The Gift or "Digusting Vials of Hair Are Used For Good!"

Fear Street Seniors #6! That means… we’re halfway through the final series! Can you believe it? Sigh, time flies when all you do is work and read Fear Street novels. Really flies.

This seniors book centers around Jennifer FEAR. It’s pretty rare for an actual Fear to be the focus of a book, and usually when they are, they’re totally evil. Jen isn’t that bad tho! Her dad is mildly obsessed with their Fear heritage, although Jen hates it because all her classmates think she might be evil. The book starts off right after Christmas, and Jen is going over to see her best friend Trisha (of the psychic visions) to show off the necklace her dad bought her. Jen is super pumped about it, even though it’s a FEAR family heirloom. It was owned by Dominique Fear, who was apparently tried for murder and hung!

The girls find out that Dominique died that way because Trisha puts on the necklace and has one of her psychic flashes. She feels like she’s Dominique, full of rage, right before she’s hanged to death. Hmmm, why did the necklace do that to Trisha and not Jen? The girls try to forget about the creepy necklace vision, and focus on what all girls love to talk about: bad boys! Jen is dating Ty Sullivan, and no one can believe it because usually Ty dates like 8 girls at the same time. But Jen is even bringing Ty to her huge New Years Eve party! He must really like her then.

Well, turns out, not so much. Ty and her go out on a date that night, and he brings her to the cemetery. Really? Like, how cliché. But Jen makes the fatal mistake of asking him to hang out AGAIN, and he freaks out, tells her she’s too “serious” and dumps her. Meh, happens to all of us at one point. What DOESN’T usually happen though, is walking up in Ty’s backyard, after sleep walking over to his place in the middle of the night. Yewoza! Jen is very confused as to how she wandered over to Ty’s house but just kinda scurries home and tries to forget about it.

When Jen gets to school the next day, everyone is abuzz about Ty. And the fact he was attacked in his own backyard the night before! Jen is all “weird, I could have WITNESSED his attack!” and tells Trisha what happened. Trisha and I have the same reaction of, “Ummm, don’t you think YOU may have attacked Ty?” I guess Jen never thought of that scenario. Convenient…

Trisha is really upset that Ty dumped Jen though. To the point, that later that day, at Pete’s Pizza, Trisha gets up and starts screaming about how upset she is, in front of Ty and his new girlfriend Greta. Well, that must have been awkward for Jen. I mean, you want your friend on your side. But maybe not that PUBLICALLY crazy. Maybe. Jen’s night doesn’t get much better unfortunately, because on her way home, she nearly hits someone with her car! And best yet, it’s TY. He now thinks she’s nutters.

Jen has another dream where she slept walked to Ty’s house, but this time she brought some matches. Hmm, what could those be for? She walks up in the comfort of her own home though, much to her relief. Only problem is: Trisha comes by to tell her that someone lit Ty’s house on fire last night! Everyone’s okay, but there was some major damage. Jen doesn’t believe it, so they run over to Ty’s house to see for herself. While they’re inspecting the damage (of her fresh ex-bfs house? Not suspicious…) Jen finds one of her MITTENS there! Well that’s basically a smoking gun. She can’t believe that she could do anything this terrible.

Trisha has come up with a theory as to why Jen is going sleep-crazy. She tells Jen about how when she put on the necklace, she felt how powerfully ANGRY Dominique Fear was. Trisha thinks that Dominique is controlling Jen because Jen is a Fear, and they are therefore connected. Well… I’ve heard worse theories in my Fear Street days. Jen does what any teenaged girl does when she needs to get rid/hide something. She puts the necklace in a sweatsock and puts it in her drawer! Out of sight=out of mind, right?

Jen is busy getting excited for her big New Years Eve party, now that she’s sure the necklace can’t do any more damage. Unfortunately, she still has to deal with Ty thinking she’s crazy. He threatens her to keep away from him! Except…he shows up to her New Years Eve party. With his new girlfriend Greta. That just mean! Jen doesn’t want to make a big deal, or ruin anyone’s night, so she doesn’t throw them out. Jen = bigger person than I am. In the long run though, she probably should have thrown them out. A few hours before midnight, Jen hears Trisha scream from upstairs and runs to find her staring at Greta. Correction: Greta’s dead body. Her head had been smashed in with a heavy ceramic bowl, which I think is a first on Fear Street!

Since the party mood is kinda ruined at that point, everyone shuffles out the door while the police come. The ever-fantastic Shadyside police determined that the bowl just happened to fall off a high shelf, and Greta’s death was an unfortunate accident. Ty has been waiting around for the police to leave, so he can yell at Jen about how the accident was all her fault. Hmm, seems appropriate? I’m not even really sure. Jen might have actually done it.

The next morning, Jen’s parents are trying to make her feel better about the horrible death that happened there the night before. I can certainly tell you, my parents would not have been this cool if someone had DIED at my party. Jen finally confessed everything that’s been going on, including the theory that she’s possessed by Dominique Fear. Her dad awkwardly clears his throat and makes his own confession: they’re not really Fears. It seems that when HIS dad moved to town, the Fears were a well respected family, so he just changed his name to it. Jen’s dad cites “easy access to country clubs” as a legit reason for changing the family name. Allllllright. Jen is so relieved that she’s not a Fear! But also furious at her father for not telling her and cursing her with a terrible name for her whole life.

Jen decides to take apart the necklace now that it has no emotional value to her. After she takes out the stone, she notices a hidden compartment. And it’s full of HAIR. (Note: I love lockets. And I also love long hair. But the two together? DISGUSTING.) Jen also just happens to find a spell for casting out evil spirits, that includes throwing the HAIR of the person who is doing the possessing onto the possessee. Does that make sense? She needs to throw Dominique’s hair on whoever Dominique possesses. Convenient.

