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

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”

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"

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 stupid.

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”

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"

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!"

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"

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.