The Cheater had a really solid beginning but it got lost in the weeds about halfway through. The pre

The Cheater had a really solid beginning but it got lost in the weeds about halfway through. The premise was immediately relatable; the pressure to impress demanding parents can lead a kid to do some reckless shit. I think this might be the first Fear Street book I’ve read in which blackmail was a central part of the story. RL Stine came close to almost saying something profound about class, privilege, and power but never delivered. All of the right elements were there, but the nuance and execution were lacking. Given my present-day lens of racial disparities in our justice system, it is impossible not to read this book with that context in mind. But what this book really needed to do was get weirder, darker, or both. I know Stine can deliver on all of these elements so it’s a shame that it didn’t happen here. There’s an event midway through that killed the slow-building tension, and the story just never really recovered. The twist was underwhelming and relied on the main character leaving out important details in spite of being our narrator. I get the necessity of that plot device sometimes but it will always bug me. I also wanted way more dire consequences for certain characters that I won’t name here. The Cheater could have been one of the Fear Street greats, but it ended up being kinda forgettable.

Score: 3

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