While she’s also looking through the Fear’s books, she sees a picture of a house that looks familiar. It’s a drawing of Trisha Conrad’s house! When Jen investigates a little bit further, she finds that Dominique Fear married a one Henry Conrad before she was hanged! Jen rushes over to Trisha’s house to warn her and also stop Dominique from killing anyone! Unfortunately, Trisha is out when Jen gets there. She’s out with Ty Sullivan! Jen has a moment of “WTF SKANK” but then realizes that Trisha would never do that to her, and it’s probably Dominique possessing her. Sure.

Jen does her best investigating skillz, and figures out that Ty probably took Trisha to his fave makeout place, the cemetery! Classy. Jen gets there just in time to see Ty’s body on the ground, and Trisha poised over him with a pair of huge scissors. Really? Scissors? Why on earth would that be the weapon of choice in a cemetery? Trisha is obviously possessed by Dominique, and the two of them tussle for a while. Jen pulls out her jar of hair and Trisha/Dominique rightfully mocks her. Jen knows that she only has one shot to get her with the hair and takes a chance! Poof! O, I guess at some point Jen burnt all the hair into ash, because she throws ash on Trisha instead of just hair. Probably a good idea for projection. Anyways, it gets Trisha out of the daze. The girls hug, and take Ty home while he’s still passed out cold.

We learn two things in the final chapter: Ty is guillible and Trisha is a BITCH. The next day, at Pete’s Pizza, the girls run into Ty. Apparently the girls told Ty that he got SO drunk at the cemetery the night before, he passed out. He doesn’t even remember buying/drinking the beer! Maybe he was mourning his GF that no one seems to remember who died TWO DAYS AGO. Jen goes to the bathroom and the rest of the book is from Trisha’s POV. Trisha’s known she’s a Fear for a while, but she also knows that Jen won’t tell her secret. Jen is too nice! So nice, she never suspected that Trisha had been dating Ty the whole time she was dating Ty too! BITCH. She thinks about being confused but also about the overwhelming rage that she felt. And the ease of which being Evil came to her. Well. That’s it folks! Trisha is evil! That ends another Fear Street where no one important dies. It was pretty standard, and I think mostly filler to introduce the idea that Trisha is an evil Fear. Maybe she’ll be the villain for the rest of the series? Let’s hope so! I give The Gift 12 necklaces of HAIR out of 23. Just passing.

Last Chance, or "Do Not Do What the Bad Man Says"

Last Chance is a book that highlights why I love/loathe Fear Street books. I spent most of my time reading this book screaming “What the f-!” at it, then settling down and shaking my head at it. Seriously.

The teaser is: Mr. Morley is so nice when he catches Mary O’Connor stealing a test. He doesn’t tell. He doesn’t fail her. She just has to do him a favor …

…

…

Don’t do it Mary! Do not touch the bad man, just call the police, and everything will be okay.

Except that Fear Street is not an after-school special. The messages that come out of these books are both awful and awesome at the same time. Let’s see how Mary deals with her little “predicament.”

As you might remember, Mary O’Connor is the poor white trash girl who’s father walked out on her family, and then her boyfriend, Gary Fresno, dumped her for rich Trisha Conrad. You think that Mary might deserve a break about now, but instead she gets busted for shoplifting. Now she has to see a counselor every week, and all of her teachers have been told about her incident, and discriminate against her because of it.

I’m sorry, does this seem a little unprofessional? Perhaps even … unethical. Are teachers allowed to gossip about student’s sticky fingers, and openly judge her based on this. Considering the amount of teenage murderers in Shadyside, you think they’d let one incident of shoplifting slide.

Even Mary feels like she’s a criminal and should be treated as such. Her friend Stacey tries to get her to lighten up, takes her out shopping so that she gets over this stigma. Mary immediately almost steals a shirt. But it’s not because she’s dumb, it’s because she saw a cute boy! Okay, and because she is over the top stupid.

Mary has been spending a lot of time with Mr. Morley, her social studies teacher. He is just so understanding, and they talk about all kinds of things, not just school! Like, boys and stuff. Dear god, man, set some boundaries you pervert. Anyways, Mary is stressed about her upcoming social exam – she needs to pass it to stay on the track team, pretty much the only thing that she’s good at in life.

Mr. Morley is so understanding that he tells Mary that the social exams are all in this brown envelope on top of the desk, then he leaves her alone in the classroom to go get coffee. Mary can’t believe her luck! I can’t believe she wouldn’t think that she’d be set up. Morley comes back in, and Mary thinks he might have seen her, but he acts all friendly normal, so it must be okay. Now, maybe Mary does need to be treated for her property-taking issues, not only does she do it a lot, but she’s really bad at it.

Mary believes she aces the social exam, but instead of that A, Morley asks to see her after class. Oops! He tells her he knows she stole the exam, but she’s also under a lot of pressure, so he might be able to overlook it. If she does something for him …

It’s not as bad as you think. He wants her to take another teacher’s jacket, as he says it’s his anyways. So, he’s encouraging her thieving ways? Maybe he’s just trying to help her get better at it. To no avail, though. The teacher who’s jacket she’s stealing, Mr. Wise, catches her red-handed, and throws her shoplifting experience into her face. He says first thing Monday morning, the principal will hear of this. Oh, no, not the principal! Mary should probably chill out more.

Instead, she goes to Morley’s house on Fear Street over the weekend, sure that he’ll help her out of her situation. At his house she sees the cute guy from the mall, Rob. He’s helping Morley out with stuff around the house. He asks Mary out, then tries to warn her about Morley, when the man himself comes in. Morley is insanely mad at Rob, asking him to leave.

Then Morley turns to Mary, all concern and understanding again. Of course he’ll discuss the situation with Mr. Wise, making everything okay for Mary, but he tells her he’ll probably be fired for it. Mary is horrified. Morley also tells her that another teacher, Mrs. Wilson, is trying to get him fired. She’s written a letter about him to the Board of Education, but he can’t answer the charges if he doesn’t know what they are. If only someone could break into her desk to get that letter … But no, he couldn’t let Mary do that! He’ll just figure something out for himself.

