some other girls in the book as well, but I didnt’ mention them because after getting to the end of the book, I realized they had zero impact on the plot. So it was a weird book. Enjoyable, with possibly the worst (read: best) taglines ever. I give Cat 16 wrestling matches with house cats out of 23!

Cheerleaders: The Evil Lives!, or “It Just Won't Die”

2009-07-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Ready? Okay!

Roll Call!
Amanda: Captain of Shadyside cheer squad
Janine: Kinda chunky
Keesha: tiny, funny
Natalie: stuck up bitch
Victoria: energetic, boyfriend-less

Brandon: funny guy, goes with Janine
Andrew: personality-less, goes with Keesha
Luke: stuck up dick, goes with Natalie
Dustin: overly intense, goes with Amanda
Judd: adorable, Amanda wishes she went with him

There’s a new cheer squad at Shadyside, presumably because time has actually passed, and Corky Corcoran has moved on to become a coed at a state college somewhere. (To get caught up on the entire Cheerleaders saga, see The First Evil, The Second Evil, The Third Evil, The New Evil, and The Awakening Evil). The cheer girls all conveniently have boyfriends on the basketball team. Or maybe not so conveniently – Brandon and Luke are rivals on the team, which makes Natalie and Janine hate each other. Amanda contemplates how HARD it is to be captain, while contemplating Judd’s form and thinks how she needs to switch things up boy-wise for the New Year.

After practice, Amanda goes to the new locker she was assigned. At the back she finds an old duffel bag. The tag on the duffel say “Corky Corcoran” – omg, this is totally her legacy. It is filled with an old Shadyside cheer uniform, not the new ones they wear in modern 1998 (think, pompoms and short striped skirts), along with a picture of some old cheerleaders. There is also a small wooden box as well, labelled: DO NOT OPEN. EVIL INSIDE.

Pfft. Like that’s going to stop anyone. My first reaction would be to immediately open it, saying “Evil? Cool!” Amanda waits at least until she’s sitting at The Corner, the new cool place to hang out in Shadyside. Victoria feels exactly like me and opens the box. If you were expecting evil mist (I was) you are going to be disappointed, because all that is in the box is an old letter and some papers. The letter is from Corky, explaining the Evil, using the word approximately 8 dozen times, and then says all contents of the box must be destroyed.

Just then Amanda’s boyfriend shows up, and she goes outside to break up with him. He takes it pretty well, actually, considering he’s a boy from Shadyside. When she comes back, her friends are gone – as is the evil box.

That night, Amanda gets a call from the Evil – but actually it’s just Keesha. Apparently the contents of the box include instructions to call up the Evil. Way to go, Corky. Why the hell you’d leave that hanging around? Instead of slapping a warning label on it, why didn’t you just burn it yourself? Irresponsible idiot. The girls decide to raise the Evil for shits and giggles.

Once Amanda talks to her older sister, though, she has her doubts. Older sister went to school with Corky, and remembers all the gruesome deaths that surrounded her. Although, as a Shadyside High student, how could you keep track of them all? Anyways, there def was SOMETHING up with Corky Corcoran, and her shit should not be disturbed.

Amanda goes to the cheer meeting determined to destroy the box. She is accosted along the way by Dustin, who tells her he doesn’t agree with them breaking up. Ummm ... I am not an expert, but I’m not sure that’s how relationships work. I don’t think you need to come to a mutually satisfying ending, but Dustin is looking for some satisfaction. Amanda runs away from her creepy ex.

She gets to the cheer meeting, to see candles everywhere, everything set up to invoke the spirit of evil. No wonder cheerleaders have such a bad reputation – they seem to embrace evil pretty easily. Amanda warns them all against it, but then agrees to do it. Sigh. Peer pressure raises its ugly head. Everyone lights candles and starts to chant.

At first nothing happens, then a bright flash of light, and all the lights go out. In walks Brandon and Judd, to everyone’s relief. Laughter all around about how they freaked themselves out, until Judd faints dead away. Oh, he’s fine. He’s just a bit of a fainter.

At the game on Friday night, cheerleaders are in top form. The only person who’s kind of off is Janine, because Luke was chosen over her boyfriend Brandon for a starting position. And by “off”, I mean crazy zombie-like, repeating Brandon will play over and over. Maybe something bad will happen? Like, Luke will go berserk, run into the bleachers, fall into them and have his scalp completely torn off. Because that’s exactly what happened.

Now, how the eff did that happen? How on earth can you crash into the bleachers with the force/torque to take off your scalp? Don’t think it’s possible. Luke tragically dies of his injuries. The girls start to question why this happened ... could it be Evil? Natalie is beside herself, and accuses Janine of being happy Luke’s gone – although Janine continues to be more “zombie” than “happy”. Amanda starts to wonder about Judd’s bizarre behaviour. He comes over to her place one night, and begins to kiss her passionately, but he just doesn’t feel RIGHT somehow. Lips weren’t hot and dry enough for you? Amanda assumes he’s possessed by evil.

Because this is Shadyside, they decide to hold a memorial basketball game a week after Luke’s death. Because it’s classy to do stuff like that. The cheer squad has a hell of a time getting the gloomy crowd into it, after the gruesome death that occurred in front of them just one week ago, but they manage to do it. Just as everyone’s getting into it, though, things take a turn for the worse. Natalie lands in the splits, then her arms fly up over her head and snap off at the elbows. Then her face splits apart as her skull cracks open. She, also, tragically dies of her injuries. Yikes, what a way to go. There’s no mention that this was a natural death, because come on. Everyone is convinced the Evil is back.

There is a general stampede out of the gymnasium, which I would be leading if I had witnessed that. Amanda notices that Janine continues to stare in a zombie-like trance, and wonders if she’s possessed. She gets pretty ancy when Janine shoves her into the locker room to confess ... that she’s terrified they really did raise some awful evil that’s killing them one by one. Sigh of relief from Amanda. They decide to visit Sarah Fear’s grave, to see if they can get any clues as to the Evil.

And clues they get when they go up to visit the Shadyside Cemetery AT NIGHT. First, they get a scare when Dustin stumbles on them because he’s an inept stalker. Then, they discover that Sarah Fear’s grave has been dug up, and the coffin lies empty. Dustin accidentally shoves Amanda into the coffin, because he is an extremely inept stalker.

Amanda is wrapped up in warm air, and is taken back in time, to the point when Sarah Fear and Jane Hardy decide to switch identities. Okay, yes this is weird, but it kind of reminds me of Harry Potter, and the Pensieve that lets him eavesdrop on things that happened in the past. Nobody can see or hear her. Jane would go in Sarah’s place to marry Thomas Fear in Shadyside, and Sarah would go in Jane’s place across the Atlantic to party in London. Things fade to black, and Amanda wakes up on board a sinking ship. Sarah Fear is on deck, shaking with fury that she is dying in Jane Hardy’s place. She’s so angry that as she dies her last thoughts are of bitter unfairness. She’s so angry that even as she dies, her anger lives on, causing the ocean to boil, and putrid green slime pour out of her corpse’s mouth. Presumably the angry green slime makes its way back to Shadyside.

Amanda comes to inside the coffin – it was all a dream. Or was it? She starts babbling about how this is actually Jane’s grave, since Sarah died in the Atlantic. Dustin gets creeped out and takes off. As Amanda points out, that’s one way to get rid of a stalker. She goes home after her creepy coffin experience, still wondering why it was dug up and empty.

Only to find a nasty surprise waiting for her at her house. A set of grave-muddy footprints walking right up to her window. Who, or what, is waiting for her? It’s the corpse of Sarah Fear! Oh, no, that was just a hallucination. But there is a muddy letter on her dresser:

You and your friends have awakened a great Evil. The Evil takes pleasure in killing. You are next, Amanda.

