The second outing of the 99 Fear Street trilogy brings a few new things to the mix, but not as much as I had hoped. I enjoyed the addition of Brandt’s character, and the ending was one of Stine’s better WTF moments. This is to say that my favorite parts of the book had very little to do with the titular house. Most of the haunting elements felt like a tired rehash of the first book, and we didn’t learn anything new about the motives or origins of 99 Fear Street. Cally is back as a ghost and totally evil now. I was frustrated by the lack of nuance with her character. I wanted to see the internal conflict between who she used to be and who the house had made her, but unfortunately, we never got to see that. It was a missed opportunity. Stine continues to demonstrate his hatred of house pets; I won’t spoil the particulars here on this recurring trope of the Fear Street series. You’ll have to wait until after the jump for that. Brandt’s storyline saved The Second Horror from being a forgettable slog, so kudos to that. It all made for a book that wasn’t nearly as bad (nor as good) as it could have been.
Score: 3
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I’ll be reviewing the full 99 Fear Street Trilogy during the month of October. All of those, plus all of my other Fear Street reviews, can be found over on my blog too.
The First Horror is a really solid kick-off to the trilogy. It also works really well as a stand-alone novel, and I almost wish that it was. There were some genuinely creepy and brutal moments. It definitely scared me as a kid. I had forgotten the order of things, but I had very distinct memories of several of the scenes. I think this might be where my fear of rats originated from. The sibling rivalry between Cally and Kody worked really well. It played nicely into the strange things happening around them. For the most part, this was a pretty standard haunted house story. It had some really good moments that made it stand out (namely what happened to James) but it fell short of being something truly unique. One of the more frustrating things about Stine is that he rarely gives his villains compelling motives, and the house in 99 Fear Street is no different. It’s evil for the sake of being evil, but I want to know what it wants. This is forgivable to an extent since this is just the first of three books, but that means the next two need to raise the stakes and deliver. I have a sinking feeling that they won’t.
Score: 4
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
I’ll be reviewing the full 99 Fear Street Trilogy during the month of October. All of those, plus all of my other Fear Street reviews, can be found over on my blog too.
I’ll start out by saying that I have yet to give a negative review to a Christopher Pike book, so this will be my first. While Remember Me is rightfully celebrated as one of his best (and scariest) books, Remember Me 2 was a problematic mess. Its existence stands as a testament against making unnecessary sequels, even if the fans and publishers really want one. The book goes back and forth between the story of Jean Rodriguez, a Latinx girl living in a rough part of Los Angeles, and Shari Cooper, our protagonist from the first book who is now becoming further enlightened in heaven. While Jean’s story was both boring and laced with problematic representations of Latinx, queer, and disabled people, Shari’s chapters in heaven were insufferable, sanctimonious, and preachy. Literally, the only thing I liked about this book was the short story about the troll muse. It was shoehorned in and didn’t really fit with anything else, but I genuinely loved that story. The entire concept of Shari, the spirit of a rich white girl, being placed as a “wanderer” in the body of a troubled Latinx girl is problematic as fuck. This is a white savior narrative taken to a spiritual level. I get that it’s a product of its time, and that comes up a lot in these books, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one where the entire premise was this flawed. If you loved the first book, I recommend just stopping there and thinking of it as a stand-alone. I, however, am a glutton for punishment and will continue reading to see how this all wraps up in the final book of the trilogy.
Score:0.5
For my full, deep-dive, snark-filled recap with memes, gifs, and all the spoilers, check it out over on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
It Came From Beneath the Sink has a great title, a solid concept, and a unique monster. Unfortunately, it never managed to raise the stakes high enough for any of that to really matter. The characters are fine, the plot is technically fine, and it doesn’t rely on faulty villain logic to explain itself. Kudos to Stine for another great dog name; the cocker spaniel named Killer was a great touch. The book’s biggest crime is that it was boring. Stine had the opportunity here to get real weird and he didn’t take it. The Grool was gross and creepy, but it could have been way more powerful and menacing. I honestly think this concept had the potential to reach One Day at Horrorland orWelcome to Camp Nightmare levels of weird and fun, but it just kinda got stuck in the first act. It needed to do more than bring bad luck, or the bad luck needed to be way worse than it was. It Came From Beneath the Sink had all of the elements needed to make a greatGoosebumps book, but it ultimately fell short.
Score: 3
For my full snark-filled recap with spoilers, gifs, and memes to illustrate my very important points, check it out on my website blog Fits of Nostalgia!