Mary goes out with Rob that weekend. They have a great time, until he tells them they’re taking the “walking discount.” They dine and dash, and Mary kind of goes along with it, although it upsets her. Mary is so very easily manipulated. Rob then tells her it was a joke, and gives her a soft, melting kiss.

Monday morning Mary goes to see Morley to make sure everything’s been straightened up for her. Morley sighs and tells her she’s okay, but he’s screwed if he doesn’t get that letter. Then he gives her some puppy dog eyes and tells her he could never ask her to steal that letter for him.

Mary, being unspeakably dumb, breaks into Mrs. Wilson’s classroom and steals the letter for him. Whatever is written in those letters makes Morley hugely angry. He tells Mary there’s more letters, probably hidden in Mrs. Wilson’s house. Mary has to steal those letters too. When Mary balks, he tells her he’ll sell her out for stealing the jacket, and cheating on her exam. Not so nice Morley any more. He uses the phrase: “Jail is an ugly place.” How charming. Threaten an impressionable young girl with jail, I like it.

That night Mary goes to Mrs. Wilson’s house, having been given her address and the time she would be at a conference from Morley. How thoughtful of him. Rob shows up to stop her, and when he can’t, he goes in with her.

They find the letters, and Mary skims them. Essentially, Mrs. Wilson has proof that Morley murdered two of his students at his last job. And she’s sitting on this information why?

Mrs. Wilson comes home early. As they dash out the second floor window, they split up. Rob tells Mary to meet him at a park, so she runs there and waits. But the only person who shows up is Morley. Rob was nabbed by the cops, and had called Morley to bail him out.

But Morley won’t do that until Mary does something else for him. Mary didn’t keep the letters, so he’s pissed, and grabs her arm painfully. He tells her that Rob will stay in jail unless she comes to his office at lunch tomorrow. He also threatens to kill her like the other two students.

His new insane assignment for Mary involves his sister. His sister lives with her two children, but is always going on dates and leaving the youngsters alone. Morley wants to teach her a lesson by having Mary kidnap the kids, taking them to a house down the street until their mother comes home, freaking out. What a charming lesson!

Mary has heard enough. She goes to talk to her counselor, the one who can’t get over that one time she shoplifted, and tells her everything. The counselor sympathetically tells Mary she’s a terrible person for blaming her problems on Mr. Morley. Great support they have at Shadyside High, there. I guess since they usually deal with grief, loss and post traumatic stress, abducting children probably doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.

So Mary goes to steal the children. She feels really bad, and the kids are cute, so it’s just like she’s babysitting them in a strange house. It’s kinda all good until the seven year old boy tells her he doesn’t have an uncle, and had never heard of this Morley character. That’s when Mary hears the police sirens, and she cuts and runs.

She finally stops running, and who should appear but Rob, who starts kissing her. Apparently Morley made good on the bail, but that didn’t endear him to Rob. Rob is sure that Morley is going to kill them, now that they know his “being a murderer” secret. So they’ll have to kill him first!

Mary is skeptical about this killing idea, but Rob says there’s no other way, they’ll be under Morley’s control forever if they don’t. He gives her a vial of poison, odorless, tasteless and clear, that will kill him instantly if she gets just a few drops in his coffee. What a handy thing to be carrying around. Mary tells him she can’t do it, but he won’t hear any of it. He says he’ll meet her in Morley’s office tomorrow.

Morley calls Mary that night to threaten her, because she screwed up with the kidnapping kids thing. He tells her to meet him at his office at one tomorrow.

Poor little Mary. Whatever will she do?

The next morning she goes to track practice, something she’s been sucking at since all her problems started. Today, though, she kills it, and is starting to think she just might be able to deal with everything. She goes to Morley’s office, but earlier than he asks, because track was let out early. He’s not there, but his coffee is sitting temptingly on his desk. She didn’t bring the poison with her today. But then she sees Morley’s notebook on the desk, and reads it. It documents everything that has been done to Mary, how he enjoyed manipulating her life. Mary figures that Morley has to pay.

She runs home and back as quickly as possible. Morley still isn’t there. She empties the contents of the vial into his coffee, then goes to the girl’s restroom to be sick. Then goes back to face Morley.

He is in the classroom this time. Mary hesitates at the door, praying that he’ll drink the coffee. He does, downing the whole thing, then tells Mary that he’s going to brew some more coffee while she thinks about what she owes him. Then he gets all sweaty and woozy, and collapses to the floor.

Mary takes his notebook and stashes it in her bag, then waits for Rob to arrive. He comes in, all smiles. He’s all like – wasn’t this wild? Morley told you everything, hey? Mary grimly smiles and tells him she knows everything. Rob comes over and finishes off the rest of Morley’s coffee, which is, ew.

Rob explains that is was all a psychological experiment, to see how a student would respond under extreme pressure – whether they could get someone to kill someone else. It was all a part of Morley’s research, and everyone was in on it except Mary.

So, there are so many what the fuck things wrong with this. Morley is a social studies teacher at a shitty high school, not working in a phD department. What the fuck kind of research is this. There is no end to the unethical and illegal behaviours that Morley and Rob engaged in with this “research.” I mean, Rob is over 18, and fucking around with the subject. He should be in jail, or something.

Apparently, Mary agreed with me. Rob starts to sway on his feet, and he’s like – wait, I didn’t give you poison. It was water. Wtf? And Mary tells him she wasn’t going to kill them, until she came to the class early and read about the experiment in Morley’s notebook. And decided that both of them should die. So she ran home to grab some poison her mother keeps in the house. (Wtf, why does her mother have poison in the house?) She shows Rob Morley’s body, and tells him goodbye as he collapses.

