STINETOWN

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The New Girl (June 1989)

The Surprise Party (August 1989)

The Overnight (October 1989)

Missing (January 1990)

The Wrong Number (March 1990)

The Sleepwalker (May 1990)

Haunted (July 1990)

Halloween Party (September 1990)

The Stepsister (November 1990)

Ski Weekend (January 1991)

The Fire Game (March 1991)

Party Summer (Super Chiller #1) (May 1991)

Lights Out (July 1991)

The Secret Bedroom (September 1991)

Silent Night (Super Chiller #2) (November 1991)

The Knife (January 1992)

The Prom Queen (March 1992)

First Date (May 1992)

Goodnight Kiss (Super Chiller #3) (June 1992)

Cheerleaders: The First Evil (August 1992)

Cheerleaders: The Second Evil (September 1992)

Cheerleaders: The Third Evil (October 1992)

The Best Friend (December 1992)

Broken Hearts (Super Chiller #4) (February 1993)

The Cheater (April 1993)

Sunburn (June 1993)

The Fear Street Saga: The Betrayal (August 1993)

The Fear Street Saga: The Secret (September 1993)

The Fear Street Saga: The Burning (October 1993)

Silent Night 2 (Super Chiller #5) (December 1993)

The New Boy (January 1994)

The Dare (February 1994)

Bad Dreams (March 1994)

Double Date (April 1994)

The Thrill Club (May 1994)

The Dead Lifeguard (Super Chiller #6) (June 1994)

One Evil Summer (July 1994)

99 Fear Street: The First Horror (August 1994)

99 Fear Street: The Second Horror (September 1994)

99 Fear Street: The Third Horror (October 1994)

The Mind Reader (November 1994)

Cheerleaders: The New Evil (Super Chiller #7) (December 1994)

Wrong Number 2 (January 1995)

Truth or Dare (February 1995)

Dead End (March 1995)

Final Grade (April 1995)

Switched (May 1995)

Bad Moonlight (Super Chiller #8) (June 1995)

College Weekend (July 1995)

The Cataluna Chronicles: The Evil Moon (August 1995)

The Cataluna Chronicles: The Dark Secret (September 1995)

The Cataluna Chronicles: The Deadly Fire (October 1995)

The Stepsister 2 (November 1995)

The New Year’s Party (Super Chiller #9) (December 1995)

What Holly Heard (January 1996)

The Face (February 1996)

Secret Admirer (March 1996)

The Perfect Date (April 1996)

The Confession (May 1996)

The Boy Next Door (June 1996)

Goodnight Kiss 2 (Super Chiller #10) (July 1996)

Fear Park: The First Scream (August 1996)

Fear Park: The Loudest Scream (September 1996)

Fear Park: The Last Scream (October 1996)

Night Games (November 1996)

Silent Night 3 (Super Chiller #11) (December 1996)

Runaway (January 1997)

Killer’s Kiss (February 1997)

All-Night Party (March 1997)

The Rich Girl (April 1997)

Cat (May 1997)

High Tide (Super Chiller #12) (June 1997)

Fear Hall: The Beginning (July 1997)

Fear Hall: The Conclusion (August 1997)

Who Killed the Homecoming Queen? (September 1997)

Into the Dark (October 1997)

The Best Friend 2 (November 1997)

Trapped (December 1997)

Based on the cover?

The artwork here’s like seeing an old friend get an awful new haircut right before her wedding. C’mon, Cheerleaders! It’s the last Fear Street! Time for your A game!

So, right: this was the end of the original Fear Street series. Cheerleaders: Evil Lives! was originally slated for December 1997, but my guess is they pushed it back behind Trapped to give Fear Street a good send-off. Not that Fear Street really ended here—it was more of a marketing thing.

After this one, the books took a month off and then returned as New Fear Street, which (from what I can tell) was the same thing but with a new cover scheme and more sensational titles (e.g. Scream, Jennifer, Scream!). New Fear Street was kind of a bust, though. It ran for four months, and then the series then switched over to Fear Street Seniors, which was a more substantive revamp of the series. Seniors consisted of twelve separate books following a group of Shadyside High School seniors, with the books following a set order and using recurring characters. Once these wrapped up in May 1999, Stine pretty much called it quits with Fear Street altogether.

Stine also had a lot of other series that were wrapping up around this time. Fear Street Sagas ran bi-monthly for sixteen books, ending in January 1999. Ghosts of Fear Street, a monthly series aimed at the Goosebumps set, ran for 36 books, ending in November 1998. Meanwhile, Stine’s mainstay, Goosebumps, transitioned into the Goosebumps 2000 series in January 1998 (i.e. the same month he switched Fear Street over to New Fear Street) and continued to run monthly until January 2000. At which point, Stine severely scaled back on his publishing output, presumably tapped out after an intensely busy decade.

Stine did a a new trilogy in 2005 called Fear Street Nights, and they reissued a bunch of the old Fear Street books in conjunction with its release. Including these, along with the New Fear Street, Fear Street Sagas, and Fear Street Seniors series, that makes 35 Fear Street-related books that I haven’t covered—or 71 if you count the Ghosts of Fear Street series. All of which seems like good enough reason to see the series as having ended here...

The plot:

Corky and Co. have graduated, and a new set of cheerleaders have taken the helm at Shadyside. Unfortunately, they’ve been targeted by that evil spirit once again. Because they literally got around a candlelit circle and summoned it. Girls!

Typical quote:

She still didn’t like the idea. But if she agreed to do it, and nothing happened, then the others would drop the whole thing.