Cordially,

The Evil

Okay, I made that last part up. It was signed by Sarah Fear, but don’t you think mine would be better? Just as Amanda starts to freak out, Judd comes to her door. He is also remarkably covered in what looks like graveyard mud. He wants to talk about Natalie’s death, but Amanda is certain he’s possessed and tries to slam the door on his face. Of course he does what any Shadyside man would do, and grabs Amanda, forcing her into his car to talk. I’m convinced he’s not possessed, just a jackass. Amanda convinces him to drive her to Janine’s, but when they get there, Brandon and Janine are driving away. So they follow them … to Shadyside Cemetery. She runs towards them, standing at Sarah Fear’s grave, pleading for help from Judd, who is possessed. Unfortunately, Brandon’s eyes are all glowy and green, which is the first sign that someone is actually possessed. Oops, shoulda stayed with Judd. Brandon tries to kill them all, and an epic fight ensues. Judd is knocked out, but so is Brandon. Amanda tries to shove Brandon into the coffin, but has trouble shutting the lid.

Just then, a newcomer shows up. It is the corpse of Sarah Fear – or rather, Jane Hardy. She goes after Brandon/the Evil. Another epic fight ensues, between rotting corpse and Brandon/the Evil, that involves the flesh on Brandon’s face being stripped away. As they fight closer to the grave’s edge, Amanda dives at them, pushing them all into the grave.

She wakes up once more on the capsizing ship, except this time Brandon and Jane Hardy are there as well. Jane and Sarah struggle at the edge of the boat, Jane effectively yelling “Why won’t you die, bitch!” They both are tossed into the ocean, and Jane holds Sarah down as they both drown. Things fade to black.

Amanda wakes up in the hospital. Janine is there in the waiting room. She said her and Brandon were found unconscious in the cemetery, soaking wet. Janine has no memory of anything that happened – in fact, Luke and Natalie were fine. There was no Sarah Fear’s grave. So … did going back in time stop the Evil from ever existing? Does this mean that Corky and Bobbi Corcoran live long and happy lives? Well, we never really find out. Amanda goes to visit Brandon. He remembers everything, saying they saw them drown. Sarah and Jane can rest peacefully for ever after.

But Brandon and Amanda can’t rest … as their eyes glow green at each other. Sarah and Jane may have drowned, but the Evil didn’t …

That ending made my day. I was afraid it would be a lovey-dovey happily ever after thing, like nothing bad every happened to anyone (ahem, Christopher Pike and The Last Vampire, anyone?) But R. L. doesn’t play that way, the Evil will go on and on. This was an excellent final Super Chiller – gruesome deaths, random timetraveling flashbacks, and an ending that can leave everyone feeling kind of uneasy. 14 eternal evils out of 15.

The Snowman, or "Happily Ever After: Cinderella Meets R. L. Stine"

2009-06-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Okay, Fear Street fans, I have to apologize. It’s summer out (finally). Summer comes to my part of the world for very short periods of time, and it must be enjoyed to the fullest. As such, most of my free time is spent small patches of sun, preferably with a margarita close at hand, and somehow this picture does not always include a poorly written YA horror book from the 90s. Worse yet, when I do read these books, I’m in such a summer-y blissed out haze that I often find myself enjoying these books, really getting into them and missing the whole point of this snarky exercise. How else can I explain my reaction to the unfortunately titled and unfortunately unseasonal “The Snowman”? I thought I would hate it, but I found myself liking it. What can I say, I’m full of summer love. Forgive?

Heather lives with her evil uncle and aunt, ever since her parents died in a car accident when she was three, leaving her to her guardians. She keeps a plastic Bic lighter of her father’s as a memory of him. A lighter? You stay classy, Heather. Her parents also left her a considerable trust fund, which she is unable to touch as her uncle has control over her. Poor Heather, she’s basically just like Cinderella. She’s forced to work in a greasy diner to help pay for expenses around the house, and her schooling and such. Except unlike Cinderella, Heather has an extremely bad attitude. No singing birds are going to be helping this girl sew her ballgown; she has increasingly violent fantasies involving her Uncle James, and his dying. Uncle James isn’t totally evil, he just seems like an enormous prick who enjoys embarrassing, intimidating, and all around keeping Heather under his thumb. Her Aunt Belle is kinda nice, but timid and meek after years of being married to an overbearing asshole.

Life isn’t all bad for Poor Heather, she does have a nice boyfriend, Ben. But lately she’s been getting kind of bored with him, so when a tall handsome stranger walks into the diner, she gets all perked up. He has weird long white hair, and is more poor than Heather, or at the very least “forgot his wallet.” Heather starts to slip him plates of fries on the sly, and they hit it off. Before long, “Snowman”, which is what he calls himself, has asked her out. I don’t care how weirdly handsome you are, you do not go out with someone who willingly named themselves Snowman. It sounds likes he’s a hitman in a grade B movie, which might actually be closer to the point. Heather, however, accepts, because she likes to live on the wild side every once and awhile.

Heather breaks a date with Ben, and goes out with Snowman, having a predictable wonderful time. The only snafu was he couldn’t pay for the club, which was SOO embarrassing for him, so Heather had to pay. But then they kissed passionately, so all was well. While there was no detailed description of the kiss, I’m going to guess that Snowman’s lips were cold and wet, like melting snow. That seems about right. Heather’s all happy until she runs into Ben at school, who’s all pissed off at her because she’s been two-timing him. He found out about this because Uncle James told him. Heather is furious at her uncle, but Ben is a bit, that’s not really the point. He breaks up with her. Heather then calls him to get him to take her back, which he agrees too, until, in a moment of startling honesty coming from a teenage girl, she tells him she wants to date Snowman too. Ben is not all about this, and hangs up on her, but I kinda liked her for having the balls to tell him how it really is.

Home life is getting no better, and for the first time Uncle James actually physically harms her, yanking her hard and causing her to hit a table hard. Heather’s absolute hatred of her uncle goes up a notch, as to the disturbing Death to Uncle fantasies she has. She makes another date with Snowman, who is behaving more and more mysterious. I mean, no phone number, he doesn’t seem to own a wallet, and while he said he just transferred to her school, no one has noticed a new student, let alone a gorgeous white haired student. Hmmm ... no matter, she’ll still meet him for a date in the park on a cold wintery night. They go to a clearing far in the woods, and make a snowman. Aww, how romantic. Then Snowman violently punches the head off the snowman, which is less romantic, more unstable.

Then Heather invites Snowman over to meet her uncle – reluctantly, because she doesn’t actually ever want anyone to meet her uncle. Uncle James is rude and offensive, and Snowman handles it pretty well, until he’s called a white-haired poor kid. That he doesn’t handle so well, and storms out of the house. Heather catches up to him, and he apologizes, but he’s dealing with other problems so he’s not as calm and collected as he usually is. He tells her his little brother needs an operation, and him mom can’t afford it. The operation costs two thousand dollars, and the little guy will die without it. Of course Heather offers to give him the money, but he is shocked and embarrassed and turns her down, but appreciates that she would think to do something like that. How sweet of him, he must be a really good guy. Heather trusts him completely.

But as a Cinderalla-esque trust fund baby, you gotta learn to not trust every sob story you hear. I mean, what is this mysterious operation for his brother that costs $2000? No idea. This should be sending her HUGE alarm warnings of possible scamming, but no. She trusts him. So when he shows up at her work the next day, and tells her his brother got worse, and needs the operation right away, she doesn’t blink before signing away her savings to him, with his name on the cheque. He says he’ll pay her back real soon as he puts the cheque in his pocket.

Heather is happy with the knowledge that she saved a young boy’s life with money, and is dating a nice new guy. Until approximately a few days later when Snowman shows up at her work again, delighted about something. He tells her with sparkling eyes that he dealt with her problem, and got rid of her uncle. Heather doesn’t believe him, doesn’t want to believe him. He tells her he used a soft scarf to strangle him so that no one will see the marks and think he had a heart attack. I suspect the medical factuality of that statement, but we’ll go with it. Snowman drives her to her house to see that, indeed, her uncle was dead, and the house was a mess of emergency personnel. As Heather stands by in shock, Snowman cares for her grieving aunt, all the while sending her mischievous looks. Psycho!

She gets him alone and tells him she’s calling the police on him. However, he has a plan for this. He kept the cheque she gave him, the cheque made out to him personally for $2000. Needless to say, there was no sick little brother. He tells her if she tattles, he’ll say she paid him to do it, and everyone would believe it because she always talked about how she wanted to kill her uncle. Okay, I’m not sure that a cheque can count as “evidence”, but Heather is sufficiently scared.