Stacy comes in to the classroom, as her and Mary are going shopping, and screams when she sees the two bodies. Mary’s all smiles when she tells her that she just spiked their coffee with hard-core sleeping pills her mom uses. They’ll wake up in a little bit, but they’ll know not to fuck with her again.

Is that what we would call “street justice?” Not that I don’t think the boys deserved a little death scare, but I still think they should be in jail. Kudos to Mary for growing a pair, and not letting people fuck her around any more. She should also go over to skeezy ex Gary while she’s at him and kick him in the balls, just while she’s on this roll. No kudos to R. L. for giving me one of these “comedic” Fear Streets where not only did no one die, but no one was even crazy, stalked, or thought they were a ghost. Better try next time. 14 crazy-ass-strong sleeping pills out of 25.

No Answer or "Teenaged Girls Are Terrible Planners"

Ahh I finally have time to blog! I read “Episode” Four of the Seniors last week actually, and then couldn’t find the time to write all down til today! So bear with me if my memory is a little foggy.

So “Episode” Four (I refused to call it an “episode” without the mocking quotations. It’s a book. It’s Book Four. Get over yourself R.L.) finally gives us the big payoff we’ve been wanting. An effing MURDER! But who gets murdered? Let’s find out…

Clarissa is our main character in this “episode” and R.L. is showing some personal growth because Clarissa is a black woman! Is this our first non-caucasian main character? I think so! This unfortunately doesn’t mean she has any better luck than our other leading ladies. We find out that Clarissa just got out of an institution. She was in there because she couldn’t deal with the fact that her sister, Justine, had died and Clarissa was the one that found her. (Fair enough, I probably wouldn’t bounce back too quickly from L.K.’s death. SISTER LOVE) Justine had fallen down the stairs while talking on her CORDLESS phone and broke her neck. While Clarissa was in the institution, she became close to a boy from her high school, Will. Apparently he’s super hot.

Clarissa goes back to school, and everyone is so excited to see her, yada yada yada. She has two best friends, Debra and Mira. We’ve already met Debra before, and we know that Mira isn’t important because she doesn’t even merit a yearbook picture. Mira is also the slutty one. You know how there’s always one. We also find out that Clarissa’s parents are adopting a little boy and he’s arriving that weekend! That seems like … a replacement, hey? But Clarissa tries to be upbeat about Aaron coming, and goes to clean out her room for him, because she’s taking over Justine’s room.

While she’s cleaning out Justine’s room, Clarissa has a vision (hallucination? Encounter with a ghost?) of her sister, who points to a notebook left on her desk. There’s nothing special in the notebook, except that on the day Justine died, she had an appointment to call a psychic named Renata. Debra and Mira come over to help Clarissa clean, and for some reason, Clarissa tells them about the ghost encounter! Bad idea. All I’m saying, is that on my first day out of an institution? Imma keep all my crazy visions to myself.

The girls believe Clarissa for some reason, (they are also crazy?) and decide to call Renata. As soon as someone answers though, they heard a small, ghosty voice that called Clarissa “Moongirl” which was Justine’s private nickname for her. Voice from beyond the grave! Justine tells Clarissa that she was murdered, but disappears before she can name her killer. Renata comes onto the phone, saying that she was possessed by Justine and proves to Clarissa she’s the real deal by telling her the boy she’s had a secret crush on her whole life (hint: its Josh. Will is gonna be pissed!)

Clarissa decides to trust Will with her secret hallucinations too. He does two terrible things: he doesn’t believe her for one, and then he tells her that Mira already told him! Apparently they email because they have computer class together. Telling your new girlfriend that her slutty friend emails you? That’s a no. The girls call Renata again that night, and she gives them the upsetting news that one of them is going to die next! I’d stop calling this lady, she is just full of bad news!

Clarissa finds her sister’s secret hiding spot that night. She finds a fake ID, a knife with the word SLASH on it, and her diary. Which of course she reads, because, hey, she’s dead! What does she care about privacy? Apparently Justine had this secret life where she snuck out of the house and partied and dated this guy named Slash. Who gave her a knife with his name engraved on it. (Guess what L.K.’s getting for Christmas this year?!) Clarissa is pretty upset because she thought she knew Justine pretty well, but apparently Justine was thinking about running away, and totally ditching her. Harsh! Will breaks into her room, and they argue a little because Mira told Will about calling Renata again, and Will doesn’t want her to go crazy again. Whatevs, Will, you just broke into her room.

Clarissa decides that the best plan to find her sister’s murderer, (and her maybe soon-to-be murderer) is to use the fake ID and go to the club to find out who this Slash guy is. She assumes he killed Justine because Justine’s diary discussed how mad Slash was when she wanted to see other people. So. I don’t understand what Clarissa’s plan was here. Step one: Find Slash, the man who murdered my sister. Step two: ? She doesn’t find out who Slash is, but she does run into Will there. He’s a musician (swoon!) and goes to the clubs all the time to check out places to play.

The next day, her new little brother Aaron arrives. He’s 5 years old, and super cute. Clarissa shows him around his new house and they hang out in her room. He picks up the phone in her room (the one they’ve been calling Renata on) and is instantly possessed by Justine. She tells Clarissa to be careful because someone is going to get murdered! Clarissa immediately calls Debra to warn her. Debra has some of her own information, too. She just ran into Justine’s high school boyfriend, who had something really important to say…. And then Debra gets pushed down the stairs. What?! Yup, Clarissa hears her argue with someone, then tumble down the stairs. She lives close by, so Clarissa books it over to Debs house, and finds her at the bottom of the stairs. Pretty suspicious for you, Clar, if you keep finding dead bodies at the bottom of the stairs.

First important murder of this series! Finally! Debra Lake who I think is dating that vampire guy is DEAD! Woot woot! Luckily for us, R.L. doesn’t waste too much time on that whole boring process of “mourning” and “grieving”. We get right back to the action, as Clarissa calls Justine’s old boyfriend to find out what he told Debra. He’s kind of uncomfortable because…it turns out that Slash is non-other than WILL! Ewwww, he dated the dead sister then moved on to the living!?