“Okay,” she finally said. “We try to call up the spirit. But then we forget about it. We’re supposed to be talking about our halftime routine, remember?”

Worth reading?

Probably! This one’s silly and chaotic in the same way that the first two Cheerleaders books were, and it does a much better job of making the whole “Evil Spirit” thing seem more epic than the last two times Stine tried to kill it. The ending’s a little illogical and it’s been done before, but Stine gets great results with it here—in this particular context, it does a lot. If you think of this ending as an end to the entire Fear Street series, it’s pretty satisfying.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

After all she’s suffered, Corky Corcoran saw fit to leave behind precise instructions to the cheerleaders after her as to how to resurrect the evil spirit.

Sometimes cheerleaders like to dabble in the occult:

“Oh, come on. It’s kind of fun,” Keesha replied. “And you know what? We should do it?”

“Do what?” “Call up the evil spirit,” Keesha declared. “We have the instructions, right? Why not?”

“What a horrible idea,” Amanda told her.

It can’t be drowned, or can it? Seriously, what’s the deal? Stine actually specifically calls one of the chapters “It Can’t Be Drowned” just to mess with the reader about the weird inconsistency in the series about this.

If someone switches places with someone else in the hopes of starting a new life, only to get killed immediately, the bitterness may cause her spirit to morph into an immortal Evil Spirit hellbent on killing the Shadyside Cheerleaders.

Sometimes, when you’re dealing with evil spirits, long-dead people come back to life, and maybe people travel back through time, and the stuff they do back through time affects the future.

The twist:

So there’s a lot happening. We finally get some backstory about Sarah Fear, which is complicated and involved switching identities with a friend and moving abroad. Basically: Sarah ended up dying tragically on the way to London and being incredibly bitter about the switch—so much so that she became an evil spirit, possessing and killing the woman still posing as Sarah Fear in Shadyside. Somehow—and with very little explanation—the current captain of the Shadyside cheerleading squad, Amanda, and her friend Brandon end up traveling back in time and changing events such that the Evil Spirit is never born. When Amanda and Brandon gets back to the present day, they discover that all their friends are still alive—that the events of this and (presumably) all the previous Cheerleaders books never ended up coming to pass, due to this miraculous switch in time.

Which is great! This means that Bobbi, Jennifer, Kimmy, and everyone else are still alive and well. Which presumably changes the whole course of the series—meaning that it’s a good place to end the series. Stine doesn’t really go into it, though.

Instead, the book ends ominously: it turns out, in switching things up, Amanda and Brandon themselves ended up getting possessed by the Evil Spirit. Oh, well.

What’s next?

She felt the Evil pulsing inside her. Throbbing … throbbing so powerfully. Sarah and Jane drowned. But the Evil didn’t drown with them …

“We can’t rest,” Amanda repeated, squeezing Brandon’s hand tighter, tighter. “You and I have so much work to do!”

Based on the cover?

Again, the redesign’s bad, but I like the artwork. It’s weird and confusing, and it accurately depicts a critical event in the book.

The plot:

The Breakfast Club meets The Goonies meets My Bloody Valentine (?). After landing in detention, a group of Shadyside teens from different walks of life decide to explore the school, only to find themselves trapped in an elaborate underground maze, pursued by a flesh-eating fog.

Typical quote:

“She didn’t know what was worse—being ripped apart by the red mist or dying of starvation, trapped in a cave.”

Worth reading?

Maybe! It’s really nothing more or less than its description. It’s like Cat in that it’s a supernatural thriller rather than a murder mystery—more Goosebumps than Fear Street. But it’s a lot better than Cat.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

At the height of the cold war, some towns decided to build elaborate underground labyrinths filled with food and supplies, only to abandon them completely and never speak of them again.

Sometimes when you die you die, but other times your rage melds with that of others who died along with you to form a murderous fog:

That was it, Elaine knew. The red mist was the rage of all six kids. Somehow their spirits remained trapped with them. Somehow they came together and formed the cloud.

Murderous fogs cannot pass through brick walls.

Sometimes you accidentally kill a bunch of people underneath a school as a teenager, but then when you grow up, you end up becoming principal of that school. Weird!

The twist:

The murderous, flesh-eating fog is the ghosts of a bunch of Shadyside teenagers who died in the labyrinth back in the 60’s. The current principal of Shadyside High was (sorta) involved in the deaths, and the flesh-eating fog is finally satiated when it eats him.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

I hate the redesign, but this cover’s hilarious and perfect.

The plot:

From the front cover: “The book you demanded! The contest-winning story that answers the question ‘What should happen to Honey?’”

Typical quote:

“We’re not usually that emotional. I think Eric’s funeral put us all on edge.”

Worth reading?

Yes? The winner here was one Sara Bikman from Grafton, Wisconsin, and I guess the point was to demonstrate that middle schoolers are just as capable of coming up with a good Stine plot as Stine himself. Where are you these days, Sara? Do you mention this on your OkCupid profile? You really should.

In any event, there’s not really a discernible difference in style between the plot of this and the plot of any other Fear Street book, although it gets points for being particularly cruel to its heroine. Given the last two books, this one’s surprisingly well-written. Like, it’s very much a page-turner, and it seems like Stine really worked to make the story come alive—which is nice! It also did a weirdly good job explaining the psychology of Honey.

(spoilers after the break)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Sometimes people just escape from mental hospitals.

It’s within the range of a teenage girl to forge school transcripts and various other records such that she could enroll in a new high school under a different identity. Nobody—especially not the school psychologist—would be able to figure out what was going on.