So, I did not know when I read the first book in this series, A Touch of Darkness, that this was going to be a series. When I finish the first book, I was satisfied and had really liked it. I was happy with where it ended and I was happy with what I got. A lot of things have been left up in the air, but it was all right because overall the first book was great for what it was.
So when I stumbled across the second book, this book, in the series, on Amazon.com, I was very happy! One of the things that I love about these books, is that they do not end in cliffhangers. Each book is connected and tell a continuous story, but it does not stop at a horrible spot, where you have to read the next book right away to find out what happened. The next installment of the story is great and very important to read, but it’s not urgent. I love that about these books, and I love that about any book series in general.
A Touch of Ruin is good. In fact, it’s better than good! It has everything that I’m looking for in a good book. And as it is based on a mythology that I intensely like, the story of Hades and Persephone, I am that much happier that Scarlett St. Clair is doing such a good job with the retelling of this story. It is dark when it needs to be, sexual when it needs to be, and it has great lessons to teach each of us about the way natural forces work in the world.
I am at a stage in my life where I’m moving from young adult books, and I’m looking for good adult books, that can fill the void that those amazing young adult books did for me when I was younger. I have been having a really hard time finding those books, and if anyone knows of any great books that they can recommend to me, please go ahead and do so!! However, one of the book series that I feel like is really fitting that slot right now, of being a good story and not avoiding more adult situations, is this series.
So I highly recommend these to anyone who is 18 years or older. If you’re younger than 18 years old, please read at your own risk, because they do contain sexual situations. But I really like this series! There will be a third book, but as this one does not end in a cliffhanger, you can read it without needing to binge read all the books.
Below is the cover to the beautiful first book in the series!! Enjoy!!
“She pushed down the wrongness until all she could feel of it was a lingering horror. If only a monster would do this, then she could do this. She was a monster, wasn’t she?”
I enjoyed this book SO much. I love a good twisty turny time travel book, and I got that here, plus some great characters and a really fun plot.
Joan knows her summer in London is going to be great. She’s working at Holland House, she loves her job, and she has a crush on a boy named Nick who she is about to go on a date with. Things are looking wonderful - until she finds out that monsters are real, that they steal time from humans, and that she is one. Set on a path that will lead her to multiple discoveries and revelations that she isn’t ready for, Joan will have to decide whether to accept her fate, or do anything she can to save the family she loves more than life itself.
I’m a sucker for time travel in books like Passenger or Claudia Gray’s Firebird trilogy. Those scenes where the characters are figuring out what’s the same, what’s different, how they’ve changed things, where they are, all of that is like crack to me. I love trying to figure it out with them and imagining how things could be different if we could go back and forth.
This book has such an imaginative way of dealing with time travel as a concept. “Monsters” who take time from others in order to travel for their own personal gain is so interesting, and the way it’s portrayed as no big deal for some and this huge moral conundrum for others is fascinating. I would love to steal time from random people to go back and forth in time, ngl, but Joan’s struggles with who and what she is are also relatable.
Joan is flawed as a character, and sometimes that grated on me, but overall, I did like her. She just wants her family back so badly and is willing to do anything to make that happen; there was one scene in particular where she just would NOT leave a very tense situation where I was like !!! GIRL COME ON. But otherwise, her choices made sense, and I was rooting for her.
Both Aaron and Nick are highlights of the book for me. There’s no love triangle (…yet?) but I could see the appeal of both of them for Joan. Predictably, I’m fully Team Aaron, but with the focus on Nick as the hero and how he came to be the way he is, I also loved the idea of fated romance and how that changes time.
Again, I just love time travel. I love how it’s done here. Were there parts of this that perhaps could’ve been edited to be tighter? Sure. But overall, I have very few critiques, and my enjoyment of the story overshadows everything else. This was such a fun time, and I can’t wait to be back in this world of monsters.
“Mother said there is power in words, in hopes we breathe into being. It dangles there before me, a dream once as far out of reach as the stars in the sky, my longing for a different life.”
I adore this series, and if I could read it again for the first time, I absolutely would ⚔️ What is a book or series you’d love to look at with fresh eyes again?
“Great danger is always associated with great power. The difference between the great and the mediocre is that the great are willing to take the risk.” —R.F. Kuang, The Poppy War
I am now back to school and busier than ever, which means I am too tired to read most evenings, even when I can find a few minutes to spare. So, the later half of my weekends shall be spent reading my books! I am still making my way through the Raven Cycle, but after today’s reading session, I have made a ton of progress.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy back-to-school season, wherever you are!
