Category Archives: Fiction

Horror Novel Review: Final Grade by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1995 YA thriller, Final Girl, tells the story of Lily. Lily is about to graduate high school and she is determined that she is going to beat out Graham for valedictorian. After all, Graham is just a rich boy who owns a green Porsche while Lily is working two jobs to help support her mother, who has had a stroke. Plus, both of Lily’s older sisters were valedictorians so of course Lily is going to continue the family tradition!

(At this point, let me just say that I’m glad that the only family-related high school pressure that I had came from people who wanted me to become a cheerleader like my sister. If I had people pressuring me to also do well in school, I don’t think I could have handled it. Don’t get me wrong, I did pretty well in school. But there was never any risk of me becoming valedictorian, not as long as I was required to take Algebra classes. I was very happy with academically being in the upper half but not at the top of my class.)

Anyway, Lily is determined to give the big speech at graduation but one of her teachers, Mr. Reiner, has given her a B on what Lily clearly feels was an A paper. When Reiner refuses to reconsider the grade, Lily says that she could kill him. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Reiner dies in a freak accident! AGCK!

Even with Mr. Reiner out of the way, it still seems like Graham might beat her to the top. But then Graham turns up dead, push head first into a — I’m being totally a serious here — printing press! Mr. Reiner’s death may have been a tragic accident but Graham was definitely murdered! And guess who everyone suspects!

Can Lily prove her innocence while maintaining her grade point average? And who is responsible for the latest deaths on Fear Street?

You’ll have to read the book to find out. If I told you any more details about the plot, you’d probably guess who the murderer is. It’s really not a shock at all. But still, Stine has some fun with the way this killer reacts to the truth beingd discovered. This is one Stine book where the killer is even more creepy than usual. Lily’s a bit difficult to sympathize with (because, seriously, it’s not like being the 2nd best student at the school is going to force her to settle for a fast food job or something) but the supporting cast is likable and the the whole printing press death is just strange enough to make the book a bit more memorable than the average Stine thriller.

I guess my grad for Final Grade would be a much deserved B+. There’s nothing wrong with a good, strong B.

Horror Novel Review: The Lost Mind by Christopher Pike

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First published in 1995, this is an odd one.

The book opens with our main character waking up in middle of the wilderness. She has no idea who she is or where she is. She doesn’t know why she’s covered in blood. What she does know is that there’s another girl lying a few feet away from her and she’s been stabbed to death! Did the living girl kill the other girl? She knows that she didn’t but, at the same time, she also knows that everyone will assume that she did.

It’s only after our main character stumbles across her car that she discovers that her name is Jenny. It’s only when she drives to a nearby town that she discovers that she lives with her overworked mom and her little brother. Apparently she goes to school and she has a job but Jenny can’t remember the specifics of any of it. Also, Jenny has a best friend named Crystal and they’re so extremely close that people are shocked whenever they see that Jenny is by herself. In fact, no one has seen Crystal for a while. Where could she be …. uh-oh.

Now, if this was an R.L. Stine novel, this is where you would expect some sort of cutesy twist to kick in. This is where you would look up from the book and says, “Ah-ha! I bet Jenny actually is Crystal and Jenny is just some imaginary character that she created to help her deal with a past trauma!” However, this is not an R.L. Stine novel. This is a Christopher Pike novel and Christopher Pike was always a hundred times darker than R.L. Stine ever was. If Stine always ended his books with a return to normalcy and maybe a joke or two, Pike’s novels took his characters to Hell and usually abandoned them there.

Even as she tries to figure out what type of life she’s led up until losing her memory, Jenny finds herself having dreams and visions where she’s in another person’s body, watching as they smoke hash, commit murders, and perform occult ceremonies. Soon, Jenny is investigating just what exactly it means to have a soul and whether or not a soul can move from one body to another. And, as she discovers more about the circumstances of Crystal’s death, she’s forced to consider just how far she’ll go to get revenge….

AGCK! Seriously, this is pretty dark stuff for a YA novel. I would have had nightmares if I had read this when I was a child. But that’s the thing with Christopher Pike. When he told a horrific story, he didn’t hold back. Instead, he created a world where happy endings often did not exist. The Lost Mind is dark and morbid and, even reading it now as an snarky and sarcastic adult, the book’s mystery was still intriguing. The book started out with a murder and it ended with a bang. Someone needs to turn this one into a Lifetime film.

Horror Novel Review: The Hollow Skull by Christopher Pike

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Reading a Christopher Pike book after spending a few days focused on R.L. Stine can be a jarring experience.

