Guest Post #5: Drucilla (Redux)

Hello again! Thanks for the comments on my last guest post. While I was writing my first post, I kept getting ideas of other articles I wanted to write. This is one of them. These are my opinions not this website’s. Do not bash this blog if you don’t agree with me. With this guest post rather than my last one, I’m hoping to encourage more discussion. It would be awesome if someone else did a guest post agreeing or disagreeing with me. As before, my guest blog won’t be hilarious or awesome, but the real blog is and I can’t wait to read more of it.

R.L. Stine’s Fear Street Favs VS. Reader’s Reality…Ding, Ding!

Towards the beginning of this year, R. L. Stine created a Fear Street section on his website. On the page, he added his top eight favorite Fear Street books. Here’s the link to the page in question: http://rlstine.com/fear-street/. I was especially excited to see his favorites as I had been reading and re-reading the original Fear Street series over the past couple of months. For this guest blog post, I will look at each of his favorites, why they’re his favorites, and compare them to a reader’s perspective. There will probably be spoilers and I’m going to assume you know the basic story. I’m linking to this blog’s review/recap when I can so you can refresh your memory if you want. One more thing, if a book has sequels or is part of a trilogy, I’m assuming, for the most part, that Stine is referring to all of them. However, I will address the first book vs. its series in my analysis (yeah, right. Like any of this was done in an analytical way). As I said previously, I hope you guys will join me and discuss whether you agree with his favorites or not.

Silent Night
Silent Night 2
Silent Night 3

Silent Night chronicles ultimate mean girl Reva Dalby. Stine says that he loved writing this character because of her biting dialogue and mean attitude. As an author, it may be fun to write, but as a reader, it is annoying and frustrating to read. Main characters are supposed to be likable and if they’re not, they usually become so over the course of the book. Normally when we have a character as mean spirited as Reva, something bad happens to them as punishment. Throughout this book, we as readers are hoping and praying that Reva is killed or at least punished severely. This is one of only a few Fear Street books where we actually cheer the killer on. Well, I guess you can’t accuse Stine of following the masses. We are subsequently disappointed not once, but three times! Not only are we disappointed in that respect, but we end up reading the same book three times because, even though Reva says she’ll change, she never does. You’ve had at least three people try to kill you because you’re a bitch, maybe you should examine your life (again).

However, if we assume that Stine just meant the first Silent Night and not any of its sequels, I can see why it might be a favorite of his. He gets to have his cake and eat it too. He can write a horribly mean character and have her survive, but, at the end, it’s ok because she said she’ll change. And if we ignore the sequels, who’s to say she doesn’t?

The New Girl

There’s really not much to say for this book. The New Girl has the distinction of being the first published Fear Street novel. It’s interesting looking back because, nowadays, Cory would be considered a stalker and a dangerous one at that. I would have preferred it to actually be a paranormal story and not the same old crazy chick story, but it’s a decent, if somewhat repeated, Fear Street cliché. Stine says he loved the story, though, and I can see why he chose it to inaugurate the Fear Street series.

Switched

In an interesting turn of events, while Switched is this blog’s favorite Fear Street book, it’s probably my least favorite. This should be interesting. Stine says on his site that not many people mention this book to him…that’s probably because this book is TERRIBLE! He says he’s proud of the twisty and clever plot. Stine may be proud of it, but from where I’m standing it looks like he threw every plot device and writers convenience into it (everything but the kitchen sink, of course). While keeping your readers guessing isn’t a bad thing, keeping them guessing for the sake of keeping them guessing is. This book is just one of the (quite a) few Fear Street books where the ending twist actually makes the book worse. If it had just stuck to what the plot appeared to be, it would have been a much better and interesting book.