Clarissa puts two and two together and decides that Will is the murderer. Mira comes over to sleep with Clarissa because the two girls are convinced he’s going to kill them. And Will doesn’t help much, because that night, he decides to break into Clarissa’s room again! (Justine’s old room. No wonder he’s so good at getting in there). Mira and Clarissa stop him before he gets into the room tho, and push him off the trellis he was climbing.

This whole incident lands Clarissa back in the institution. Oh, also the fact that the phone they’ve been calling Renata and Justine on hasn’t been hooked up since Justine died. Soooo Clarissa’s parents figure that she might have gone off the deep end again. Will calls her though, and forgives her. (Does she forgive him for being a huge pervy creep that is using her to get over his dead girlfriend? Who knows!) Will actually believes her know and has his own theory: He thinks the killer is Mira. Will confesses that Mira is actually really into him, which he’s known about for a while. And was still emailing her? Nice. Way to lead both girls on. Clarissa thinks that’s crazy talk! (Haha, puns)

But Mira comes to visit Clarissa that day. She’s babysitting Aaron for Clarissa’s parents and brought him to see her. Mira’s bag falls open though, and Clarissa sees that Mira has stolen Justine’s phone! Which is weird, but Mira said that she wanted to have it in case Justine tried to contact them again. Nice thing to say to the girl in the institution.

After Mira and Aaron leave though, Clarissa decides that she doesn’t believe Mira and is worried about Aaron. She called Mira’s house and finds out that Mira is taking Aaron to Fear Lake for a boat ride. Innocent, right? Except I kinda forgot to mention that Aaron is a disturbed kid because he saw both his parents drown in front of him and now he’s deathly afraid of water, AND Mira knows it. (I guess that’s kind of an important plot point). So instead of calling her parents and telling them Aaron’s babysitter might be crazy, she breaks out of the institution. That’ll look good!

She sees their boat out in the middle of Fear Lake, so Clarissa jumps right in! Haha my notes actually say “does a shit job of saving Aaron”. Which is true! Mira tries to whack the shit out of her with the oars and confesses she killed Justine because she’s in love with Will and killed Debra because she was going to figure it out. Well, that was easy! Clarissa starts her terrible rescue attempt by pulling Aaron into the water, then losing him, then she almost drowns herself and they both need to be rescued by some random stranger. Her parents, as well as her doctors, are waiting for her on the shore. Mira rows up and starts yelling about how Clarissa is sooo crazy and tried to kill Aaron. Clarissa is about to be hauled back to the institution, (but this time with padded cells) when Aaron pipes up and said it was all Mira. I don’t know how Mira thought she would get away with just lying about the whole thing, and hoping Aaron would just go along with it. Another poor plan.

The book ends with Clarissa and Will dating (I still think it’s gross) and Aaron happily replacing Justine in Clarissa’s heart. Harsh. But I think this book was a success because we finally killed off one the main characters! A lot of stuff was left unexplained, and frankly, that’s the way I like my R.L. books. Completely nonsensical. 57 telephones to heaven out of 74!

The Thirst, or "Extra Sexy Valentine's Vampire Goodness"

Can a vampire get enough? Enough what? Love? Blood? Reality TV? So many unanswered questions. Here’s a special Valentine’s Day treat – I tried to make it as sexy as possible.

Part 1

First day of school! Dana Palmer gets ready. To get you up to date, Dana is the slutty cheerleader twin, while Dierdre is her much less attractive identical twin because she likes to think. Dana is described almost exactly the way every Sweet Valley High book ever begins – gleaming blonde hair, sparkling eyes, slutty clothes. OMG guys, Dana is totally Jessica Wakefield! Dana harasses her dowdy twin, aka Elizabeth, for not being ready yet. Dierdre is spazzing because she wants to impress a guy, but refuses to say who.

Mickey Myers, Dana’s summertime guy, comes to pick them up. Dana bitches about an early cheerleading practice, really because she hates head cheerleader Phoebe Yamura because she wanted to be head cheerleader. Is it just me, or is Phoebe the first Asian in Shadyside, ever?

Mickey and Dana make fun of Debra Lake for being with Clark Dickson (Count Clarkula), the vampire-esque guy who may or may not have fangs and powers of hypnosis (see Episode One).

Dana rushes to cheerleading practice, and finds … the body of Danielle Cortez. The first actual death in this potentially over-hyped Seniors series. Danielle isn’t even in the yearbook at the front, which is kind of cheap.

Clark comes up behind a horrified Dana. He comments that Danielle is very pale … People are flashbacking to Trish’s psychic vision.

There’s a fender-bender in the parking lot. Gary and Trisha are clutching each other, and Mary, Gary’s girlfriend, moans and cries when she sees them. That’s an intense reaction. I’d dump his ass, but whatever. Dierdre goes to talk to the illicit couple, and apparently someone had cut his brakes. Things are finally starting to get interesting at Shadyside High.

A new guy comes up to Dierdre, and introduces himself as Jon Milano, of her study hall. He’s a real babe, as Dierdre puts it. He says he prefers Shadyside High to where he was before, which is saying a lot. He asks her out, and gets all sexy, starts to play with the mole on her face. Dierdre is all giggly blushy. Aw, young love.

Dierdre is handing out with Jennifer Fear and Stacy Malcolm at The Corner. Jon comes in and asks Dierdre if she’s going with anyone, then leaves with a Coke.

Mickey comes in and tells the girls that Danielle had all the blood drained from her body. Dierdre flashes to creepy, black-dressing Clark. And how Debra’s been all pale and limp since dating him. Maybe he is actually a vampire? Or just really wants to be? I mean, vampires are HOT right now.