At the funeral, Heather contemplates her new life. She really did want her uncle dead, which is an uncharitable thought to be thinking at someone’s funeral, and her aunt has turned over the purse strings to Heather herself, so her money woes are over. She has also started to reconcile with Ben, as he forgives her and offers her his support. However, she is more than wary of Snowman, and how he’s ingratiating himself into her family, and wants him away. For good. Also, strange men in dark suits keep on asking her questions about him, and she’s worried if she gives him up, she’ll be implicated in her uncle’s death.

To make things worse, Snowman keeps on showing up every few days, demanding money to silence him. If she doesn’t pay, he’ll go to the police. If she does, he’ll go away forever. But here’s the thing – what does he really have over her? Her uncle’s death was ruled a heart attack (whatever), so there was no suspicion there. And if he goes to the police to tell them he was paid to kill a man, he’d really be turning himself in, and there’s no way Snowman’s going to do that. Heather’s just being intimidated at this point, and should really tell him where to stick that cheque. Of course she doesn’t. The first time she gives him another $2000, made out to cash.

Snowman does not go away as promised. Heather should know better than to believe a murderous scammer, but that’s her deal. He keeps on popping over for dinner, because Aunt Belle quite likes the polite young man. This next time he asks for $5000 in cash, and he’ll for real be gone and out of her life. Except, but “out of her life” he meant “renting the room over her aunt’s garage.” Heather is pretty desperate at this point, and confesses everything that happened to Ben. Ben gets all manly and tells her he’ll steal the cheque back from Snowman, essentially releasing Heather from the danger I don’t think she was ever in.

They sneak into Snowman’s room, which doesn’t go well because Ben’s head meets the business end of a tire jack. He goes down, and Snowman goes after Heather. He ties her up, puts her in his car, and drives her out to the clearing they made a snowman in that one time, then knocks her out. She wakes up unable to move, or breathe, and is horrified to discover she’s INSIDE a snowman that Snowman built around her. I have to admit, that kinda creeped me out. You would slowly suffocate, and no one would find your body until the next melt. And then slowly body parts would start to peek out, and wouldn’t it be horrifying to be the person who discovers that. But no worries. Heather has the lighter of her father’s that she’s carried in her pocket for 13 years. She gets it lit, and burns a hole in the snowman, giving her enough leverage to break the whole thing apart.

Saved! Except Snowman is still there, watching the whole thing. He comes after her with the soft scarf, but is interrupted when Heather sets his overcoat on fire. He really loses his cool then. Get it? Cool? Whatever. He goes up in flames, just as the police arrive. Ben survived his blow to the head, and directed them to the clearing. He has some confessing of his own to do ... he had followed Heather and Snowman that one time they went to the clearing before. Never has a girl been happier that her boyfriend is a stalker. The damning cheque was all burnt up in the impromptu fire, and the strange men asking questions about him were FBI, investigating him role in the death of his parents. Hint: He did it. Snowman is taken away, and all is well in the world, and Poor Heather is no longer so poor.

Is The Snowman a classic fairy tale done right? First Prince Charming turns out to be a homicidal lunatic, so Cinderella sets him on fire and ends up with Prince Charming number 2? I like it. Points to a Point Horror that has actual death in it, and for gruesome creativity with the built-inside-a-snowman death. That one gave me chills (tee hee, see what I did there?). 16 not-actually-that-damning cheques out of 21.

Dance of Death or "What Do Ravens, Mirrors and Dancing Have To Do With This Book? Nothing."

2009-06-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

L.K. and I have differing views of the Saga series. While L.K. was unsure of the historical novels, she has grown to embrace, and yes, even love her Fear Street sagas. I on the other hand, remembered the historical Fear Streets with fond memories and couldn’t wait to dive into my pile.

My, how things have changed.

It has taken me foreverrrr to finish this latest saga, “Dance of Death”. I literally tried to lose the book “accidentally-on-purpose” just so I had an excuse to put the book away and never look at it again. Now, normally I will read the book and make notes throughout when the funny/ridiculous events happen. Then when I’m writing my snark, I’ll have my notes, but I’ll also have the book out, to make sure I don’t miss any important parts. However, I only have my notes with me, and I really don’t care if I miss any events. Even if I don’t remember them, I know they weren’t important. That being said, I present to you… “Dance of Death”

Hey guess what? There’s no dancing in this book. Like, at all. Apparently, R.L. got so lazy with his writing that he didn’t even bother to think about a title, just slapped whatever popped into his mind first on the cover. Being an author is easy!

So is being a cover-artist it seems. I already mentioned that there was no dancing involved in this book, so that’s points off. Both of the main characters have the wrong hair colour. The broken mirror was no mentioned in the book either. Also, there was no killer raven drooling blood. Was this cover supposed to be for a different book?

1793 Shadowbrooke, New York
Tobias, has escaped from his enemy, who is unknown to us right now. Tobias has been stabbed in the neck with a scalpel (preeeetty good clue as to who did it…) and is desperately trying to write down the secret to killing his enemy. Who is immortal? Maybe.

1873 Shadowbrooke, New York
Madeline, the sad yet beautiful, black-haired orphan has come to live with her cousins Mark and Deborah in Shadowbrooke. (Now these two characters live together and have the same last name but I couldn’t figure out if they were brother and sister or married. I always think that if I can’t tell whether people are related or married, it’s creepy no matter what. Hence my aversion of the White Stripes.) Anyways Madeline self-monologues about how NOT crazy she is, which is a sure sign that she’s nutters. On the way to Mark and Deborah’s house, the horse gets startled by a man on the road and the driver yells to Madeline to jump out of the carriage. Which she does, and then she proceeds to get tramped by the horse. Somehow, I think that situation could have been handled better… Note also that the driver didn’t jump, so I like to think it was just a cruel joke.

She’s knocked out, but thankfully a doctor lives in the house next door and comes to rescue you her. Or just hold her head creepily. She comes to and meets Dr. Justin Fear, who is blond haired and blue eyed “just like angels”. (Did you know they don’t let brunettes into heaven?) Madeline immediately falls in love with the doctor even though his hands are cold and clammy, like a snake’s (or Death’s). She mentions the man on the road and the driver says there wasn’t one. Is Madeline already showing her crazy?

The doctor takes Madeline to Deborah and Marks house. This chapter was boring, so I’ll just write what my notes said instead of recapping: “Judgemental  M & D are old. Molly-maid  Fear is EVIL! An “illness” that makes his touch unpleasant.”
So apparently I think old people are judgmental (they are) and I was suspicious of Justin’s so-called “illness”.

That night Madeline gets woken up by the man she saw startle the horses. He tries to attack her then runs away, so OF COURSE Madeline follows. What else is a crazy girl with head trauma to do? She follows him into a dead end and he disappears. But don’t worry, things don’t go back to normal. Instead a REALLY crazy old woman comes wandering up, looking for TOBIAS.

1793
This is Tobias, pre-scalpel-to-the-neck. He is Justin Fears best friend and they are working on the secret to eternal life. They live next door to each other, with a secret lab in the basements which connect to both houses. They may be in love, I’m not sure. Tobias isn’t exactly very confident since he’s terrified that his fiancé, Honoria will leave him for Justin Fear, even though she outwardly says she hates him and can’t wait for them to move away from Justin. Tobias has got some self esteem issues.

After weeks of working on a manuscript, Tobias has finally discovered that the key to immortality is BLOOD. Delicious!

1873
Deborah finds Madeline in the hallway with the nutso woman. Apparently, her name is Auntie and she came with the house. For Reals. It was in the agreement that they have to keep this old woman and let her live there. I hope they got a good deal on this house. Madeline actually thinks the same thing.

The next day, Madeline receives an invitation to visit Justin Fear at his house. Deborah gets her all dressed up in a nice white dress and sends her over. After Madeline and Justin exchanged a few passionate kisses (my word!) Justin gives her a rose. O, did I say gives her a rose? I meant, he mashes a rose into her hand so hard that the thorns cut her and she starts to bleed profusely. So, like any reasonable person, he starts to “greedily” drink her blood.