Fear Street Saga: The Betrayal- review/recap coming soon (I’m sure)

The original Fear Street Saga is great. I agree with Stine on this. Every reader loves back story and I love that we get an explanation why all of this stuff happens on Fear street. The trilogy is consistent and, frankly, is a good story. It’s horror, but underscored with a profound sense of tragedy. He says he loved going back to witch burning times and I think he nailed it. If Stine only considers The Betrayal one of his favorites, then I can only guess that it’s because the first one in the series has sentimental value, because the other books in the trilogy stand up to scrutiny as well. However, I can’t just let this examination end on a high note so let’s welcome Fear Street Sagas.

The Fear Street Sagas chronicle more of the Fear street curse and its repercussions down through the generations. I understand the idea behind the series and actually like that idea. It’s a way to give the readers more of what they want and to milk the Fear Street brand for all it’s worth. In the interest of full disclosure, I have actually only read two of the Sagas series, but, unfortunately, one of them was the VERY FIRST ONE. Now, this series is on R.L. Stine’s complete book list so one would assume he wrote it, but the savvy Stine fan knows that he (or more likely the publishing company) employs ghost writers occasionally. However, it is my (perhaps naive) belief that R.L. Stine did write the original Fear Street and Super Chiller books and if he didn’t, then I don’t want to know. *sticks tongue out* This favorites list actually helps me out because I don’t think he would pick a book he didn’t write and if Stine could write a terrible book like Switched and a really good book like The Betrayal, then who knows which books he wrote himself (besides the copyright page, of course)? Why do I bring this up? Because it’s clear from the VERY FIRST BOOK that whoever wrote it didn’t read the last book in the Fear Street Saga, The Burning. It clearly states that Nora and Daniel go to see Simon right after they are married. Unless they consummated their marriage on horseback or in the carriage, THERE COULDN’T HAVE BEEN A CHILD! I’d like to think that Stine would at least have re-read his work before starting on this new Sagas series so I’m going to say this series was ghost written.

Ok, now is the part where I apologize for that last part. I got extremely off topic and I’m sorry. I do want to say that not all of the Sagas are crap. The Awakening Evil tells the story of Sarah Fear of The Cheerleaders fame and it’s really good. Many of our questions about The Evil are answered and it stays in canon.

The Cheerleaders: The First Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Second Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Third Evil
The Cheerleaders: The New Evil
The Cheerleaders: The Evil Lives

Speaking of those crazy Shadyside High cheerleaders, guess who’s also one of R.L. Stine’s favorites? The Cheerleaders trilogy is probably one of the most recognized Fear Street titles. It attracted a myriad of readers and there’s really not much I can say about this series. It’s good. It’s consistent and, over the course of the series, presents some really interesting plot twists and shocks. Honestly, it’s kind of hard to gauge Stine’s thoughts on this series, though. He says he loved the reveal at the end, but that “reveal” seems to be in every Fear Street novel. Surprisingly, the original trilogy isn’t the only Cheerleaders to be good. The New Evil was good as well and actually was quite original. On the other hand, The Evil Lives was a hot mess. You could have been good, The Evil Lives! If only you had made good choices in life…mainly getting rid of the time travel and paradoxes that plagued your short, short life.

Again, if we were to assume that Stine only meant that the first was his favorite, it probably falls into the same category that The Betrayal does. The first in the series has sentimental value and so that’s why it was chosen above all the rest because the others are just as good.

The Secret Bedroom

R.L. Stine’s books are not very long. I think the longest book I’ve ever read by him hovered around the 300 page mark (Eye Candy anyone?). My point is that I wouldn’t have thought it would take very long to write one of his books. Indeed, if this blog is any indication he should probably spend more time writing his books. Nevertheless, Stine is particularly proud of The Secret Bedroom, a book that apparently only took him eight days to write. He says that the story moved really quickly and I’d argue that it moves too quickly. While the story is actually a really good story, I had so many unanswered questions at the end that I felt I must have missed some plot points (in case you were wondering, no, it turns out I didn’t). However, in all fairness had Stine actually answered those questions, it might have proved too gruesome for the YA crowd (wait…is there such a thing for a Fear Street reader?).