Dierdre goes over to Clark and Debra’s table, but they’re gone. On the table is an extra sexy poem:

So cold, So pale/You lie before me./Your blood has vanished/People say/How? Where? They ask/They don’t ask me, but I could say/You blood gives life …

Ooh, Clark is so mysterious.

Part 2

Danielle’s death is all over the news. It’s being called “The Vampire Murder.” Ooh, sexy. The police apparently questioned Clark for hours, and ruled him out as a suspect. He was just innocently creeping around the body.

Dierdre and Jen get over the murder and start talking about what really matters: boys. Jon hasn’t asked Dierdre out yet, but brags about how awesome he is. He sounds like a guy. Dierdre confesses to being into her sis’ guy, Mickey. And of being really jealous of Dana. Hmph. Elizabeth Wakefield would never admit to that kind of thing.

Stacy comes in and they start talking about the seniors’ overnight trip to Fear Street Woods, and how they hope that will still happen. Cuz nothing will go wrong there! Dierdre gets a call, and someone is all whispery and stalkerish, tells her Danielle was delicious, and she was next. Clark? My money’s on the new guy.

Everyone goes to Danielle’s funeral, the third funeral in Shadyside ever. When Dana goes up to the coffin, she is horrified … by the Lindsay Lohan orange glow painted on her face. And then because Danielle gets up and starts talking to her, telling her she can’t sleep. Crazy hallucination, but Dierdre heard her too. So, just crazy.

Dierdre decides a séance is the best bet. Ooh, sexy. She asks Jen if they could go back to her creepy library on Fear Street, because that would be the scariest thing they could possible do. Dana freaks, because she just wants a normal senior year. Josie calls up Dierdre, and tells her that she completed the Doom Spell last June (that everyone else forgot about), and is afraid that she unleashed something that night. Dierdre is just obsessed with reaching Danielle, and so they do it.

Jen, Dierdre, Trisha and Josie meet up in the creepy Fear occult library. They do some chanting, then an eerie voice calls to them – a spirit that cannot rest. The spirit tells them Trisha is the murderer, then laughs crazy. The girls figure out the spirit isn’t Danielle. But – who was it? Maybe Trisha isn’t just an innocent psychic boyfriend stealer. Whatever. The girls decide to forget the whole thing.

Part 3

The senior campout in Fear Street Woods. Mickey and Dana cuddle by the campfire. Dana notices Gary and Trisha making eyes at each other, even though he’s hanging out with legit girlfriend Mary. Ooh, high school drama. Is anything sexier? Then, Dierdre catches fire.

Dierdre is pretty freaked out to be on fire. She smells her hair burning. Jon knocks her over and puts out her fire. Literally, I mean, not euphemistically. Even though her arm is all burnt, she wants to stay because Jon is cuddling her. Then the new red-headed girl, Anita, tells her it was her bad, she accidentally shoved Dierdre into the fire. Oops! Dierdre forgives her immediately, which I wouldn’t be likely to do. But Jon goes to get her some hot chocolate, and she appears to be in some kind of love-haze. Twitterpated, as a certain owl would put it. Please tell me, does anyone get the Disney-Valentine reference?

Can I just stop here to say that these kids are on their senior campout, and they are drinking hot chocolate. Lame. Jon kisses Dierdre, and she thinks it was worth being set on fire.

They take a walk to a decrepit cabin. Ooh, sexy. Dana interrupts them, worried about her twin. Jon roughly tells Dierdre not to tell anyone about his secret place. How very Unabomber of you, Jon.

In her sleeping bag, Dana feels like she can’t move, then feels a sharp sting at her neck. Her screams wake up the girls, then Clark opens her tent flap. Still being a creeper, then. Dana feels her neck and finds … a mosquito bite.

Next morning, Dana feels like crap and can’t eat anything. She stays at the campsite while everyone else goes for a hike, but not before she realizes Dierdre wants Mickey. She is contemptuous of her sister being able to steal a guy from her.

Everyone gets back from the hike, except for Dierdre. As Dana starts to look for her, Clark stumbles out of the woods with blood smeared on his mouth. Except he was only running away from a skunk, and tripped.

Dana runs into the woods to find her sister. They find her, unconscious and deathly pale. She doesn’t remember what happened, other than being stung by a bee on her neck. Only there are two red bumps on her neck. Hmmm….

Part 4

The home economics teacher at Shadyside High is feeling depressed because no one is really into her class. A student comes in looking for something to eat. The student grabs her, and fangs slide out of it’s mouth. The student bites her neck and drinks her all up.

The school now has private guards. Stacy gets bossy and makes Dierdre try out for the basketball team. On her way there, Jon grabs her, freaking her out. Jon believes the killer is a real vampire. Dierdre is offended, then Jon kisses her and takes off. What an odd fellow.

At try outs, the new girl Anita is there. She tells Dierdre she used to go with Jon. Soon after, she winds Dierdre. She keeps on having these little “accidents.” After taking Dierdre out again, Anita smiles.

Dierdre gets home after making the team. She finds in her bag a note: Your sister’s blood was so sweet/Yours will be even sweeter.

She’s hanging out with the girls, getting the gossip. Stacy thinks Anita is out to get Dierdre. They also discuss the morality of boyfriend stealing re: Trisha with Gary. Dierdre sticks up for Trisha and leaves in a huff, probs because she wants to steal her sister’s boyfriend.

Jon drives up in a Porsche. Ooh, sexy. He asks her to the mall, and then drives her out to the middle of nowhere and tries to get with her. Ooh, sexy. She tells him to take her to the mall.

They go to the Burger Barn, where the entire senior class seems to be. Clark stops Dierdre and asks her if she got his note. But it was just a note congratulating her on her basketball tryouts.

Jon thinks Clark isn’t scary, but a little sad, because he tries so hard to be different. That was actually really insightful. He then sees Anita and leaves to go to the men’s room, and never comes back. Ouch, not sexy of him.

Dierdre starts to walk home, and something grabs her, bites her neck and starts lapping at her blood.