Some people are just shit magnets. Sometime you barely survive the wrath of a murderous stalker, only to find that two of your other friends are out to get you, too.

The twist:

So the first third of the book is told in first-person by Becka, but it’s later revealed that it’s actually Honey, who has adopted an elaborate new life under Becka’s name and identity. This is actually done really well! I knew beforehand that this was what was going to be happening, but I had a lot of trouble figuring out how this could possibly be the case—that Honey might’ve forged records, etc. Anyway, eventually she runs into the real Becka, flips out, kills someone, and goes on the run.

The rest of the book, then, is told from the perspective of the real Becka, who’s terrified that Honey is going to find and kill her. Increasingly scary things happen to her throughout the book, but we ultimately learn that they aren’t being done by Honey but, rather, by Becka’s ex-boyfriend and her friend Trish. Which… I love, because it’s just such extraordinarily awful luck. Like, even Becka cannot process that this could actually be the case:

She glared angrily across the cabin at me. “Why shouldn’t I be here?” Trish demanded. “I’m your best friend—aren’t I?”

“But, Trish—” I started. “I don’t understand. You are my best friend!”

Apparently Trish was mad that Becka didn’t visit her enough in the hospital after the first book, and so now she wants to kill Becka (?). Poor Becka.

It turns out that Honey was caught a while back, but the book does give us some details about her past that sort of fit what little I know about dissociative people. Like, she was always a very obsessive, unpleasant person to be around, even as a kid, but then her dad killed her mother and her twin brother (?) in a big murder-suicide that Honey witnessed. Which would obviously make someone a little difficult to be around. Oh, Honey.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

This has the sad distinction of being the last Fear Street to feature the original design scheme—although they’d been feeling by-the-numbers for over a year at this point, so maybe it was just as well. The artwork here’s ok, but it might’ve been better as a straight-ahead Wait Until Dark homage:

The plot:

Just because Paulette is blind doesn’t mean she can’t take care of herself. Until someone tries to kill her.

Typical quote:

“She checked her braille alarm clock. After eleven. Give it up, she told herself. He’s not calling.”

Worth reading?

No. This one had potential—having the reader rely on the perceptions of a blind character opens up a lot of possibilities. But this doesn’t do as much with her blindness as it might’ve. Mostly, it just points out over and over how her life is different because she’s blind. Plus, it has one of those endings that does not make sense for very basic reasons.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Any time a blind girl encounters braille, it must be pointed out to the reader. Being blind is different!

The blind are fiercely independent. Even if a person has broken into the blind person’s home numerous times, threatened them, and harmed them, they might not report this to the police or to their parents. They would not want anyone impinging on their independence.

If a blind girl comes home to find her room covered in death threats, she need not stress. Painted death threats can quickly and discreetly be removed with the help of a fully-sighted friend—and all before one’s parents get home. This is what’s important. Just grab a can of paint and get going!

You never know when someone might have an evil twin. Evil twins are a thing, and they will do anything to undermine the good twin.

If this evil twin commits a crime, the only way for the good twin to escape incarceration is to jump bail and flee town. The police cannot and will not understand that two people who look identical could be separate people. “What is a twin?” they will ask. There will be nobody to corroborate the good twin’s story about the evil twin—no friends, no birth records, no anything.

When jumping bail and starting a new life in a new town, it makes sense to retain the same name and attend high school in that new town. The students at that high school might gossip about the new kid—might even appear to know everything about his crimes back home—but the police will not get wise.

Shadyside is a good place to move for someone attempting to start a new life under suspicious circumstances, as their public high school has literally no standards whatsoever as far as matriculation goes. Just a name! Any name.

The twist:

The guy the blind girl likes has an evil twin, who follows him around from town to town. Which seems almost comically out of alignment with a book where the lead character is blind. Like, the thing these two guys have in common is that they look the same. But she can’t see that. Huh?

What’s next?

He squeezed Paulette’s hand. “Yes. I think everything will be all right.”

He turned to Paulette. “I feel as if I’m finally coming out of the dark,” he told her. “I really do.”

Despite being weirded out by his bizarre and ill-timed metaphor (basically: “you’re literally blind, and I was figuratively blind—but I’m not figuratively blind anymore”), Paulette decides to date the good twin. Their romance is short-lived, however, as police have trouble swallowing his “evil twin” story. “What’s a twin?” they ask.

Based on the cover?

A zillion things going on in this book, and this is not one of them.

The plot:

A group of students are making a movie called Who Killed the Homecoming Queen? and they’ve gotten the real homecoming queen to star. But then someone kills her. Obviously.

Typical quote:

“I’ve had such an incredible year so far. So much has happened— Mom gets remarried in July, we move into this fabulous new house, I really like my stepfather, and I’ve got a great new stepbrother… .

“And there’s Sandy,” Tania went on. “I couldn’t believe it when he asked me out. And now we’re actually going together. I mean, he’s only one of the coolest guys in school… .

“Being nominated for Homecoming Queen is great, but it really doesn’t matter if I win,” Tania declared. “Everything is perfect right now. Hey, I even pulled an A on that French quiz yesterday!”

Worth reading?

Not at all. It’s the Courtney Love of Fear Street books: ambitious, chaotic, lazy, and underwhelming. It’s starts out as this post-Scream metafiction thing, where characters who love scary movies find themselves stuck in their own scary movie. But then there are just so many subplots, with no effort made to bring them to life. Like, on top of everything, the girl has this new stepbrother that she’s wild about, her boyfriend’s cheating on her, she’s constantly going into diabetic shock, and her best friend’s a psychic. And still, the book’s a slog: boring kids ineptly investigating a lame mystery, all leading up to an enormous information dump at the end explaining everything and nothing.