The Perfect Date

*Breathes deeply* Ok Drucilla, just like we rehearsed….R.L. Stine says that this book is special to him because his son Matt is on the cover. He doesn’t mention anything else….because….because….I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!!!!!!!! THIS BOOK IS HORRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNOW I SAID SWITCHED WAS MY LEAST FAVORITE FEAR STREET BOOK, BUT THIS ONE FEELS ME WITH SO MUCH LOATHING I FEEL THE NEED TO LEAVE EARTH TO GET AWAY FROM IT! *thump* *crash* Ok, sorry about that. I think I got my anger under cont-IF WE THREATENED THE WORLD WITH READING THIS BOOK, THERE WOULD BE NO MORE WARS! *punch* *crash* *kick* Ok. *catches breath* I think that time it worked. So….The Perfect Date. While the story is decent and does have some potential, it’s full of Fear Street clichés (Fear Street hardly making an appearance, guys two-timing there girlfriends, etc.) and don’t even get me started on the ending. Nothing is explained and random crap happens. I mean, super strength, really!?!? Where did that come from!?!? The twist is completely redundant as well. It adds nothing to the story.

Haunted

Well, let me go ahead and say it…I think Haunted is one of the better Fear Street books. Granted, it does suffer from some paradoxical problems, but the concept is great. I definitely see Stine trying something different with this novel and while he may not have necessarily succeeded, it’s different enough to stand out in the sea of similar Fear Street titles. He says he’s proud of the plot and tension and I have to admit that this was one of the few Fear Street novels that had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.

So honestly, I don’t know what I was trying to do with this article. I agree with Stine sometimes, but more often than not, his choices baffle me. I’m curious as to whether you agree with Stine or not. I guess to be fair here are my favorite Fear Street titles in no particular order (none got a five star rating so here are my four star ratings from Goodreads):

Broken Hearts
The Prom Queen
Double Date  (Because I loved that a Fear Street cheater finally got his comeuppance.)
The Face
What Holly Heard
Trapped -  review/recap coming soon (I’m sure)
Fear Park: The First Scream -  (Just the first book.)

* * * * *

My love for Switched...I will never be able to explain the unexplainable. Thank you for coming around again, Drucilla! 

The next guest post from Fear reader Chris W. will be a very interesting little twist...I'm sure you ghouls will love it.

Guest Post #4: Sagan

Hello! My name is Sagan, a reader of your blog for about a year now. I got rather excited at the prospect of writing about my own journey through Fear Street, so here we are. (Sorry if I ramble).

So, like many of us out there, I grew up with the Goosebumps and Fear Street Books. I don't remember too much about the Goosebumps books, except acquiring a permanent fear of dummies, becoming obsessed with mummies, and hating how every book ended. But Fear Street? That's where the real magic happened. I was consistently told by my mother that I was too young for Stephen King books, so I had to settle for the next best thing, Fear Street baby. While reading each book, I would picture myself as the heroine, and read their dialogue out loud to myself, (much to the chagrin of my siblings). Each book provided a source of inspiration. After reading Dead End, I tried to be like Natalie, and tried writing poetry. (Such good role models, R.L. Stine provides).

 
I also tried writing my own horror stories a la The Thrill Club, which usually ended in my mom thinking there was something wrong with me. Needless to say, these attempts at writing were thrown away pretty quickly. I'm pretty sure these books made me awfully suspicious. I would spy on my neighbors, positive that they were up to something heinous. Also, I would get so thrilled for no apparent reason, when one book would mention a main character from another Fear Street novel. I guess I thought Shadyside High was just one big happy family. (Sob).