Part 5

From the vampire’s perspective. It had just started to drink Dierdre, when her twin drives up. The vampire thinks that it must kill both twins. Then it eats a Spaniel.

Dierdre is having a hard time recovering from her attack. She reemed Jon out for leaving her, but he claimed he felt sick. He wants to get to know her better, so asks her to his Unabomber cabin.

The girls have a game. Anita and Stacy are both really aggressive, and Anita takes Stacy down. Stacy misses her chance to play in front of college recruiters. She vows to kill Anita, something that should never be done in Shadyside. Next day, Anita is found dead in the girls’ shower room. She was drained of blood like the rest.

Jon runs over with the news – the police caught the vampire. They are bringing Clark in. Then Mickey runs over with more news – Anita’s body has disappeared from the morgue. Dierdre tells Jon she can’t go to his cabin. Then she goes to his cabin with Dana in tow. Sexy? Or just weird.

The cabin is empty. Except for a coffin. The coffin opens, and inside is … Anita! She’s been after Dierdre, because she was stealing Jon away from her. Enter Jon. He tells Anita to get away from Dierdre and grabs a stake, ramming it into her chest. Anita turns into dust.

Jon comforts Dierdre, as he says it’s all over, the death, the ugly phone calls. All of a sudden, Dierdre freaks and stakes Jon. Dana is all – you crazy? Until Jon turns into dust too. Dierdre had figured it out when Jon mentioned the phone calls, which she had never mentioned to him. So he must be a vampire. I’m just glad she was right, because that was a pretty tenuous fact to kill someone on.

So, guys, three books in and not one single senior has been crossed off yet. No fair if you kill secondary characters that don’t even rate a photo in the yearbook. I feel cheated. For that, I give this 82 sexy vampires out of 147.

In Too Deep or "Sweet Homosexual Zombie Child Kisses!"

Ahhh, nothing like a good ol’ Summer Camp book. Not usually R.L.’s style, but I like to think that he really added something to the Summer Camp genre. Namely…pedophilia. But we’ll get to that.

Since the first Seniors book was about the end of their Junior year of school, I assume this book takes place in July? Or August. It doesn’t say, and L.K. has the third book so I can’t read ahead to check! Anyhoo, Kenny Klein is main character and he is working at Shadyside Day Camp! (Not even overnight camp? How can you get into shenanigans during the day?) His girlfriend and love of his life, Jade, has gone to California for a month to take an SAT review course. That’s hardcore.

A lot of events happen in the first chapter. Jade leave, Kenny starts his first day of camp. Kenny’s boss reminds him about how he has a “disturbed” child in his group, which he should know about since he read the child profiles … right? Kenny nods along enthusiastically while remembering how he totally did NOT read them. He just figures that he’ll know who’s disturbed and act accordingly. Also, Kenny makes an enemy! Another one of the counselors, Tyler, challenges Kenny to a game of tetherball. Kenny gets really into it and accidentally gives Tyler a nosebleed. Tyler immediately vows revenge and life-long anger. Hmm. No over reaction there… He also meets the girl of his dreams. Wait. Didn’t Jade leave like an HOUR ago? Kenny chats up this new girl, Melly, by the lake. She’s another counselor and she totally hits on him. Kenny is suddenly excited about summer. But he really needs to focus because Melly distracts him while he’s helping Tyler… and he accidentally crushes Tylers hand! Whoops! Wayyy to make friends.

Kenny meets his cute kids – a bunch of 9 year olds. He has all the stereotypical children: Simon is the pushover, Graydon is the bully (I think its because he’s described as a chubby Ginger) etc. The last kid is a little different however. Vincent, is a small shy boy. Who wears a balaclava at all times. Guess we know who the disturbed child is!

After a non-eventful day with the kiddos, Kenny is out on the town with his friends, including Dana and Debra who both work at the camp with him. They decide to … head back to the camp to go swimming! Really? On their time off? Kenny is stoked though, because Melly is there, swimming by herself. That’s…also weird. Kenny wastes no time and sneaks off with her to make out. Jade left this morning, dude! Melly dares him to jump off the cliff with her. Kenny thinks this is the coolest thing ever, and they jump off together. Only, Kenny can’t find her when he surfaces. His friends rush over, and tell him that no one else jumped off the cliff with him. Kenny leaves with them, and stays up late into the night, wondering if Melly drowned after jumping off the cliff. WTF? He thought she may have drowned but he left her anyways??

Kenny looks for Melly as soon as he gets to work the next morning. She’s late for her shift at the art and crafts cabin, but while he goes to look for her, Vincent has an attention-spaz, and dumps red paint everywhere, pretending to be bleeding.

Kenny finds Melly and she’s okay. She says she was just embarrassed that Kenny jumped and when his friends came, she just left. Okay. That’s a weird thing to do. They make plans to meet up at the end of the day, but Dana catches on to Kenny’s plan. She threatens to tell Jade about Melly if Kenny won’t. Kenny thinks to himself “I should tell Melly about Jade. But what if she doesn’t want to see me after that?” Hmm. Good point.

Melly and Kenny go for a romantic walk on the camp grounds (again?) and end up exploring a cave. While they’re doing a little big of making out (maybe some light boob groping?) Graydon (the Ginger bully) comes in and catches them. He missed the bus so Kenny and Melly reschedule their illicit make out session. Kenny runs into Tyler on his way out and Tyler warns him about Melly. Which is weird, because earlier that day, Melly warned Kenny about Tyler. Hmmm. Seems like there is some old animosity between these two? Old lovers perhaps?

The next night is the first of a few overnighters at camp. In good ol’ camp fashion, Kenny tells his campers a scary story, then goes to make out with Melly. (I ALWAYS pretended camp counselors/drama theater teacher/anyone older than me, had the secret and passionate love affairs when I was kid) When Kenny gets back to the campfire though, he discovers a (poisonous, of course) snake! He manages to wrangle it into an empty cage in the art room, with plans to release it the next day. Who the hell knows how the wrangle poisonous snakes?