(spoilers after the jump)

Conceits:

Everything all of the time.

The twist:

The homecoming queen (the above-quoted Tania) was never really dead. She was mad that her boyfriend was cheating and nobody told her about it, and so she wanted to punish her friends by faking her own death. She and her stepbrother explained this plan to their parents and the police, and so they all played along and pretended she’d been murdered. All of which was very misguided because it turns out that the boyfriend wasn’t even cheating on her—he was just filming a film within a film. Except that the girl he was film-cheating with didn’t know that it was only a film within a film, and so she freaked out and murdered him. Which all gets resolved when the other kids trick her into confessing to the murder and videotape it.

And I’d love to see the book that pulls all that off. It’s certainly not this one.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

No, no. Among other things, this book isn’t even set in Fear Hall—it’s about students on the run.

The plot:

Hope and friends hide out, as the college killings continue.

Typical quote:

“That’s why I had come to Ivy State, after all. For a normal life. Now here I was, homeless and broke. Hiding from the police because my boyfriend was a murderer.”

Worth reading?

Probably not? These are not two separate books, and splitting them into two books ruins the structure. The big twist came at the end of the first book. The stuff here might’ve had some energy to it if it had come right after the twist, but divided into a separate book, it’s just killing time.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Sometimes when a mother calls her daughter fat all the time, it causes that daughter to develop numerous personalities and kill at random. The mother! This explains everything.

A girl at the center of an elaborate murder scheme might elect to remain on campus and continue classes, even if two of her roommates have been brutally killed and it’s clear that she’s next. Academics first.

Hair color is everything. If a blonde changes her hair to brown, nobody will recognize her—even if her face is all over the national news as a serial killer terrorizing a small university. Who looks at faces? Like, even if someone goes on a date with this girl, he might not recognize her face.

Sometimes the events of Fear Street make the national news! Which is kind of confusing, coming this late in the series. I mean, what about all that stuff with Corky Corcoran? Why didn’t that make the news?

Hot tubs cannot and will not overflow for any reason. Go ahead: pour gallons and gallons of chlorine into that hot tub! It won’t look suspicious!

The twist:

The way this ends is Hope ends up leaping off a balcony, killing herself and all her personalities.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

Everything here signals that the series was hitting hard times. After five years of delivering trilogies over August/September/October, this is just a two-part thing. The title is grandiose and lazy, given that it’s basically a single book split in half (why not Fear Hall, Part 1?). The cover art redesign makes the books look more anonymous and bland. Plus, the setting and age group have changed—now we’re dealing with a college and college students. There’s no shame in switching up a series after 70+ books, but we’re literally not even on Fear Street anymore.

The plot:

Hope’s boyfriend is making life for her and her roommates a living hell—especially when he starts killing everyone.

Typical quote:

“Everyone calls me B.J.”

I snickered. “Are you from Texas, B.J.? Guys from Texas are always called B.J.”

Worth reading?

Probably not? As far as actual style goes, the prose feels a lot less slapped-together than in All-Night Party, Rich Girl, or Cat. But the twist is very, very clear early on, and it’s almost the only thing going on. You’re sort of just waiting to see when they’ll get to it. Also, it’s two books, but there’s no cliffhanger—there’s really no reason to pick up the second book at all.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

College students would fail to report another student with obvious dissociative tendencies, even when they’re aware and very concerned that she might be a murderer.

Sometimes college dorms have baths (?). This also happened in The Third Evil.

Sometimes college students don’t know exactly where their roommates are from (“somewhere out west”?)

The twist:

Hope is severely dissociative, and her roommates and boyfriend are all the same person (i.e. they’re all Hope). This is the second time Stine’s used this twist in less than a year, so I’m not sure what he was thinking—I guess he figured the shifting first-person thing would make it more surprising. But he’d done the dissociative first-person thing, too. I dunno.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

Packaging may not match contents. But, I mean, the jet ski murder book depicted above seems fun, too.

The plot:

A lifeguard named Adam struggles with terrifying hallucinations of the girlfriend he killed in an accident the previous summer.

Typical quote:

The apple’s skin kept changing. Wrinkling, sagging. Melting away, until I saw what was underneath it.

A skull.

I was holding a green, rotting skull. I could smell it. Moldy and putrid, with vacant eye sockets and shreds of skin dangling from stumps of black, twisted flesh.

As i stared in horror, the wet apple jaws began to move. “Help me, Adam!” a hoarse voice inside the apple croaked. “Help me. Don’t let me drown!”

Worth reading?

Probably! Aside from an out-of-place final showdown, it’s loads of fun. Promiscuous lifeguards, a clever shifting-first-person narrative, jealous bitchery, a disturbed young man receiving mysterious and experimental psychological treatment, and…

As I started to cross the street, someone called my name.

I spun around and saw Leslie Jordan standing in front of the coffee shop where she works.

Leslie is the girl I’ve been going out with this summer. She’s smart and good-looking…

Which, hold the phone. He’s dating Leslie Jordan?

What a thing! This is almost as good as when RuPaul played the magic judge on Sabrina the Teenage Witch:

Lordy.

For real, though, this book is actually well-written. Tons of balls in the air (Leslie!) and lots of ridiculous surprises.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

There’s a strain of experimental psychology where you elaborately recreate traumatic events in order to help disturbed individuals retrieve suppressed memories. It is easy to find teenagers ready and willing to join in on the experiments, even if the experiments seem cruel and include a not-insubstantial risk of killing everyone involved.