Though, I have to say, my favorite memory is from 7th grade, when I auditioned for Bridge to Terabithia, with April's "Why I Killed So and So" speech from Truth or Dare. By the time I was done, the director was in tears (from laughing so hard). But I got the last laugh, I was cast as Girl #2, thank you very much. As a freshman in high school, in theatre class, one assignment was to perform one serious monologue, and one comedic one. For my serious monologue I chose Alison's "Why I Killed My Sister" speech from Sunburn. Once I finished that gem, there was silence, and my teacher finally said, "I thought I said one serious and one comedic, not TWO comedic monologues." OK, how dare you insinuate that Sunburn's monologue was comedic.

By the time I was in High School, my mother commanded me to throw away all of the Fear Street books. "Mom, nooo, you don't understand!" I pleaded. "Fine, you can keep 10, but the rest have to be thrown away!" She snapped, and so I chose my precious favorites, which were pretty much all of the "historical" Fear Street Sagas. (I can't tell you how much I love all the Fear Street Sagas, especially The Betrayal, The Secret, and The Burning. Nora Goode, and Daniel Fear = my preteen idea of real romance, how I hoped my future would hold something so beautiful as their relationship, except for, you know, one of them dying. Ditto Susannah Goode and Edward Fier).

Anyway, after that, I pretty much forgot about their existence for awhile, until one day I found myself straining to remember how the Cataluna Series ended, Googled it, and found myself at this wondrous blog, and here we are. R.L. Stine shall remain in my heart forever, regardless of the fact that his books are quite terrible, because when I was young, they were like Dickens to me.

Currently, for some reason, all of my Fear Street novels have disappeared. I suspect foul play.

I suppose that's it! My beautiful personal history involving Fear Street. I hope everyone is thrilled to have read it.

* * * * *

Oh Sagan, this was truly awesome. I especially love the fact that you actually recited a whole passage from Truth or Dare in front of people. THANK YOU.

Guest Post #3: Amanda

Fear Street and Goosebumps have always seemed a little shameful to me.  I never wanted to be seen reading them.  It was much cooler to say you were into Stephen King or Dean Koontz.  They wrote books for ‘grownups’ with sex and swearing and everything.  So even though I wouldn’t publicly declare my love of R.L. Stine’s books, I still coveted them in secret.  I used to try to force my much younger sister (who was not a reader at all) to buy all the Goosebumps books just so I would be able to read them myself.  Under the guise of spending ‘quality time’ together, I would greedily read while she played with Barbies in another part of the room.

The most shameful part of all of this was not how much I loved Fear Street and Goosebumps, but how absolutely obsessed I was with R.L. Stine’s one adult novel Superstitious.  I must have read this book at least 20 times and I have absolutely no idea why I loved it so much.  It is a terrible book.  The plot is intriguing enough, but the characters are poorly written and the dialogue is atrocious.  Shocking, I know.

For those of you who didn’t spend their childhood reading and re-reading this book, here is a short synopsis (This synopsis is actually from memory which is probably really sad. I can’t believe that this book’s plot is still taking up valuable space in my brain).  The main character is a graduate student in college named Sara.  Shortly after Sara gets to the school she meets and falls in love with a handsome Irish professor named Liam.  Liam seems like the perfect guy and Sara quickly marries him.  He has two slightly weird things about him though…he lives with his adult sister Margaret and he is extremely superstitious and insists that Sara abide by his very strict rules about his superstitions.  In the midst of this love story there is a string of grisly murders on campus.  The bodies are ripped apart as if attacked by an animal and a few people around town have seen fleeting glimpses of a weird creature.  And if you haven’t figured out who the killer might be yet, I don’t believe that you are truly a R.L. Stine fan.