1793
This part was also boring so I’ll just give you my notes again. I personally, think it makes for a better story. “The secret is vampire? Justin offers to share Hormonia.” It envokes images of some sort of vampiric-threeway, which really would have spiced up this story

1873
Madeline is screaming at Justin for drinking all her blood, but he explains he “has to” because the rose was poisonous. (I’d be wondering why he gave it to her in the first place) Madeline also doesn’t like his excuse and beats it out of there. Once home, Deborah convinces Madeline that she was just flustered by the hot make-out action (Justin’s lips by the way, were “firm and demanding”). Deborah makes Madeline march right back over there and apologize.

She goes back to Fear Mansion to apologize for being mad about him sucking her blood, when she gets accosted by that darned man that keeps popping up everywhere! She notices for the first time however, that he’s floating about a foot off the ground, and is obviously a ghost. She runs away from him, but somehow falls into a giant hole. Justin again comes to rescue her. He “forgives” her for acting rudely when he was sucking her blood, and asks her to marry him.

Madeline is so excited and says yes. She tells herself that she’s sure he’s the one and that they’re not moving too fast. Even though they met yesterday and half and hour ago he drank your blood. DRANK YOUR BLOOD.

When Madeline tells Mark and Deborah the good news, they’re over the moon for her. Auntie isn’t too happy though, and warns her that Justin is a “soul thief”. Well, that’s ominous.

1793
Tobias and Justin are fighting over Honoria. According to Justin, you can only steal the soul of very beautiful girls. Honoria’s all “Deal with this then!” and slashes a huge cut down the side of her face. Justin’s all “Noooo!” which is hilarious. Then he stabs Tobias in the throat. Tobias knows he needs to write down Justin’s weakness before it’s too late.

1873
Justin and Madeline have an engagement party, although I have no idea who would go. Deborah and Mark? During dinner, Madeline goes upstairs to investigate her future husband. She finds a pitch black room, filled with four portraits of women, in wedding dresses, with Justin. Surprise, they’re all dead! (No polygamy here) There’s also a blank portrait with her name on it…

Madeline tells Mark and Deborah her fears at home that night. Her fear that Justin is trying to steal her soul because she’s sooooo beautiful. Mark and Deborah tell her tough titties, she’s getting married. I never really understood what they were getting out of this arrangement with Justin. Madeline is having a crisis. She knows that if she scars herself ala Honoria, she’ll be safe from Justin. But she’s just not sure it’s worth it! …Okay…
The “cousins” lock her in her room, but luckily, Madeline finds the secret passageway that leads to the shared basement from Tobias’ time.

She sees the ghost again, who was obviously the ghost of Tobias. Justin also bursts into the secret laboratory and he and Tobias wrestle. Which seems odd for a ghost to do. Finally, Justin “plunges his hands into Tobias” and Tobias disappears. Is that really how you kill a ghost? Punch it?

Justin goes to kill Madeline but bad-ass Auntie comes running out of nowhere and attacks him. Justin manages to throw off Auntie and tries to hypnotize Madeline to give him the knife. He promises that they’ll get married…! Madeline ain’t fallin’ for his shit anymore though, and proceeds to slash him across the eyes. Also bad-ass! Anyways, all the blood of his victims come pouring out and he dies. The tree roots come to life and kill Mark and Deborah. Then Auntie dies, but it’s okay because she’s reunited with Tobias. You see, Auntie was… Honoria! Didn’t see that one coming.

The book ends with Madeline starting a new life in a new town. A town called… Shadyside. Dun dun dunnnnnnn!

Yeah, I can’t stand these sagas anymore. I think, thankfully, I don’t have that many more left. I’m for sure doing a regular Fear Street for my next one. Dance of Death gets 12 un-read journals written by Tobias with a scalpel sticking out of his throat out of 43. Because, after all his effort, no one read his blood-soaked journal.

Fear Street Saga: Daughters of Silence, or “Why So Boneless?”

2009-06-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, when I first started reading the Saga series, I was just not that into them. At this point, though, I can’t even remember why. They are SHEER AWESOME. The plots are completely cracked out, the characters ridiculous, and you can’t help but love how hard the ghost writers did not try to come up with believable historical setting and backdrop. It’s like teenagers in the 90s – with dresses and maybe an accent or something. Daughters of Silence does not in any way disappoint.

Shadyside Village, 1878

Jenna and Hallie are the bestest of friends, so close they could be sisters, they always say. Hallie very sadly just moved to Shadyside Village, but it’s all good, because Jenna goes to spend the summer with Hallie’s family, the Hallidays. And I just picked up that Hallie’s name is Hallie Halliday – were her parents retarded? Anyways, the girls are excited to be together again, and on her very first night there, Jenna is taken on an adventure by Hallie. They go to the Shadyside Cemetary, where Hallie tells her some of the stories she’s heard about the infamous Fear family that live alone in the Fear mansion, particularly about the mysterious deaths of their daughters. Supposedly they died in violence, with one of them killing the other. See The Burning for an account of that. Also, the bodies were missing their bones. Now, I have read that story before, but not in The Burning. Has there ever been an actual account about why the bodies had no bones? How did that work, and why? Somebody please tell me.

Anyways, they sneak up to the scary Fear crypt and sneak in, where they immediately have the living shit scared out of them by a very insane Angelica Fear. They apologize, and try to get away, but she goes from being furious to all crafty and fake-nice once she really sees the two girls in front of her. She keeps on repeating “like sisters” under her breath. Hmmm. She invites them to come visit at the Fear mansion, which is the polite thing to do when you find someone trespassing in your crypt.

Hallie really wants to go to the Fear mansion, because she has no friends in Shadyside yet, and thinks hanging out with uber-creepy people would be an ice-breaker. She might want to rethink that plan, but let’s go with it. They go to the mansion the next day, where they meet Simon Fear, who is creepy and mean, until Angie comes around and meaningfully tells him these girls are “like sisters.” He goes all sleazy polite, and the girls are invited in and fed lots of nice food. For an added treat, the Fears show them to their dead daughter’s bedrooms, which are still done up like they’re alive. In Hannah’s room, she has a voodoo doll collection, with long silver needles stuck into places they shouldn’t be. That Hannah was always a charmer. Hallie is given a heart-shaped locket of Hannah’s, which she puts on and loves immediately. Then they go to Julia’s room, where Jenna is given a crystal bracelet of hers – but she doesn’t want to put it on, because the whole thing is really inappropriate. They make her, and she immediately feels like she’s burning up in flames. The Fears pass this off as overheating, but that doesn’t stop Jenna from taking off the bracelet as soon as they are out of sight. Hallie acts weird and out of it, and agrees to return soon to the Fear mansion.

The girls get into a fight on the way home, because Jenna rightfully points out it is weird for the grieving parents to give away their daughter’s stuff to them, but Hallie wants them to give her more presents. So, Hallie is greedy, opportunistic, and a bit of a social climber. What a lovely girl. She runs off, leaving Jenna alone in the woods. She takes a tumble, and lands in a puddle of blood on the forest floor. A tree nearby has a perfect bloody handprint on it, and a long silver voodoo needle stuck into it. Jenna screams, then screams some more when she sees a man in the woods and flees. He chases her down and tackles her. It turns out he’s just a helpful, attractive boy her age. He must be from Shadyside – they always chase down women and tackle them when they want to help. It's like how they say hi.

He tells her his name is Rob Smith, and he works for the Fears as their grounds keeper. Then he blacks out. So, he’s sketchy too. Apparently he has amnesia, has no idea where he comes from, and occasionally just passes out. What an intriguing back story. He walks her back to the Hallidays, but you know he’ll be back. Jenna wants to talk to Hallie about the voodoo needle, but Hallie suspiciously has no recollection of the voodoo dolls. As she excessively fondles her locket.

The next morning, they go to a barn raising. What fun! Except all Hallie wants to do is visit the Fears, because she is so totally under their thrall. At the barn raising, Hallie acts totally out of character by coming on STRONG to Rob, then terrifying a group of girls by bringing up her acquaintance with the Fears. Hallie then turns on Jenna, screaming and her, then cursing everything and anyone around them.

