The 1998 novel, The Stepbrother, tells the story of Sondra.

Sondra is a teenager living in Shadyside.  Like many of the town’s teenagers she comes from a broken home but she also has a cute boyfriend named Zach and three close girlfriends, the main one of whom is named Mallory and who somehow is an expert in hypnotism.  Seriously, how does one become an expert in hypnotism before even graduating from high school?  I would think that hypnotism would be one of those things where you would have to spend years in training before you were allowed to even try it out on anyone.  But Mallory is just casually hypnotizing everyone!  I wouldn’t even know where to begin when it comes to hypnotizing people, though I’ve been told that I do know how to cast a spell whenever I enter a room.  I said that with a wink and a smile, by the way.

Sondra also has a new stepfather and a stepbrother named Eric.  Zach is totally jealous of Eric and everyone does keep commenting on the fact that Sondra and Eric do kind of look like they belong together.  Seriously, it’s not like they’re blood-related so why not?  I mean, he is right there!  (I never had a stepbrother in high school but if I did, I can only imagine what would have happened.)  Still, Zach shouldn’t worry because Sondra is too busy freaking out over the possibility of dying in a fire to seriously consider cheating on him.  Sondra keeps having feelings of deja vu.  Mallory suggests that maybe Sondra is the reincarnation of a girl who died in a fire back in the 50s.  And maybe Eric is the reincarnation of the person who was responsible for the fire!

Yeah, okay.  Whatever.  If I’m not very enthusiastic about this book, it’s because I don’t believe in reincarnation and I always find reincarnation stories to be pretty boring.  This one features Sondra flashing back-and-forth from the 80 to the 50s and trying to avoid dying in a second fire but it all felt way too predictable to be effective.  If you’ve seen one movie or read one book about reincarnation, you’ve pretty much seen and read them all.

(That said, if I did believe in reincarnation, I would assume that I was probably Edie Sedgwick in a past life.  Or maybe Alice Roosevelt.  Or perhaps Victoria Woodhull or Evelyn Nesbit.  I once had a dream where I was Mary Kelly, Jack the Ripper’s final victim, in a past life.  One thing I find interesting about reincarnation is that everyone’s past life was always so exciting and melodramatic.  Nobody was ever just some slop in a past life.  Instead, they were a wealthy celebrity who died under the most tragic of circumstances.)

Finally, the whole hypnotism subplot was silly even by the standards of R.L. Stine.  Of course, I have to admit that I’m also not a big believer in hypnotism.  I went to a hypnotism demonstration in college and I’m proud to say that I could not be hypnotized, largely because my ADD and my own stubbornness made it impossible for me to clear my mind.  Everyone else at the demonstration was rather easily hypnotized but not me!  I’ve always taken a good deal of pride in that.