Sometimes life’s just full of loose cannons. Like, sometimes there’s this rageaholic trying to kill your roommate, but also your roommate is trying to kill you, and you’re having weird hallucinations because your girlfriend died a very violent death the year before, and also you’re (unknowingly) participating in an risky psychological experiment where a girl pretends to drown on your watch in order to get you to retrieve suppressed memories of said girlfriend’s very violent death. Lordy!

Even if a death is accidental and would not likely result in any significant legal problems, sometimes a guy will nonetheless flip out and attempt to murder his best friend if he thinks he’s come too close to the truth.

Despite the aforementioned “kill anyone who comes too close to the truth” policy, this guy might nonetheless be a willing participant in the risky psychological experiment that facilitates said best friend getting too close to the truth—i.e. by recovering his suppressed memories. Or whatever.

Has anything in the history of time ever sounded more pleasant: “‘Want me to come over?’ [Leslie Jordan] asked. ‘I could rent a movie and bring some microwave popcorn. I can be there in twenty minutes.’” Yes, Leslie! Let’s get a bag of Pop Secret and a VHS tape of Sleeping With the Enemy—we’ll spend the whole night exchanging secrets and braiding each other’s hair.

The twist:

So there are a lot of things going on here, and none of them really have to do with the flamboyant, drawling, Emmy-winning, Alyssa Edwards-loving, pocket-sized elephant in the room.

First, it turns out that a lot of the weird threats that Adam’s been receiving have nothing to do with anything—they were intended for his roommate, Ian, who’s been dating the girlfriend of this rageaholic behind the rageaholic’s back. It’s beside the point, but this twist is actually well concealed via the shifting first-person narration thing, and it’s a lot of fun.

Second, there’s this thing where this girl drowns on Adam’s watch, but it turns out that she didn’t really drown: it was a trick by Adam’s wacky, famous-on-tv psychiatrist to help Adam recover suppressed memories of his ex-girlfriend’s death—which he believes are at the root of the hallucinations Adam’s been having throughout the book.

Third, Adam does, in fact, recover his suppressed memories, leading him to discover that he wasn’t actually responsible for his ex-girlfriend death—that it was actually his roommate, Ian. Ian had sneaked out with her one night (classic Ian), and he ended up accidentally killing her with a water scooter. Adam, shocked, somehow repressed this. Having recovered his memory, though, he confronts Ian, and Ian attempts to violently murder him with a water scooter (?).

And this last part is actually the only part I didn’t love about this ridiculous ending. Like, the book came so close to not having a crazed-killer villain—which would’ve been so unusual for the series! Instead, though, the book has Ian flip out and attempt to murder his best friend. Which, even by Fear Street standards, seems kind of lacking in the motive department. I mean, he’d get in trouble for not being forthcoming about the details of the one girl’s accidental death, but not nearly so much trouble as he would for intentionally killing someone new (?). Whatever.

What’s next?

Or, well, no funerals actually. Aside from the girl at the beginning, the characters in this book do a remarkable job of averting death.

Here’s the final passage:

“I’m not imagining you, am I?”

Leslie didn’t speak. She stepped up to meet me and kissed me softly on the lips.

“What do you think?” she asked, tilting her head. “Was that a real kiss? Or did you imagine it?”

I slipped my arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I don’t really care,” I said. And I kissed her again.

Such a romantic ending! Although naturally Leslie’s only still dating the guy so she’ll have something to hold over her rival Karen Walker at the next morning’s tennis match:

Leslie, Leslie, you never change! Never change, Leslie. This is the beginning of the rest of your life.

The cover:

The tagline’s a hall-of-famer. That artwork, though. You can have an evil cat hissing, or you can have a Cat People homage, but you can’t have both. Bow:

The plot:

A boy’s social life falls apart and his friends start to die after he accidentally kills a cat.

Typical quote:

“Nice night,” he murmured as he walked away.

“Not really,” I replied softly.

Not a nice night at all, I decided. In fact, one of the most frightening nights of my life.

I had no idea that the frights had just begun.

Worth reading?

This is awful. It’s like The Knife, where it seemed written by someone basically unfamiliar with the series. I suspect that this was originally intended to be a Goosebumps book: it’s about twenty pages shorter than the usual Fear Street book, the plot is about a monster cat (everyday things can be scary!), the writing is unusually clunky, the chapters are short and contain particularly strained cliffhangers (like the above quote), and it has a tacked-on “scary” ending. There isn’t much mystery, it feels like everyone’s being unfair to the protagonist all the time for no reason, and it’s boring. Don’t read this.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Shadyside High would apparently allow a stray cat to live underneath its bleachers for over a month.

Sometimes when an animal is attacking you, witnesses might misunderstand the situation and assume it’s you who’s attacking the animal. The misunderstanding may be so severe that witnesses might form an alliance against animal cruelty, leading the school to get involved in disciplinary action and leading to concern that the incident will make the papers.

If a cat falls ten feet off a set of bleachers, it will die.

Sometimes people are cat people, capable of transforming back and forth between cat form and human form.

Cat people have nine lives.

If a cat person loses one of her nine lives, she might decide to murder everyone involved as revenge.

Despite the fact that stuff like this happens at Shadyside High literally every month, there’s this: “Of course school was canceled. Miss Bevan, the vice principal, called Mom and said that special counselors were being called in to talk to students about the two murders.” Again, it seems written by someone basically unfamiliar with the series.