Jenna watches as a shadow steals along the frame of the barn, as the frame starts shaking uncontrollably, then collapses. The barn raising turns into a good old fashioned rescue mission, getting all the men buried under the wreckage. Jenna finds Rob, and he’s all romantic and gracious, saying he’s in her debt. One man is found impaled on a two by four, which sets Hallie off into hysterical giggles, then sobs. She wails she made it happen, then basically goes comatose.

Hallie is taken to bed, where she lies in a deep sleep. Jenna stays with her, and finds Hallie keeps on getting up and trying to leave in her sleep. She sees that Hannah’s locket has left a deep, heart-shaped bruise on Hallie’s skin, which would give me chills. Inspecting Julia’s crystal bracelet, Jenna finds her hands try to put it on her of their own accord. She tosses it away, and tries to remove the locket from Hallie. This seems to cause Hallie severe pain in her sleep, and she starts to cry tears of blood. This also gave me chills. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that this book actually freaked me out a little.

Jenna is freaked out too, so decides to go find Rob to see if he can help. She is found by Angelica instead, on the Fear property, and is invited in for tea. This time, she goes to refuse, only she’s compelled to walk inside. The Fears are unhappy that she’s not wearing Julia’s bracelet, and even less happy when they discover Jenna is friends with Rob. Jenna finally gets the willpower to stand up and leave, and both Simon and Angelica are upset by this – clearly she is not under their thrall. They call her Julia on her way out.

Jenna continues her mission to find Rob, but instead finds an empty, decrepit cottage. It is not full of helpful dwarves, or handsome men for that matter, it is full of bones. From their daughters??!! I am so curious about these bones things. She flees once more, and does manage to find Rob’s cottage. He vows to protect her, but for a moment he goes – blank – like he’s not all there. Then he starts right back up again, like nothing happened. This sets all kinds of warning bells off for Jenna – a girl’s gotta trust her intuition after all – and she’s seen so much weird shit that night, she takes off.

And is chased through the woods by a giant bird or something. I’m still not convinced a bird can chase you to the extent that it “herds” you to a place, which seems to happen an awful lot in the saga series, but when Jenna stops running, she is standing ominously in front of the Fear crypt. The stone angel turns to look at her, and the trees around her start bleeding. Ominous indeed. Jenna turns to flee once again, but she is chased by a black mist that chokes her with the smell of rot and waste. I bet it’s the same black mist that eats people from House of Whispers. A skeletal hand grabs her skirts, but Jenna manages to make it to the cemetery gate, where the mist doesn’t follow.

Safe? Of course not. Because who should be sleepwalking up the street but Hallie, who is at this point totally gone, and is just an evil puppet of the Fears. Hallie is super strong as she grapples with Jenna, and in the fight, Jenna rips the neck of Hallie’s nightgown. She is pretty horrified to see the heart shaped locket has been covered by her skin, and is glowing in her chest. Bet she’s pretty darn happy she took off that bracelet! Hallie starts to strangle Jenna to death, but Simon Fear arrives to stop her. The Fears welcome them as daughters, and then the stone angel jumps to life and surrounds them.

Jenna wakes up in the basement of the Fear mansion, with Hallie all blank and doll-like next to her. Valiant Rob comes to rescue her, as he has heard the Fear’s nefarious plan to take Jenna and Hallie’s spirits and put them into their daughter’s corpses. Just then Simon walks in, and Rob goes to hide. Jenna accuses Simon of being evil, and he’s pretty much: “Yup, for sure.” Which was kind of awesome. Rob chooses this moment to run at him with a shovel, but Simon commands him to stop. Oops, he’s enthralled too, which isn’t that much of a surprise, and is forced to put Julia’s bracelet on Jenna. The truth comes out about Rob: He’s actually some dude the Fears killed, then brought back to life as an experiment. Only it wasn’t permanent. As Simon says this, he fingers the famous Fear amulet (!!) and Rob dries up and dies in front of them.

The Fears then bring out their daughter’s skeletons. So, is this the story I was waiting for? The daughter’s bodies were found without bones, because their parents’ removed them while planning to evilly resurrect them? That’s … so very creepy, and exactly perfect for Fear Street I think. Well done, ghost writer. The black mist comes up, and surrounds the skeletons, making them get up and walk around. Julia’s skeleton goes towards Jenna, while Hannah goes after Hallie. The girls are glowing, which Jenna realizes is their spirits leaving their bodies. The skeletons get all excited, talking about how they will be alive again. Until – Julia Skeleton sees her pretty trinket on another girl’s wrist, and snatches it off, screaming that it was hers and she wanted it back. Suddenly, Jenna is free and crashes into Hallie, taking the skeletons out at the same time. So – it’s pretty ironic that their parent’s long planned resurrection of their daughters is ruined because said daughters are psychotically spoiled, hey?

Simon grabs for Jenna, but she manages to take his amulet. He orders Hallie after her, and the girls struggle on the floor for a bit, until Jenna grostesquely rips the locket out of Hallie’s chest, leaving an open gaping wound. Yikes. But it works, as Hallie comes back. The Fears throw black fire at them, but they manage to escape.

The girls run to the Halliday’s place, where Hallie’s parents are super mad at them. They think the whole “The Fears tried to remove our spirits and put them in their daughters’ skeletons which they removed in order to resurrect them” is just a line to get out of trouble for being out late. I know I’ve used that line many a time before. Then Jenna has the idea to show them the gaping wound in Hallie’s chest. Only it’s not a hole anymore, it’s a perfect heart shaped black mark over her chest. The Hallidays are horrified and hightail it out of Shadyside. I like these Hallidays, they seem like sensible people. The girls are safe, but they realize there will be others that fall victims to the Fear’s evil.

Awesome! I swear this book actually scared me. A little. Like, sometimes, I was kind of holding my breath, and had to tell my self that breathing was a good thing. Pretty sure that’s the sign of a good horror. This is why I’ve grown so found of the saga series. And can we please talk about how freaking creepy the girls on the cover are. I can almost here them saying "The dead are listening" in creepy little girl sing song voices. Chills. 18 spoiled skeletons out of 18.

Broken Date or "Mr. Magoo, Reimagined As a Teenaged Girl With Trust Issues"

2009-06-02T20:47:00.001-07:00

Alright Fear Street fans, tonight is a very special night as both L.K. and I have books to post. After suffering from a teeny-tiny quarter life crisis, I decided to not blog for the month of May, but as L.K. has politely informed me, May, and therefore my sabbatical, is OVER. For my (un)triumphant return I present: Broken Date.

When I was buying this book off Ebay, it told me that Broken Date is a “rare” book. And who am I to debate the great Ebay? It does have a pretty awesome cover: knife with scared girl reflection? Very Fear Street. I’m not too sure what the high school ring has to do with anything, but I’m choosing to ignore it. The terrified girl on the cover should be our lovely (and dim) protagonist, Jamie, except that Jamie has long, straight dark hair. So the opposite of this mystery girl.

Anyways, Jamie is pissed off in her room because she’s been stood up. Her boyfriend Tom is more than an hour late, which has never happened before. She describes Tom as “good old, reliable, dependable Tom”. To which I say… hawt! They must have a passionate relationship. “Their life seemed so certain, so steady. They would both graduate from Cloverhill High in the spring. Then four years of college together up in Syracuse. Then they’d get married.” Seriously. Has Jamie informed Tom about her nutso plan? Because no 17 year old male would be okay with that plan.

Jamie ends up going down to the local mall with her best friend Ann-Marie instead of wallowing in self-pity at her home. Jamie and Ann-Marie split up (so Ann-Marie can buy pink Reeboks!) and Jamie wanders into a little jewelry store. As she’s peering veeeeery closely at all the jewelry, a man comes in and hold the place up! Jamie is shocked to look up and see that it’s TOM holding up the store! He doesn’t notice Jamie, at first. He takes all the money from the cashier, and then shoots him in the chest. After that, Jamie decides its time to bolt and runs to find Ann-Marie and hightail it out of the mall. Ann-Marie wants her to talk to the security guards (you know, because she just witnessed a murder) but Jamie won’t since that would be ratting out her boyfriend.