Even though Stine and Pike are often compared to each other, Pike’s books are usually a lot darker than Stine’s.  Whereas an R.L. Stine boo will, more often than not, end with the promise of a return to normalcy, Pike’s novels often seem to end on a down note.  The teenage heroes of Pike’s books are just as likely to fail as they are to succeed.  Whereas Stine usually only offers up one or two deaths over the course of his books, Pike has no fear of wiping nearly the entire cast by the final chapter.  The world of Christopher Pike is a dark disturbing place.

Consider 1998’s The Hollow Skull.  The Hollow Skull takes place in the small desert town of Madison, Nevada.  Cassie has just graduated high school and is desperate to get out of the town.  After all, California’s not that fear away.  Why couldn’t Cassie move out there and maybe go to college at UCLA?  The only problem is that all of her friends seem to be content with the idea of staying in Madison, including her boyfriend.  Plus, if Cassie leaves, that’ll mean leaving her little sister with their abusive, alcoholic father.

Still, because Cassie is determined to escape, her friends suggest that they all go on one last adventure.  Hey, why not go down the abandoned mine shaft!?  Of course, it turns out that there’s a weird pool of black goo at the bottom of the mine shaft and, after one Cassie’s friends falls in the goo, he starts to act strangely.

In fact, the entire town of Madison starts to act differently, as if they’ve been possessed and disturbing thoughts are now being put into their skulls.  Suddenly, everyone that Cassie knows is acting differently.  Cassie decides that it time for her and her sister to flee Madison but it turns out that escaping is not going to be as easy as going down an abandoned mine shaft….

Seriously, abandon all hope ye who enter here!  This is a dark, dark book. It owes more than a little debt to Invasion of the Body Snatchers but, even more than being a traditional YA horror novel, it’s also a look at just how difficult it is to start a new life.  No matter how hard she tries, Cassie cannot seem to make a clean break from Madison.  Even if she’s not possessed like everyone else in town, she’s still trapped.  At its best, the book captures the hopelessness of being trapped in one location or situation and feeling like you’ll never be able to figure out how to move forward.  

Of course, plotwise, it’s all a bit predictable.  If you’ve seen any of the versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you’ll be able to guess what’s going to happen.  For that matter, if you’ve read Christopher Pike’s Monster, you’ll also be able to predict much of what awaits Cassie.  Still, if you’re weary of R.L. Stine’s positivity, Christopher Pike provides a rather downbeat antidote.  

Horror Novel Review: The Boy Next Door by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh my God, a super cute boy has moved in next door! Squee!

Seriously, Scott, the title character of this 1996 YA thriller from R.L. Stine, seems like he could be the perfect neighbor. He’s handsome. We’re told that he’s charming, though you don’t really see much of that in the book. He’s a star football player and, obviously, that’s a very important thing in the world of R.L. Stine. And, perhaps most importantly, Scott’s single! Of course, Scott’s single because he previous kind of girlfriend jumped into a pool that happened to be empty at the time. Scott was the one who encouraged her to do it.

Scott, you see, has some issues. He expects every girl that he meets to live up to an impossible ideal that he’s apparently created from watching old sitcoms from the 1950s. What the means is no makeup, no flirting, and definitely no short skirts! Scott really gets worked up over short skirts, to the extent that he’ll kill anyone who wears one. AGCK!

(If I had been a student at Scott’s high school, I would have been so dead.)

Scott’s new neighbor Crystal and her best friend, Lynne, both think Scott is totally hot and want to date him. Unfortunately, they both wear short skirts and Scott even catches Lynne putting on lipstick. Even if he wasn’t a puritanical incel murderer, Scott would still be creepy because he always seems to be staring through the windows of Crystal’s house. You would think that would be a red flag but …. well, Scott’s a football player and this is an R.L. Stine novel.

Fortunately, Crystal has a sister named Melinda who likes to read books and who doesn’t wear makeup so it seems pretty clear that she’s going to be the secret weapon to stopping Scott. But will it be too late for either Lynne or Crystal?

Scott is revealed to be a killer during the first few pages of this book so I have to admit that, the whole time I was reading it, I was waiting for one of those out-of-nowhere R.L. Stine twists. I was expecting Scott to discover that he was actually suffering from amnesia and that his real name was Jake. I was waiting for someone to reveal themselves to be a ghost. I was thinking, at one point, that it was all a dream. But nope, there’s no twist. This is one of the most straight-forward Stine books that I’ve ever read.