Our disturbed friend Vincent decides to up his “creep” factor by pulling out some Tarot cards and offering to read them. When Kenny’s turn comes around, he predictably pulls three black skulls – meaning “instant death”. I’ll admit, I would hold my breath for a minute or two after getting those cards. Kenny does not in fact die immediately…but does something that will bring about trouble.

He takes Melly into the wood after the kids go to sleep and dumps her! Well he starts off by telling her that he has a girlfriend, and when Melly is all “So what?” (Ice cooold!) he breaks it off. She doesn’t believe him however. She says she’ll change his mind, which is…pretty ballsy! When Kenny climbs into bed after that weird encounter, he gets another uncomfortable surprise. The poisonous snake is in his bed! After going to put it back in the art and craft cage, he finds the three skull cards are on his pillow. Ohhh Vincent. When did you learn how to wrangle snakes?! Is this something they teach in summer camp?

Kenny’s morning doesn’t go much better. He tells Vincent that his “prank” was dangerous and gets the “I know. You could be dead” response from him. CREEPY. Later, when he’s relaxing down at the beach, Melly comes by to act crazy. Kenny is serious in his dumping and refuses to be charmed by her feminine wiles. Which prompts Melly to start STRATCHING her face and screaming that she’ll die if he doesn’t care for her. OKAYYYY.

For some reason, Kenny feels bad later in the day for being responsible for Melly’s lil freak out. Fair enough. So he decides to go and see her at her house. Ummm. No. Do not lead this crazy girl on anymore! I think this is the best part of the book: when Kenny knocks on the door and asks for Melly, he gets the “How could you ask for that? Melly’s been dead for 10 years!”

How many Fear Street books did that happen in!? Right off the bat, I remember this happened in Blind Date and The Dead Lifeguard. I want to know how many times this happens in real life.

Kenny tries to not stress about it too much. He gets bigger things on his plate the next morning too, when he gets SHOT THROUGH THE SHOULDER WITH AN ARROW. Omygoodness! Melly or Vincent? He’s totally fine though, and I actually forgot about this incident until I re-read it just now. That seems like it should be a bigger deal though. He doesn’t even go to the hospital.

The next night is another camp sleepover, and while Vincent acts creepy again – pulling three more skulls for Kenny, nothing major happens. The next day however… boy is this a doozy!

All the campers are going for a river canoe ride. Kenny quickly jump into a canoe with two faceless campers so he doesn’t have to spend the day with Vincent the creepy or Graydon the bully. This plan doesn’t work out as perfectly as he hopes however, since his canoe is soon tipped over by a renegade speedboat. Driven by none other than: VINCENT in his creepy balaclava! Vincent barrels down over Kenny a few times in a vain effort to kill him. Since he’s not a good driver, the boat slows down, giving Kenny time to climb aboard (a moving speedboat? Really?) Vincent doesn’t notice, and Kenny takes control of the boat AND rips off Vincents balaclava. Except: it wasn’t Vincent at all! It was Graydon!

Graydon confesses that he was jealous of all the attention Vincent got from Kenny (although Kenny was actively avoiding him) so he decided to kill Kenny. That’s a leap. Once Kenny gets Graydon to shore, the head camp counselor is all “Well, I guess that’s why he’s disturbed!” Say wha!? Apparently Graydon was the kid Kenny was supposed to look out for, not Vincent. Kenny just assumed Vincent was disturbed because he wore a mask, but really, he’s just a sad boy that was horrifically injured in an accident. Nice going, Kenny.

O but the fun isn’t over yet! Kenny heads back down to the beach to go catch up with the rest of the group. (I don’t know what happened to the other kids in Kenny’s boat. I assumed they died) While he’s drying off, Kenny sees a body floating face down in the river. It’s Melly! He takes one of the camps other speedboats and pulls her out of the river. How does she repay him? By wrapping her cold lifeless fingers around his neck!

Yes, Melly is ALSO trying to kill Kenny. Apparently she died the summer when Kenny and her were both campers (aged 9) at Shadyside Camp. She had a desperate crush on him. But it wasn’t Kenny’s fault that she died, it was some counselors that made her go canoeing when she didn’t to. Melly is super mad that Kenny both didn’t recognize her AND rejected her. To be fair to non-crazy Kenny, she admits she stole this body from a cemetery, so it might not look anything like her! She throws him over board and attempts to drown him. Thankfully, grumpy Tyler (the one with the broken hand) comes and rescues Kenny. But tell him: there was no one else in the water with him! Well DUH, she’s a ghost/zombie (!).

STILL NOT DONE. Ty leaves Kenny on the shore to dry off while he runs to get help. His drying off gets disturbed by nonother than: VINCENT! Third person who wants to kill Kenny! Vincent attempts to drag Kenny into the water and during the ensuing fight, Kenny rips off his balaclava. Apparently, Vincent was a disgusting rotting corpse the whole time! AND it’s actually the spirit of Melly INSIDE this little boy’s corpse. W.T.F.

Yes, Melly/Vincent the child-corpse attempt to seduce Kenny and even go so far as to KISS him. Dear lord, what has happened to the world? Even though R.L. describes the zombie as “Melly”, she never switched bodies. The body that kissed Kenny is still that of a little boy’s. REALLY, R.L.? Kenny finally puts an end to this mess by throwing the small childs body into the running motor of the speed boat, raining shreds of decaying flesh all over the riverbank. FAN-tastic.

Really, the climax of this book had to be the homo-erotic, child kiss. Like, shit is getting WEIRD in these Seniors books. I love it! One complaint though: again, no one died! How could THREE (well 2.5) separate characters want to kill Kenny and no one follow though? Disappointment! I give this Senior’s book: 45 moldy balaclavas out of 56. Not too shabby!

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.