The twist:

The cat isn’t a cat but is really a person who can transform into a cat. That person is Kit, who’s this girl the main guy has had a crush on for a while. There’s literally a cat person on the cover, so I don’t know why the book waited to drop all this info until the end (“‘Hey—magic!’ I cried. ‘What’s going on here?’”). It unfolds like a whodunit in a book that isn’t designed as a whodunit—it explains nothing. What was actually mysterious about the book remains a mystery: why was everyone making such a big deal and being so mean about how the main character accidentally killed a cat? It was obviously an accident. None of the inconsistent accounts and (apparent) hallucinations get mentioned at book’s end. The narrator just kills the cat-person and says “the horror’s all over.”

What’s next?

He heaved the ball to me.

I reached for it.

And saw a green glow under the bleachers.

Two green glows.

Two green eyes. Of a cat.

The cat-person’s still alive, of course—cat people have nine lives. I guess the narrator missed this? Again, it’s a very “Goosebumps” ending.

Also, the narrator ends up dating some girl who’d been terrorizing and stalking him the whole book—which isn’t explained. And I mean, there are plenty other things about this book that are frustrating. But this book is too lazy to deserve exegesis or analysis. It deserves to be forgotten.

Based on the cover:

The Fear Street woods are looking great!  Shadyside must really be benefiting from all that Fear Park business.

The plot:

Two friends--one rich and one poor--find a bag full of money in a dumpster.  They keep it and hide it in the woods, and very bad things start to happen.

Typical quote:

"She's so excited, Sydney thought. All she talked about on the way here was the stuff she can buy with the money. Her mom’s operation. A CD player. Lots of clothes."

Worth reading?

Maybe.  Sort of a Treasure of Sierra Madre plot: two girls find a bunch of money, they aren't tight-lipped enough about it, and everyone starts betraying each other.  For what it's worth, A Simple Plan did the same plot a year and a half later and got unanimous critical acclaim for it.

Based on the cover?

Is that R.L. Stine’s son again over on the right?

I actually like the generic artwork on the reissue a lot more:

Hey Britney!

The plot:

Gretchen and her friends are throwing Cindy a surprise party out on Fear Island, and they’re gonna rage all night! Unfortunately, someone gets murdered, like, immediately, so they end up having a pretty bad time.

Typical quote:

“Gretchen didn’t like being by herself. Especially with an escaped prisoner on the loose.”

Worth reading?

Probably not. Like Goodnight Kiss 2, this one’s only interesting for being so irritating. I liked the premise: a bunch of teenagers in a cabin trying to figure out which of them is a murderer. But the actual book is an exercise in patience because they are just such terrible detectives. They weigh certain kinds of evidence way too heavily, they fail to investigate obvious leads, and they’re constantly putting each other in danger.

And, I mean, sure. They are teenagers, their friend was just murdered, and they’ve all been friends for a while. It’s pretty real that they’d be bad at this. But it’s difficult as a reader.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Teenagers make bad detectives.

Teenagers will readily believe outrageous, implausible lies if the lies are told by an old friend.

Sometimes old friends go crazy and murder people, and there’s no telling who will be a murderer.

The twist:

For real, though, wtf is this book? The case could’ve been solved in literally thirty seconds. Soon after the teens discover the dead body of their friend Cindy, the primary suspect walks into the room covered in blood. When asked about this, he points at a bandage on his hand and says he accidentally cut himself. But nobody ever investigates whether he actually cut his hand—they just look at the bandage and wonder if he’s telling the truth. And wonder and wonder. And wonder.

It turns out he wasn’t telling the truth. He was covered in blood because he murdered Cindy. And the twist is that the red herring did, in fact, commit the crime.

This might be a fine twist in some circumstances, but here it’s never genuinely in question whether he committed the crime. Even apart from the “covered in blood” thing, there’s a whole mountain of evidence against him. He does one of those “reverse-framing” things that Stine likes, where he plants evidence framing himself for the murder and then fake-exonerates himself by pointing out why and how that specific piece of evidence was planted. But, again, there’s just so much other evidence against him that it couldn’t be any other way.

He also tells what seems like a pretty obvious lie at the very beginning: that there’s a serial killer on the loose, and that the killer might be hanging out on Fear Island, but that the police are keeping it out of the news because they don’t want to freak people out. The friends just accept this as fact, and never, at any point in the book, consider whether they might have an inaccurate source. They spend the entire book wondering if one of their friends is the killer or if Cindy was killed by this escaped lunatic.

These teens can’t put 1 and 1 together, and it’s aggravating. It’s amazing they lived this long, frankly.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

He’s got that hot-in-‘97 thing on lock.

The plot:

Delia and Karina are frontrunners for Shadyside’s most prestigious scholarship, but they’re not so bright when it comes to guys! Vincent Milano’s been dating both of them, and neither girl’s willing to give him up. It’s obviously driving them both crazy, and now one of them’s getting death threats. Is this just another case of jealous bitchery, or is there something more sinister going on?

Typical quote:

“‘Wow.’ Britty peered into the dark front room. ‘Creepy place. Why did you choose this mansion on Fear Street for your party?’”

Worth reading?

Yes! A ninth inning classic, and maybe the most straightforwardly “good” Fear Street book. It moves quickly, the characters are smart (except about guys), and the mystery’s densely laden with surprises. For once, there are actually several thoroughly plausible suspects. And then when the actual villain is revealed, the villain’s scheme turns out to be very clever! If every Fear Street mystery were this well-constructed, people would still be reading them.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

High schoolers are irrational, mean, and occasionally violent when it comes to romantic rivalry.