At times, the book felt like one of those weird Lifetime movies where everyone keeps talking about “girl power” and how no one has the right to judge you for behaving and dressing the way you want but, at the same time, you can’t help but notice that it’s always the really independent and fun-loving girls that end up getting killed. The Boy Next Door seems to be all over the place. On the one hand, Scott is a crazy puritan. On the other hand, almost every girl in the book is portrayed as being shallow and easily fooled. I was happy that Scott was presented as being a total monster but couldn’t the girls have been a little less naïve? Couldn’t they have at least acknowledged that Scott’s behavior was pretty creepy even before he turned out to be a killer? It doesn’t help that the plotting throughout the book feels rather random. There’s a lot of convenient coincidences, including one that happens during the climax. Chekhov wrote that, if you introduce a gun at the start of the story, it must be fired by the end of the story. One gets the feeling that Stine would be the type to forget to introduce the gun but still have someone fire it. One also gets the feeling that Stine may have been in a hurry when he wrote The Boy Next Door.

(Don’t worry, though. you’re still loved, R.L! Thank you for Fear Street!)

Anyway, the lesson here is that if the boy next door flies into a rage every time you put on lipstick, you don’t need him in your life! Even if he does play football….

Book Review: The Mind Reader by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this YA thriller from 1994, R.L. Stine tells the story of Ellie. Ellie and her father have just moved back to Shadyside after being gone for 14 years. Ellie was only two when they left town due to the trauma of her mother’s death. Though Ellie doesn’t remember, her father says that her mom died of appendicitis.

Her father’s not totally happy about returning to Shadyside but Ellie could really use a change of pace. Ellie recently broke up with her boyfriend because she discovered that he was cheating on her. How did she discover this? She has psychic powers, of course! It’s interesting how anyone who leaves Shadyside and then returns a few years later manages to develop psychic powers. It turns out that Ellie’s psychic powers aren’t just helpful when it comes to busting cheating boyfriends! They’re also good for discovering the dead body of Melinda, her best friend’s sister! And, not only that, but Ellie’s powers also offer up some clues about what really happened to her mother! Ellie has some mysteries to solve, whether she wants to or not. Who killed Melinda? What happened to her mother? And why is that cute but weird guy Brian stalking her?

The Mind Reader actually tells a pretty sad story. Every family in this book has some deep, terrible secret and it’s almost entirely due to terrible parenting. This is one of the few Stine books that left me worried as to just how the main character was going to be able to go on with her life after experiencing all of this. Still, I had to respect the fact that Stine stayed true to the book’s premise. There was no sudden amnesia. It didn’t turn out to be a dream. Ellie had psychic powers and they told her a lot of really big things at the worst possible time. That’s the way psychic powers work on Fear Street.

Anyway, I enjoyed The Mind Reader. It’s a quick read and some of Ellie’s vision are really macabre! I’m glad I’m not psychic.

Horror Novel Review: The Dead Lifeguard by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Some people stand in the darkness

Afraid to come into the light

Some people need to help somebody

When the edge of surrender’s in sight

Yes, dear readers, I will admit that I did start singing the Baywatch theme song as I read R.L. Stine’s 1994 YA novel, The Dead Lifeguard. Some of that is because that’s my natural response to anything involving lifeguards or the beach. But a lot of that is also because this novel has a plot that could have come straight from Baywatch Nights. We just needed David Hasselhoff to show up and start investigating stuff.

Basically, it’s the summer! Yay! Lindsay is looking forward to working as a lifeguard! Yay! The other lifeguards are a collection of typical lifeguard and R.L. Stine types. You got the sensitive, athletic boy. You’ve got the girls who alternate between being supportive and jealous. You’ve even got a dumb jock type who is named Pug. Would you want your life saved by someone named Pug?

Unfortunately, someone is killing the lifeguards! This doesn’t lead to summer being canceled or anything like that, of course. People in R.L. Stine books are surprisingly nonchalant about teenagers dying under mysterious circumstances. But it does lead to the mystery of who the killer is. Because some of the chapters are written from the killer’s point of view, we know that the killer calls themselves Mouse. And they’re committing their murders to get revenge for the passing of someone named Terry.

Meanwhile, Lindsay tries to figure out who is killing the lifeguards and what mystery is hiding in the past. (Of course, there’s a mystery in the past. It’s a Stine book, after all.) However, Lindsay’s investigation leads to the discovery that she died a year ago! OH MY GOD! IS LINDSAY A GHOST!? Or is there something else happening?