On the way home, Ann-Marie suddenly remembers something. Jamie wear GLASSES! But she’s not wearing them today! (How did Jamie not think of this…?) Jamie’s all “I know it was Tom. I would know his fuzzy, blurred outline anywhere.” Okay… Jamie decides to pretend nothing happened, because she’s sure Tom will have a good explanation for everything. Perhaps he was filming a dramatic movie from a class? Once Jamie gets home, she realizes that she dropped her wallet at the jewelry store. That’s probably going to create some problems.

Tom comes over that night to take Jamie to the conveniently timed dance. Jamie thinks Tom is acting really nervous, and says that he has something big to tell her. They go to a quiet spot in the school where Jamie proceeds to freak out and stab Tom in the shoulder! I know, right!?! Crazy! Actually, Jamie is going a little crazy, because it was all a hallucination and Tom is fine. She makes Ann-Marie take her home, and Tom is clearly upset about being ditched at the dance. Whatevs, Tom, you may or may not have murdered someone today. You (probably don’t) deserve it!

Jamie actually ends up walking home because Ann-Marie is all over some guy, and of course gets chased. No wonder I’m afraid to walk alone at night. I grew up reading about girls getting chased every time they stepped out their front door! Jamie gets to her house and calls out to Tom, who she assumes was chasing her. Nice boyfriend there, Jamie. She goes inside and calls his house, but there’s no answer. She does however get a creepy call a few minutes later! A muffled voice tells her that he’s sorry she saw him at the mall. Jamie is all “Tom? Why is your voice so muffled? It doesn’t sound like you…” Yeah.

Jamie has nightmares about Tom all night, and wakes up the next morning in a foul mood. Her mood is kinda lightened, kinda destroyed when she discovers that Tom left her a present this morning: solid gold earrings. She’s pumped because their sweet gold earrings, but feels like they’re cheapened since he murdered a man to get them. Hmmm, conundrum.

Jamie goes to the Y for a relaxing swim to clear her head. Unfortunately, she gets stalked while she’s in the pool by a creeper on the balcony. Ummm, that’s just what it’s like when you swim at the Y. But then she gets followed home again, although no one else saw him. Which kinda makes Jamie crazy. She finally decides to bite the bullet and ask her future husband whether or not he killed anyone to buy her some gold earrings. When she gets to Tom’s house though, he’s not there. His dad was in a bad car accident upstate, so Tom and his mother went to go be with him. Definite proof that Tom was not the person creeping on her that morning at the Y.

He left her a note too! “Dear Jamie, I guess we all act crazy sometimes. I’ll try to call you. Love Tom.” Wtf? Is that because he was crazy when he robbed the store, or because Jamie acted crazy at the dance? Jamie is confused too. Never a good sign when you’re unsure of who the “crazy” refers to.

That night, Jamie gets woken up from another terrifying nightmare about Tom by a threatening phone call. This time, NotTom tells her it’s useless to run, and that she needs to be punished for seeing him at the mall. She tells all this to Ann-Marie the next day at school. Ann-Marie is the voice of reason, telling her to go talk to the police, but Jamie will have none of it. She may think that Tom is trying to kill her, but she certainly won’t rat him out! Her teacher calls on her in class to solve a math problem, except she can’t see the board because she’s still not wearing her GLASSES. (Subtle, I know.)

After school, Jamie sees Tom across the parking lot standing next to a creeper van. The fact that he has never owned a van, and is destitute-ly poor doesn’t seem to tip her off. She runs towards him with open arms until… she sees ANOTHER Tom at the other side of the parking lot run towards her. What ever could be happening here??

Right. The guy with the van is of course not Tom. It is a man that looks like Tom, but is not him, as anyone who would wear their effing GLASSES would plainly see. But it’s too late and Jamie is thrown into the back of the van and NotTom takes off with her in it. He introduces himself as Okie (v. polite) and Jamie recognizes his name as a famous murderer from a couple of years ago. Jamie feels very disloyal for suspecting Tom. Well, YEAH, Jamie, I suggest you don’t marry Tom until you’ve worked out these TRUST issues with Tom.

Tom apparently loves Jamie a whole lot though, because when Okie pulls up to the secluded cabin where he will obviously murder Jamie, Tom leaps from the van’s roof. He totally hitched a ride! I would marry Tom, just for that. While he fights Okie, Jamie takes off for safety (leaving him there, mind you). Unfortunately, she’s soon taken down by Okie’s accomplice, a redhead named Dolly. And of course Tom lost the fight with Okie, so they both end up tied up in the cabin.

Okie takes Tom first and holds his head down in a tub of water for three minutes. Yup, that would kill someone! Jamie acts upset but I’m sure, deep down, she’s relieved that she’s not tied down anymore. Okie and Dolly start to rough her up, when suddenly… Tom leaps to his feet and knocks them out. Apparently, his swim coach makes them hold their breath underwater for 4 minutes, which seems a little bit like torture. Comes in handy though. He tells her that instead of robbing a jewelry store, he just saved up for an entire year to buy her those gold earrings…

… which he promptly asks for back, since Jamie is such a crap girlfriend for suspecting him of murder. No? That’s not how it ends? No, you’re right, but that’s how it SHOULD end. It actually ends with Tom promising never to break another date. Because, you know, this whole thing was his fault. Shut up, Jamie.

Alright, these non-Fear Streets are never my faves. It wasn’t even a Point Horror! Just a rando book, with terrible morals and plotlines, as per the usual. This was like a Mr. Magoo cartoon in book form. But instead of being hilarious and about the 60s, it was full of annoying girlfriends, pathetic boyfriends and new-fangled rollerblades. 17 unworn pairs of glasses out of 30!

Dangerous Girls, or “Milfs and Pedophiles”

2009-06-02T17:08:00.000-07:00

Dangerous Girls is not a Fear Street, or a Point Horror. This is a full out young adult novel written by R. L. Stine in 2003 (!!), so fairly recent. R. L. is totally down with the technology these days, as everyone in this group ims each other, and googles (although sadly, google was not a verb yet). Also sadly, no Facebook. I think Facebook could have a significant affect on teen horror – it certainly amps the stalking vibe you get from a lot of books. Anyways, this book is pretty darn exciting!

Destiny and Livvy are twin girls, dealing with the recent tragedy of their mother’s suicide. Not a super light note to start on, but they are working as junior counsellors at a kids camp over the summer before their senior year, trying to distract from the grief. Livvy, the fast fashionable one, does so by making it with every boy at camp, while Destiny, the down to earth, shy one, probably deals with it by writing poetry, although that never actually comes up. It is the last day of camp, the kids have left, and everyone is saying goodbye to each other by drinking beer and sneaking down to the woods together. Destiny doesn’t know what’s gotten into her, but she agrees to walk down to the lake with the mysterious head counsellor, Renz.

This is his usual hangout – apparently he takes all the girls down to the lake to get with them, and he saved Destiny for last. Dee is pretty insulted, until Renz reveals himself to be a hundreds-year old vampire named Lorenzo, and he is madly in love with Destiny because she looks exactly like his long-lost love, Laura. And he had to wait until the full moon, because a human must share blood with a vampire under the full moon in order to become a vampire herself. Just as Dee is starting to freak, he puts her under a mind spell and tells her it will only hurt for an instant, but then the pleasure will be unimaginable. I once took a fantasy fiction class in school, and we spent weeks breaking down how vampires ALWAYS symbolize sex, and R. L. is right on point here. Renz sinks his ... teeth into her, and drinks her blood.

Destiny can suddenly see his thoughts, and he shows her his life story. He was a poor young lad in Italy some vague centuries ago, and immigrated to New York to find a better life. Only he quickly found an un-life, and roamed the new world drinking blood. That is, until he sees a woman and falls instantly in love with her, named Laura, who looks exactly like Destiny. Laura dies, and Renz vows to never rest until she is back at his side again.

Renz is interrupted before he can make Destiny drink his own blood, and she leaves him all shaky and weirded out, forgetting about their little encounter, and Renz’s existence entirely. The next day, Destiny and Livvy go home with their father and brother. They are worried about how both of them are handling the loss of their mother – their father overworks himself doing research as a veterinarian, and their little brother is slowly retreating into a world of video games.