Sometimes the stress of being cheated on and potentially losing a big scholarship will cause an otherwise smart high school girl to crack, killing her boyfriend and framing her romantic and academic rival for his murder.

Sometimes murderers are incredible liars, capable of creating and following through on very elaborate schemes.

Sometimes high schoolers wear lipstick.

The twist:

So the twist is that it’s the main character (Delia). This book is great for having a lot of potential endings. But this is the best one, and it’s actually quite a bit cleverer than it might seem at first. What makes Delia interesting is that her plan shifts and alters throughout the course of the book—taking things as they come, cleverly exploiting the elements that are out of her control, and getting increasingly maniacal as the book progresses. This is one of very few Fear Street books where it’s actually exciting to think back through the plot once you know the twist.

Delia’s plan started out relatively mild. Like, early in the book, it’s clear that the romantic rivalry between her and Karina was driving Karina a little crazy. Karina violent attacks her in public and is obviously terrifying. And so Delia exploits this. The scholarship they’re competing for requires multiple auditions, and Delia makes it look like someone’s sabotaging her: she ruins her own art in the art competition and destroys her own guitar in the talent portion, and she makes it look like someone’s out to get her. Even if Delia didn’t end up with the scholarship, her plan would at least make Karina seem unfit for the scholarship as well.

After this has been going on for a while, though, Delia discovers that her boyfriend (Vincent) is not only cheating on her with Karina but with Delia’s own sister. Which is when she comes up with a more elaborate plan: kill Vincent and frame Karina. Given that Karina’s been seen attacking Delia over Vincent and that Delia’s already made it look like Karina’s been sabotaging her for the scholarship, it doesn’t take a big leap for people to assume Karina killed Vincent as well.

Plus, her plan to make Karina look guilty is actually very clever! She does this (very elaborate) thing where she plants her own lipstick on the victim, just so she can point out what’s wrong with the evidence to the police. Stine does this “reverse-framing” twist thing a lot, where the killer makes it look like a third party is trying to frame them, but for once, it doesn’t feel superfluous—maybe because it’s actually clever. If the book had just had this lipstick thing, it would’ve been fun, but combined with the everything else, it’s actually impressive.

What’s next?

Of course, nobody ever “gets away with it” in Fear Street, and so there’s this weird, tacked-on ending where Delia reveals her whole scheme in public and starts acting all crazy-caps:

“You won’t tell— will you? You won’t forget what I did to Vincent. Will you?”

Gabe stared helplessly at his reflection, at his face, smeared with thick, purple stains.

“Will you? Will you?” She continued to rub her lips over his skin. “Will you, Vincent? I mean Gabe.”

A sound made Gabe turn.

Gazing over Delia’s shoulder, he saw a white-coated doctor standing grim-faced at the doorway.

“I heard the whole story,” the doctor told Gabe. “I’ll phone the police.”

Based on the cover?

Certainly does a good job of keeping up the whole “who is she really?” mystery.

The plot:

Felicia had to run away to get away from the horror. Unfortunately, she decided to settle in at Fear Street. Like, very unfortunate.

Typical quote:

“What happened to make Zan cover the guy’s photo in blood? It had to be bad.”

Worth reading?

Yes! Interesting central character, and there’s a good amount of mystery beyond the usual whodunit.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Psychic powers are real.

Jealous haters are everywhere, and they will kill to get what they want.

Despite being a haven for serial killers, the people of Shadyside are still trusting enough to let some stranger they met at a doughnut shop for ten seconds in the middle of the night housesit for them.

Again, no matriculation standards at Shadyside High.

Some people are just shit magnets. Sometimes someone frames you for a murder, you flee to a new town, and you immediately fall into a group of friends who want to murder you for wholly unrelated reasons.

The twist:

So Felicia’s secretly telekinetic, and she ran away from home when she accidentally committed a murder. But unfortunately, she ended up at Shadyside, and the first girl she befriends turns out to be this total psycho who killed her ex-boyfriend and keeps blood-covered photos of him in her bedroom. This girl decides Felicia is competition and tries to kill her, forcing Felicia to reveal her powers. Felicia makes the news, leading her best friend from home to come find it. But it turns out her best friend from home is also a total psycho: she lied to Felicia about that murder Felicia thought she committed, and it turns out the friend was just trying to frame her for her own telekinetic misdeeds. She and Felicia have it out, Craft-style:

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

Is this some sort of commentary on how the main character sees the other people in her lives as props, even as they’re being murdered?

The plot:

Reva’s back and worse from ever. This year, she’s dead-set on putting on a fashion show, but someone keeps killing her models. Which is perfect, because they all have cute boyfriends Reva would like to date.

Typical quote:

“Willow continued to pace, her face hard and determined. ‘We have to get her to make that business deal with us.’”

Worth reading?

Masochists only. If reading Silent Night 2 was the YA equivalent of Bully, then reading Silent Night 3 is like making a night of it and watching the rest of Brad Renfro’s adult output.

Even by the standards of the last two books, Silent Night 3 is bleak. Reva hasn’t changed at all, and it’s clear she will never. It’s more of her elaborate plans to hurt Pam and more of her stealing other people’s boyfriends. Reva’s college roommate, who’s staying with Reva for the holidays, repeatedly suggests that some guy’s trying to kill her, and Reva does nothing but make fun of the roommate and root for the guy to succeed.

If this book has virtue, it’s that Reva is far and away the most convincing sociopath in a series full of them. She chooses victims, gets them in her power, and plays cruel games with them. She is relentless, thrives on placing others in unsafe situations, lies easily and elaborately to get ahead, and has no understanding of or remorse for the consequences of her actions. This series of books will make you feel weird and bad about the world.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

A person who survives numerous traumatic events may become less capable of empathy. They may cause an already-cruel person to become even more callous towards others.