This was a fun Stine book. There were a lot of twists and turns, not to mention weird scenes of Mouse talking to Terry. One of my favorite parts of the book involves Mouse explaining that they are running behind on killing everyone because working as a lifeguard just takes up so much time. That was a clever moment of Stine humor. I also enjoyed the mystery of whether or not Lindsay was a ghost. I kind of guessed how things were going to turn out because …. well, it’s an R.L. Stine book. But still, The Dead Lifeguard was definitely an entertaining read.

Don’t your worry

It’s gonna be alright….

Horror Book Review: Switched by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh hell yeah!

Dear readers, I present to you perhaps the greatest book ever written by the one and only R.L. Stine!

Now, I’m not going to spoil too much of this plot because, seriously, this book is crazy. Once the plot twists start, they never stop. Once the first two dead bodies show up, it’s a nonstop parade of bloody corpses. People don’t just die in this book. They get their heads ripped off and then they sometimes show up alive a few pages later. That’s the type of book this is. First published back in 1996, Switched is like the ultimate Fear Street book.

Basically, Nicole is having a really bad day. Her parents are being totally overprotective. Her boyfriend wants to dump her because he says that she’s too much too handle, even though Nicole can’t imagine what he means by that. (Don’t worry, Nicole! I’ve been there!) She didn’t do her class project because she just didn’t feel like it. Nicole’s obviously suffering from a case of terrible ennui.

However, her friend Lucy has a solution! Lucy says that there’s a wall near the cemetery and basically, all you have to do is climb the wall with someone else and then jump off the wall while holding that person’s hand and then — BOOM! — it’s body switch time! Lucy says that they can switch bodies and Nicole can get a chance to live Lucy’s perfect life and maybe make out with Lucy’s boyfriend. Nicole says sure!

So, they jump off the wall and, quicker than you can say Freaky Friday, it works! Unfortunately, no sooner has the body switch occurred than Nicole starts to find dead bodies all over the place! Could Lucy be killing them while using Nicole’s body!? Or is something even stranger happening?

Seriously, this book is a lot of fun. Not only do you get the totally insane body switch plot and a lot of gore and impure thoughts but you also get nonstop twists. And, as opposed to certain other Stine books, the twists all make a strange sort of sense in Switched! I won’t say much else about Switched because I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but, if you ever feel the need to prove that R.L. Stine could tell a good story and keep the reader guessing, Switched is the book to go with!

Book Review: What Holly Heard by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Has there been yet another murder at Shadyside High!?

That’s the latest gossip!

R.L. Stine’s 1996 YA thriller, What Holly Heard, is all about gossip.  Actually, one the things that made the book an interesting read for me was discovering how people gossiped in 1996, in the age before social media.  Today, we get our gossip by overanalyzing what people post on Instagram or what they tweeted back when they were 12.  Back in 1996, though, you actually had to stalk people through the high school, hide behind a corner to listen to conversations, and essentially act like a private detective.  That actually sounds like fun!

Anyway, Holly Silva’s knows all the gossip at Shadyside High!  When this book opens, she’s all excited because she’s learned that her classmate, Mei, might be fighting with her boyfriend, Noah.  Holly has a major crush on Noah and is hoping that Mei and Noah break up so that she can go out with him.  Her best friends, Ruth and Miriam, remind Holly that she has a super nice boyfriend named Gary but Holly doesn’t care.  It’s all about the gossip!

Then, suddenly, Holly is found dead in the school gym!  Who is the murderer!?  Could it Mei?  Could it be Noah?  Could it even be Gary?  How about Jed, the strangely moody jock?  Can Miriam solve the mystery before someone else dies!?

As I read this book last night, I found myself wondering if maybe I had read it before.  It all seemed strangely familiar.  While it is possible that I had actually read What Holly Heard before, it’s just as possible that I was reacting the fact that the same basic characters appear in all of R.L. Stine’s books.  There’s always a bad boy.  There’s always a couple that’s on the verge of breaking up.  There’s almost always a jock who might have a secret.  And there’s always at least one murder victim who went too far with the gossip!  But, actually, the familiarity is a part of the appeal of these books.  They’re like YA Lifetime movies.  You don’t read them to be shocked as much as you read them to judge the characters when they’re shocked over the exact same thing happening to them that happened to the people in all of the previous Fear Street book.  No one at Shadyside High ever learns a lesson from any of this!

That said, I liked What Holly Heard.  It’s fast-paced, it’s silly, and it features a totally out-of-nowhere drug subplot that I imagine was included in the name of 90s relevancy.  Plus, it features someone getting hit over the head with a hamster cage.  That made me smile.  If you’re looking to indulge in a little childhood nostalgia by reading (or re-reading) a little R.L. Stine, this is a good one to go with.