At home, they meet up with a bunch of old friends, but both the girls are feeling weird and out of sorts. While watching a vampire horror movie, Destiny starts screaming uncontrollably, which kind of breaks up the party. That night she wakes up with a craving for something, so she goes out in a nightshirt and hunts for a rabbit. Livvy joins her, and it’s around that time they have to acknowledge something is going on with them. Neither remembers Renz or what he did to them, but they see they have bite marks on their necks, and of course they think vampire.

Meanwhile, in their little town there’s been a rash of woodland animals killed and drained of blood. The official story is that it is a virus that dries out your blood. Which, by the way, is WAY more terrifying than vampires. Could you imagine if swine flu did that? Anyways, they decide not to tell their dad or brother because they’re both so messed up by the suicide, and they don’t want to freak them out any more.

So of course Destiny goes to the source of all things supernatural – her horror and fantasy obsessed friend Ari. He tells her there is a rumour that vampire hunter are in town, led by the basketball coach. He is recently bereaved after suddenly losing his wife, and he all of a sudden is heading a group of vampire hunters? Sounds suspicious. He also tells her that if a vampire drinks from you, but you don’t drink from them to complete the vampire process, you become a neophyte – a half-vampire until the next full moon. If you drink from a vampire under the next full moon, you become a vampire. If you don’t, you become some crazy zombie thing. Not awesome choices, and Destiny agrees with me.

After that pleasant conversation, Destiny and Ari go grocery shopping. Dee gets a total need to feed, but Ari mistakes her as coming on to him. He gets all excited, but she has to send him away before she attacks him. Instead, she attacks some fresh liver. Ick. She heads out quickly to find Livvy, who is at the pool with her brother and his friend. Liv is severely sunburnt after a short time out in the sun, and can’t take off her sunglasses without pain. They realize they are becoming more vampiric by the day. Then the brother’s friend falls and cuts his knee, and Liv is on him before anyone can do anything about it, lapping up the blood. Super ick. That’s pretty pedo. Destiny tries to play that one off as a new first aid technique, as she notices a handsome Italian-type man watching them from afar. Then forgets about him immediately.

Convinced they need more information on vampires, the girls decide to go talk to Coach Bauer, who may or may not be a head vampire hunter. Pretty risky for a couple of almost vampires, right? No worry, they’re going to go ask about vampires for a “friend.” No one will see through that. Instead of finding the coach, though, they find his recently dead wife – or rather, his recently undead wife. She’s all zombie gross, because she was bitten by a vampire and never drank vampire blood – so she’s what the girls will turn into at the full moon if they don’t consummate their vampire-ness with Renz. Mrs. Bauer wants to die, but her husband won’t let her go. When the repulsed girls won’t stake her through the heart, she goes to eat them, but realizes they are the same. Mrs. Bauer is effin crazy at this point, babbling away, but she tells them they need to find the Restorer to put them back to how they were if they’re to escape.

Destiny googles “Restorer.” Haha, I would have totally done that too. Unfortunately, Google fails, so she goes out to find Livvy at a burger joint. On their way home, they stumble over the body of Livvy’s badass friend Bree, and you bet that someone drained her blood.

Three days later, after the funeral, Destiny is having a full on freak out in the woods, thinking that her sister killed her friend, and what a horrible thought that is, when a handsome young man approaches her. She gets all fuzzy and doesn’t really know what’s going on around her, but Renz starts making out with her and calling her Laura, then drinking her blood. This guy doesn’t really do much to make her like him at all, and the whole mind control thing is getting close to sexual assault. Vampire’s a creep. Afterwards, Destiny can’t remember why her neck is bleeding, and Livvy starts to think she’s keeping secrets from her. Dee is already mad at Livvy for slutting it up with her crush, Ross, so the sisters have a big sister fight. But they come back together when Livvy eats her brother’s hamster. Things like that you just have to bond over.

They go back to see Mrs. Bauer to see if she has any more info on the Restorer. Unfortunately, that’s when the hunters come and kill Mrs. B, and the twins barely escape. They do see that the hunters consist of most of the basketball team. How’s that for an extracurricular sport?

On the first day back to school, the girls are getting worse, looking really sick and unable to take off their sunglasses. Destiny runs into the new guidance counsellor everyone is gaga over, and he introduces himself as Renz. We flash to Renz’s memories of meeting Laura, in a small village near where the girls live now. Her father was against their relationship from the start, and won’t let them be together. Renz says to hell with that, and turns Laura into a vampire. Only the father walks in on this rather private moment, and beats Lorenzo away. He flees by turning into a mouse (not the most studly thing to do ever), then goes back for her. But he’s too late. Laura was staked by her father, who was very shortly after that beheaded by Lorenzo.

He flashes forward two hundred years later, when he sees a woman who looks identical to Laura. She’s wearing a wedding band, and is calling to her two daughters, Destiny and Livvy. Gasp! Renz first went after their mother. I don’t know how I’d feel about that.

The next day at school, Renz calls Destiny into his office, and immediately starts making out with her. Whoa, wrong touching, guidance counsellor! He talks to her about blood and the moon, and Destiny is all dreamy. And apparently his mind control is slipping, because Dee remembers some of what he said, and comes to the conclusion that Renz is the Restorer, and he will make her all better. Fail! That night, two things of import happen. Courtney is a girl who starts hitting on Livvy’s boy toy, Ross, and Livvy breaks her arm. That was an overreaction. And the twin’s father comes home from a late night at the veterinarian clinic covered in blood, saying he’d been in an accident. Only his car was fine. Hmm.

Courtney turns up dead, drained of all her blood, and everyone is freaking out in town. They’ve given up the whole “drying up your blood virus”, and have moved on to the theory that there’s a serial killer, nicknamed the “Vampire Killer.” Destiny is sure Livvy did it, that she lost control of her bloodlust, and gets so upset about it that she turns into a bat. Now that’s something to be upset about. Bat-Destiny attacks an owl, but her eyes are bigger than her stomach, because in a bat vs. owl fight, owls usually win. Bat-Destiny saves herself by becoming Human-Destiny, much to the owl’s alarm. Destiny decides enough is enough, and decides to tell her father what’s going on. Unfortunately, she sees the vampire hunters out and about – led by her father! The hunters stake the town librarian, and Dee loses the will to tell him.

So she goes to see Renz, and tells him she knows he’s the Restorer. He pauses, then is like: “Yes. Yes I am.” She’s in luck. The night of the full moon is the night of the senior camping trip, and Renz will be there. To “help” her. Or ravish her and turn her into a vampire. She’s stoked and knows everything is going to be okay.

Until her friend from camp comes to visit her, and gushes about Renz. Dee is pretty confused about how the friend knows about Renz, then she remembers everything. She realizes Renz is a creep, and she’s pretty much doomed.

Renz is thinking about turning Destiny, and that makes him think about her mother, Deborah. He drank her blood under the full moon, but was interrupted before she drank from him. That seems to happen a lot to Renz. He might be a really crappy vampire. He waited the month for her, but on the night of the full moon, he came to her and found her swinging from the rafters. He vowed he would turn her daughters.

It’s the night of the senior’s camping trip. Destiny tries to pretend everything is okay, but is inside freaking out about what’s about to happen. Renz goes to her tent to get her, then leads her away. Are there no other chaperones there? I feel like guidance counsellors should not be able to do this as easily as he does. She tells him she’s ready, then shoves a wooden tent pole through his chest. Suck on that, creepy guidance counsellor! Renz dissolves into dust.

Destiny turns away, to see her father watching her. She tries to run away, because she thinks he’s going to kill her too, but instead he hugs her and tells her he would never hurt her. In fact, he was the Restorer! How convenient. So, what does a Restorer do? He gives her a shot. That seemed kind of anticlimactic. He was doing research to find a cure for vampirism, ever since his wife was bitten, but he was too late for her. He was also too late for Mrs. Bauer, who was bitten by his wife. Deborah was so horrified by what she had done, she took her own life before she could become full vampire. But happily, he now has a formula to cure vampirism before a person is fully turned. They go off in search of Livvy to save her too.

They find Livvy with her boy Ross, both of whom are feeding off a freshly killed deer. Livvy had been pretending to be a neophyte, but in fact she had let Renz go all the way with her the first night. She’s pretty happy to be a vampire, so she turned her boyfriend too. She also had killed her friends Bree and Courtney. Destiny and her dad try to grab them, to see if they could save them, but they turn into blackbirds and fly away.

