#retro reads

I had initially planned on skipping The Surprise Party and just sticking to the paranormal-themed Fear Street books for reading, but I changed my mind. I’m gonna read them, even if it won’t be in order. I thought The Surprise Party was really good. It was certainly would have made for a better launch to the series than The New Girl had been. I would consider it more of a crime thriller than a horror story, but it kept me engaged and guessing right up until the end. There was a large cast of characters, but Stine did a good job at making them feel distinct and believable. I appreciated the complexity and layering of the plot, as well as the themes of guilt and trauma. The ultimate villain had a clear and disturbing motive, which is often not the case with these books. All of this made some of the more convoluted parts forgivable. There were definitely a few moments where certain characters made choices that did not add up, even after the big mystery was resolved. I also liked how the early books in this series had lots of character crossover. Even though I hated The New Girl, I liked the sense of all these isolated mysteries happening around one another. The books definitely didn’t maintain too much of this beyond the early entries. All of this is to say that The Surprise Party surprised me. I enjoyed reading it, and I thought it was one of the better Fear Street books I’ve read.

Score: 4

For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog.

It is worth noting right off the bat that this is the one book in the main Fear Street series that is confirmed to have been ghostwritten. I’m no forensic expert in writing styles, but the narrative voice definitely felt different than the plethora of Stine’s books that I have read. All of that aside, The Thrill Club was a mixed bag. There were a few too many characters for how short the book was; which makes me think it would have been a better fit for the Super Chiller spin-offs. The best parts of it reminded me of Christopher Pike’s stronger books. There was an interesting idea at its core, but it was ultimately bogged down by its very dated notions around race. The othering of indigenous cultures in American media is hardly a rare phenomenon, and this was especially true in 1994. Hell, that was pretty much the entire basis of the beloved Indiana Jones franchise. The Thrill Club might not be as egregious as Temple of Doom, but it was still a bad look and it did not age well. Even worse was the book’s treatment of the first black character to grace the cover of a Fear Street book. I’ll save the spoilers for below the jump, but I doubt it will surprise anyone who pays even the tiniest bit of attention to these things. All of this clouded what was an otherwise creepy concept with a complex villain. With more pages to tell the story and a few small but very significant changes, The Thrill Club could have been a really good book.

Score:2.5

You can find the full snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; onmy website blog.

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

For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review: check out my wordpress blog!

I know that this is the book that RL Stine got hate mail for. It’s also one of the lowest overall ranked Fear Street books on Goodreads. I guess I disagree with the masses because I fucking loved it. This was one of my favorite Fear Street reads so far. It featured two of my favorite literary elements; an unreliable narrator and a villain that literally made my skin crawl. Sure, Becka wasn’t the most likable protagonist. But even at her brattiest moments, it was hard not to sympathize with her situation with Honey. Honey was unhinged but in very a familiar way. The way she was able to upend Becka’s life and gaslight her was unnerving. Stine did a good job of escalating from “haha this girl is weird” to “holy shit get the fuck away from me.” The “gotcha game” was particularly unsettling. I appreciated the way that this book toiled with some very real fears. What do we do when polite society prevents us from getting rid of a toxic person? How do you get help when no one will believe you? There’s a depth and heaviness to this book that really stands out among its peers. The Best Friend may have polarized YA audiences thirty years ago, but it’s aged better than a lot of Stine’s other works.

Score: 4.5

For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my wordpress blog!

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!

Monster Blood III is the sort of sequel you get when you start with a shoddy concept and then stretch it beyond any reasonable length. The Monster Blood books boast more sequels than any other in the original Goosebumps run, and it’s slightly baffling when you realize how none of them is particularly good. My theory is that the badass-sounding title and beautiful Tim Jacobus cover art of the first Monster Blood drove the book to best-seller status in spite of its weirdly bad plot. This brings us to this book. It was tedious. Andy and Evan, the one strong point of the first book, are stuck in a painfully stupid cycle in which they keep using Monster Blood in spite of its dire consequences. They have horrible ideas, and it’s hard to feel anything for them when things go awry. This time we add Kermit to the mix, who is a new kind of awful. There is nothing scary about green slime that keeps growing. It’s not even as gross as it could be. Also being a giant sounds fun, but that only happens for a relatively short section of the book. Most of it is Kermit being terrible to Evan and Andy. The ending could have been satisfying, but Stine has done similar twists and done them better. I also just didn’t care. Three books into a mini-franchise titled Monster Blood and we still have never seen a single monster from whom the blood supposedly originates. That, I believe, is the most unforgivable thing of all.

Score: 1

Check out my website blog my full review with memes, spoilers, and snark:

https://www.danstalter.com/monster-blood-iii/