A reputation for relentless cruelty will in no way hinder one’s social life or sexual appeal.

Smith College would accept a student who had to repeat her senior year (?). It’s unclear what’s going on with Reva’s academics in Silent Night 2, but she was a senior in the first one and she’s midway through her freshman year of college in Silent Night 3. Maybe she took some time off?

Roommate-wise, Smith College would pair a student who has recently suffered numerous violent episodes with a student with an unpredictable and violent personality disorder. At no point will the former student be informed of her roommate’s psychological history, nor will anyone, at any point, ask her about the roommate’s behavior over the course of the semester.

The hatred and cruelty of Reva Dalby hypnotizes and confuses her victims, leading to revenge schemes that are elaborate but incompetent. Sometimes an avenger might fail to even recognize Reva Dalby and attempt to murder the wrong girl.

Reva Dalby will not blame herself when her cruelty inspires two separate, unrelated people to commit a series of murders over the course of a single holiday season. She cannot be intimidated. She will put on a fashion show.

The world is a mercilessly bleak place. Nobody ever changes if they don’t have to—and people with money don’t have to. People rarely understand the consequences of their actions because, unless it directly affects them, they just don’t care. Hate and cruelty will cause misery, but the misery it causes is rarely the inflicter’s. Reva Dalby is who she is, and if it means a lot of people die, she doesn’t care.

The twist:

Reva's roommate has some sort of dissociative personality disorder where she’s both herself and her violent ex-boyfriend. She goes on a killing spree in his name. Meanwhile, the boyfriend of one of her victims flips out and decides to do a copycat murder, targeting Reva. Both of these people have plenty of reason to want to kill Reva, but, for reasons that don’t really make sense, neither of these people actually succeed in killing Reva. The biggest twist in this book, really, is that Reva doesn’t die.

What’s next?

Based on the cover?

Girl wears boring outfit and reacts to things.

The plot:

Diane and her friends hadn’t seen Spencer for a while. He used to be such a loser, but now he’s a night prowler. He invites them to join in on his late-night revelry, but things get really spooky when the kids decide to get revenge on a teacher.

Typical quote:

“I brought my cell phone,” Jordan said, reaching into his pocket. “Let’s call him and—”

“Put that away!” Cassie cried.

Worth reading-?

If you’ve been waiting for someone to finally step up and remake The Dare, 1996-style, grab a copy. Otherwise, maybe not. This isn’t the worst Fear Street—mostly because it’s a fast read—but it’s definitely one of the lazier entries. It’s a bunch of stuff the series had already done before.

(spoilers after the jump)

A short list of the book’s central assumptions and conceits:

Sometimes a good friend dies under mysterious circumstances, but there’s no investigation into his death. Sometimes nobody even realizes he’s dead. This is because sometimes people who die don’t really die but, instead, become zombie-ghosts.

Zombie-ghosts are fueled by hatred, and so one way to stop them is with a big group hug.

The twist:

It turns out that Spencer is a zombie-ghost, out for revenge against Diana and her friends. About a year ago, they played this prank on him where they buried him in the snow and left him to die (?), but he came back as a zombie-ghost, and nobody was the wiser for it. There’s obviously a lot of stuff here that goes unexplained. Diana and her friends solve the matter by apologizing to Spencer and giving him a group hug. It is fabulously wtf:

“What are you doing?” he shrieked, trying to push us off.

“We’re hugging you, Spencer,” I repeated. “We like you.”

“No!” he screeched. “Get away from me! Get away! I need my hatred! I need my hatred to keep me here!”

The hug melts Spencer into a big blue puddle (“melting like snow in the spring”). Unfortunately, it’s revealed at the very end that Spencer actually succeeded in killing Diana when he was strangling her earlier—and now zombie-ghost Diana wants revenge.

What’s next?

All three of them stood there and watched me die.

They didn’t move. They didn’t help.

And now they wanted to celebrate.

I stared at Lenny. I let him hug me, but I didn’t feel a thing.

Should I tell them? I wonder.

Should I tell them that I’m dead now?

Or should I wait—and play some games of my own?

At this point in the series, so many books were pulling this “the protagonist is now the living dead!” twist that I’d actually forgotten that this one ended that way, too.

Regardless, I imagine what’s next for these kids is jail time. Like, even if these kids somehow got away with burying their friend in the snow and killing him, they’re still pretty likely to get implicated in the whole “dead teacher” thing Spencer set up for them earlier.

Aside from their legal woes, the teenagers themselves will be haunted by the fact that they basically killed one of their friends, and they will be haunted by the idea that zombies are real. They will be haunted by the idea that nobody even realized that their friend had died—and will spend the rest of their lives second-guessing themselves, never feeling so sure about anything. Thus, they really won’t be all that surprised when Diana turns out to be a zombie-ghost, too. Sorry, Diana. It’s just the nature of sequels.

Based on the cover?

I just don't even know.

The plot:

The park's still open, and the Fears are still killing its patrons left and right.  Will they shut it down already?

Typical quote:

"I'm not an evil person, [he] told himself.  Yes, I've done evil things.  But only to keep my promise to you, Dad."

Worth reading?

No?  Fear Park is another trilogy that overstays its welcome.  It's clear early on that there's only one possible ending, and most of the book is a long delay tactic.  Fake twists and irrational behavior and plenty of stuff that goes unexplained.