A week later, Destiny is with her brother at night, when a blackbird taps at their window. It wants to come in …

The end. This book totally has a sequel, or rather is the first book in a 2 book series. I’m pretty sure that means a sequel, but whatever. Cannot wait to read it, that was awesome! So impressed by R. L.’s later work. Must know what else he’s done in the past decade … please do tell, so that I can blog them. I give this 16 underage girls out of 16!

Dead End, or “Booze Will Be the Death of You”

2009-05-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

I have not blogged an original Fear Street book for some time, so when I started reading Dead End I was pretty excited. Until I read the subject matter and started having some pretty hard core déjà vu. Not the teen hit and run scenario AGAIN – I seriously just read this in Hit and Run. Not very creative, R. L., I am disappointed in you. Although, kind of funny to compare a similar Point Horror with Fear Street.

Everything begins at a party – all the seniors at Shadyside High are there, plus some guys from another school who crashed. And they brought BEER with them. Teens drinking beer equals naughty, so you know they’re going to get what they deserve. Main character Natalie is wandering around the party, thinking about poetry – yup, she’s that exciting. She talks to people here and there (and subtly introduces us to the characters): her friend Gillian and Gillian’s maybe boyfriend Carlo, her bff Randee, who she describes as ugly but a really nice girl, Todd, the caveman-like jock, and her own boyfriend Keith, who apparently likes salty food and beer (diagnosis: teenage boy).

Keith gets wasted at the party and acts like a buffoon. Points to R. L. for realism here. Natalie gets all huffy and refuses to drive home with him. Totally legit, but next time think about snagging the drunk driver’s keys before they head out. Instead, Natalie grabs a ride with Randee, who’s already driving Gillian, Carlo and Todd home. Randee drives like a spaz, and I was wondering if she’s actually secretly drunk as well. She complains she can’t see well in the fog, but her bad driving goes WAY beyond that. She careens down a dead end road and hits a car.

Of course the first thing you do after hitting a car is speed away into the fog, hoping no one saw you, which is exactly what Randee does. Natalie thought she saw someone in the car, says they need to go back to check, but Randee refuses. For really intelligent, selfless reasons. Randee is grounded, and doesn’t want to get into more trouble for being out. God I love the justification teenagers have for things – I don’t want to deal with the consequences of my actions, which is perfect justification for NOT doing the right thing, no matter who gets hurt. Like sociopaths. Todd agrees with Randee, because his dad just got a high profile job with the mayor’s office, and his fuck up might affect him. They check the bumper and find only a small scratch on it, so their determination is that everything is fine. Nothing could go wrong.

Except the person that they hit actually died in the accident – they were thrown through the windshield and half their face was ripped off. And that person was the mayor’s sister, and he will stop at nothing to discover the identity of those who did it. And the fact that they left the scene of the accident puts them all in a world of trouble they did not need. That’s right, they’re a band of hit-and-run murderers. So they make a pact that they’ll never tell anyone ever, and go about their lives as normal. You know, until guilt and suspicion rip them apart, right? This story is so overdone. Anyways, Carlo is really sensitive, and doesn’t want to live with this secret, so he wants to go to the police. Todd, being an uber-stable, mature person, threatens to kill him. That’s just how they roll in Shadyside.

Keith goes to Natalie’s house that night, which is hard for her because she promised not to tell anyone her horrible secret, but also wants to melt into his warm soulful eyes. Keith demands they talk, because he knows her secret. Natalie chokes on panic, until Keith accuses her of hooking up with Todd because she left in the same car as him. Natalie makes out with him in relief that he doesn’t know her real secret, and this satisfies him that she’s not leaving him for someone else.

So, for the weekend, Natalie, Randee, Todd, Gillian and Carlo decide a nice relaxing break from all the stress would be to go to Carlo’s uncle’s hunting lodge. Because in an atmosphere of tense suspicion , it’s best to give all the teenagers guns and sent them out alone in the woods, right? And the uncle somehow manages to get these kids hunting licenses, and hooks them up with shotguns, for some good old fashioned fun. I say wtf? Surely it can’t be that easy, can it? Natalie is actually glad that Keith couldn’t make it due to a family obligation, because it would be too hard to keep the secret from him. It’s not that fun for anyone, because Todd keeps on hinting/joking that maybe Carlo should have an accident, since he threatened to tell on them, but nobody thinks it’s funny.

It’s even less funny when a gunshot is heard in the woods, and they find Carlo lying there with his head blown off by a shotgun. Official story: he tripped and shot himself in the head. Natalie is not so quick to believe this as Todd and Randee both had shotguns with them too. Except … they could probably tell whose shotgun was used, right? And they figured it was Carlo’s, so it was either Carlo himself, or anyone, right? Never mind that, Natalie decides to suspect only Todd and Randee.

Of course, Todd is acting like an obsessed lunatic about nobody telling their little secret, so it’s pretty easy to suspect him of something. When Keith breaks into her house that night (wtf), Natalie is so traumatized by Carlo’s headless body and the whole situation, she tells him everything. Keith is the perfect understanding boyfriend, and Natalie is so happy she confessed to him. Especially when Todd and Randee start dating, and she’s certain they’re collaborating to bring her and Gillian down. Gillian finds some mouldy meat in her bag, along with the most inept threatening letter ever: You can be close to Carlo again. In the grave. This is you. Dead meat. If you talk. I’m going to dock marks from that threat for going on waaay too long. Like, do things really need to be that spelled out: Get it? You’ll be dead if you talk. Because I’ll kill you. So don’t. Whoever the murderer is, they’re an idiot.

Keith picks Natalie up from a study session, and she mocks his piece of shit car. It’s all dented, and still has the tiny spare tire on from a flat weeks ago. And the driver’s side door always sticks. Natalie is feeling pretty awful, so Keith makes out with her for awhile and tells her all will be alright.

Gillian confronts Natalie at school and tells her she’s going to the police – that Natalie doesn’t know the whole story. They are interrupted by a shifty Todd and Randee, but Natalie supports Gillian’s decision. She tells Keith that night while ice skating what Gillian intends to do, and Keith is all immediately: “Uh, I need to go do something, right now.” Natalie continues to skate alone, then heads home. She’s chased down by Todd and Randee, who insist they go see Gillian immediately, to stop her from talking. They get to Gillian’s house, to see that’s already been taken care of, as she’s sprawled at the bottom of her stairs, her head facing the wrong way. (Ick! Points for disturbing visual images!)

Natalie is certain it was Todd and Randee, so decides to go to the police the next morning. She’s stopped by Randee, who wants to go too, and to bring in her car for them to inspect. Natalie doesn’t trust Randee at all, but they go in together and confess. The police listen to their story, check out Randee’s car, then tell them they’re wasting their time because the car that killed the mayor’s sister was blue, and one of the tire tracks is smaller than the other. Like, what would cause that?

The girls get into mild trouble with the law for the hit and run stuff, then they leave, and Natalie still has not figured this one out. She’s just sooo happy to not be involved with murder. Until she sees Keith parked in her driveway in his BLUE car with dented bumper and one spare tire on. He tells her angrily to get in the car, so of course she does. (???) Natalie deserves whatever she gets.

Keith confesses everything – hitting the mayor’s sister while drunk driving the night of the party, then murdering Carlo and Gillian. He didn’t have a family obligation the weekend of the hunting trip – he had an obligation to shoot Carlo in the head! And he left Natalie at the ice rink to go murder Gillian. And now he plans to murder her. He tells her, in painstaking detail, how he’s going to speed over a cliff, jump out, and let her fall to her death. Great plan, genius. Instead, Natalie just jumps out of the car, but Keith is on the driver’s side with the door that always sticks. He falls to his death. Natalie sees a DEAD END sign and thinks how they are at the end of the horror.

Not my favorite Fear Street ever, but you can really compare the Fear Street books to Point Horror looking at this one, and Hit and Run. In Point Horror, you have some lame kids trying to pass their driver’s test, some exaggerated pranks with a corpse prop, and one non-fatal accident. Fear Street involves underage drinking, multiple murders and maggoty meat. Fear Street > Point Horror any day of the week. 18 drunk drivers out of 25.