Book Review: The Girlfriend by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Oh Scotty, baby, baby, baby, you idiot….

That’s what I found myself thinking as I read R.L. Stine’s 1991 YA suspense thriller, The Girlfriend.  Scotty is the book’s main character.  He’s got a great life ahead of him, despite the fact that he’s an idiot.  Scotty has been accepted to Princeton.  He’s the quarterback of high school’s football team.  His family is rich.  He’s dating Lora, the head cheerleader.  He and Lora have just been elected homecoming king and queen.  However, Lora and her family are going on vacation to Paris and that means that she’ll miss the homecoming dance!  Scotty will be a king without a queen!  Scotty is so upset over this that he makes out with Shannon.  Shannon has just moved to town and no one knows anything about her.  Scotty certainly knows little, beyond the fact that she claims to have three overprotective older brothers and that one of them is former wrestler.  Oh, and Shannon’s in love with Scotty.  She likes to call him “baby.”

Now, when I say that she likes to call him “baby,” what I mean is that the word “baby” appears close to a million times in this book.  I didn’t actually sit down and count all of the times that the word appeared, of course, but I am a fairly observant reader and it seems like a million is close to the right number.

Of course, overusing the word “baby” is not the only thing that Shannon does.  Shannon turns out to be a bit unstable and more than a little possessive.  She sets out to make Scotty and Lora’s life as miserable as possible but you know what?  Good for her!  Seriously, Scotty is a jerk and Lora’s incredibly bland for someone who can go to Paris whenever she feels like it.  Shannon provides the book with what life it has.  She’s a jolt of pure energy, forcing all of the dull people around her out of their complacency.  Though it may or may not have been Stine’s intention, it’s impossible to read The Girlfriend without spending the whole time looking forward to what Shannon is going to do next.  Unfortunately, she does kill two pets and, as a result, I can’t really be on Team Shannon but, even after that, she’s still more interesting to read about than either Scotty and Lora.

Anyway, The Girlfriend is an entertaining work of Stine fiction.  Scotty is a uniquely unlikable lead character but Shannon brings a much-needed jolt of life to the proceedings.  It’s too bad that she never returned for a sequel.  Of course, it’s not too late.  Scotty’s probably still working at his Dad’s architectural firm.  Maybe it’s time for Shannon to stop by for a visit.

What do you think about that, baby?

Book Review: Execution of Innocence by Christopher Pike

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

*sigh*

I was super excited when I came across a copy of the 1997 Christopher Pike novel, Execution of Innocence, in my collection of used paperbacks. Along with R.L. Stine, Christopher Pike was one of the kings of YA horror and suspense literature in the 1990s. In fact, his books were often a bit more macabre than even Stine’s. If Stine killed off four people in a book, Pike would probably kill off 8. I was looking forward to reading Execution of Innocence. Just the title alone promised all sorts of morbid drama! Unfortunately, the book itself doesn’t really live up to the promise of that title.

The book opens with Mary, a teenage girl, sitting in a police department. It turns out that one of her classmates, the wealthy Dick (and that does turn out to be an appropriate name) is dead. The cops thinks that Mary’s boyfriend, Charlie, murdered Dick because he got jealous over Mary and Dick going to the school dance. Charlie, it turns out, is a mechanic from the bad side of town. Mary’s a good girl and Charlie’s a bad boy, and Dick’s dead. And now, Charlie has mysteriously disappeared.

The problem is that Mary swears that she doesn’t remember what happened the night that Dick died. The cops are skeptical, especially when another witness comes forward and declares that Mary threatened to kill Dick herself! Now, Mary has to work with her friend Hannah and prove that she didn’t murder Dick. But what Mary doesn’t realize is that Hannah has secrets of her own….

This is one of those books where describing makes it sound more than it actually is. The mystery of who murdered Dick has the potential to be intriguing but Pike, instead, continually has his characters act in the most illogical and improbable of ways. The reader spends a good deal of the book trying to understand everyone’s possible motives just to discover that the actual motives either don’t make sense in the first place or, in the case of one major character, they feel a bit homophobic. It also doesn’t help that the book attempts to present Charlie and Mary as being some sort of ideal couple when they’re relationship is actually about as toxic as they come. You really can’t help but feel that all of Mary’s friends (and the cops) had a point when they warned her away from the guy.

Execution of Innocence is definitely not first-rate Pike. Try re-reading Monster instead. That’ll give you nightmares!