It’s hard to say why I loved this book so much.  I was well aware that it was a guilty pleasure even when I was a teen.  It’s just so fabulously lurid.  From the opening scene where a girl is ripped apart while running drunk through a field and singing the song ‘Oklahoma’ to the fantastic reveal that yes, Liam is an actual monster and he has impregnated Sara with his monster baby.  Superstitious is just filled with gruesome murders (eyeballs being pulled out) and body horror (on Liam and Sara’s wedding day Liam’s tongue suddenly becomes all monstrous and extends four feet out of his mouth all yellow and throbbing).  And the sex.  Oh yes, this is the book where R.L. Stine write sex scenes.  And they are a sight to behold.  I’m sure they appealed to me as a teenage girl because they sound like they were written by a teenage girl.  Sorry, Stine.  Sexy you are not.   I’d like to think that he is writing this as a sort of cautionary tale for his teen readers…have unprotected sex with a guy you barely know and you will end up with a monster baby.  But most likely it’s just Stine letting us in on his particular bedroom kinks.  Shudder.

So there is my deep, dark secret.  I unabashedly love this book and honestly if I still had it I would read it right now.  That is definitely one perk to being an adult.  I can now proudly read any sort of cheesy 90’s book and just tell people I’m being ‘ironic’.  Bring on the Goosebumps!

*****

Thank you, Amanda! Quick note: I have a copy of Superstitious and yes, you will all be exposed to it here eventually. Can you feel the excitement? CAN YOU FEEL IT?

Guest Post #2: Spongey

*Note: I know I said I was only going to do these on Friday, but I'm not going by that. I'm just going to post these erratically because SCREW SCHEDULES. Now, I command that you enjoy Spongey's Fear thoughts.*

*****

Hello, Spongey here.

  

Well, this is my first time being on a different, better blog. I saw that the best blog since Blogger Beware wanted guest posts, and I could not resist. So I think I shall tell you my experiences with both Fear Street and Goosebumps…well, mostly GB. Since all my FS know how comes from this blog and I’ve only read like…8 books. So the FS section is just brief  “reviews” of FS books, but I shall talk a bit about it.

 

How My Goosebumps Led Me to Fear Street

It was 5^th grade and I had finished work. At that age, it’s the worst thing ever. I was too young to give a fuck about music so I had no iPod or any of that modern bullshit. So I had to look at the teacher’s bookshelf.

I looked through the crap until I found four Goosebumps books. I had known of the series, in passing. I thought it was like a hardcore horror thing. Silly 5^th grade me. My first was Don't Go To Sleep. You know, the book with the awesome cover that had nothing to do with the book.

I liked it, so I read a few more, but Let's Get Invisible! turned me off cuz I wanted vanishing fun and not mirror double. Of course, now it’s in my top 13 GB books. Silly me! I put it off until 2007. Cartoon Network was showing the TV show. I watched and loved its cheesiness, so I was like “eh, I’ll read the books again”.

Now I have 42 of them. And that’s just the original series. I’d talk about how the 'so bad it’s good' bits of GB made me love it even to this day, and how Calling All Creeps is the best thing ever written…but I won’t.

 

Okay, let’s move on the main thing: Fear Street

 

Remember how I said I though GB was hardcore? Yeah, imagine how FS made me feel. My brother had one in the closet, Wrong Number 2. I passed on it since it was a sequel. After I found Blogger Beware, I saw someone mention a Fear Street blog. So I read this blog and loved it. I was like “I’ll finally read these”. I read Wrong Number 2 and liked it. Then I read the first one and saw how 2 copied 1 so much. I like FS ,in a way, for how dumb it can get. But GB is better to me since…well…Calling All Creeps > Wrong Number 1. That is all.

But I still find them to be interesting in concepts. I mean, they used zombies more than Goosebumps…which makes no sense, but whatever.

 

So now for My Thoughts on the Fear Street Books I’ve Read!

 

Missing

I really liked this one, actually. Good mystery, sweet ending, a freaking CULT?! Give me that shit. It was just good fun. But I didn’t get the dog killing scene. BIG LIPPED ALLIGATOR MOMENT much?!

 

Still, it works and I think its among my faves

 

Wrong Number 2 

   
Skipping 2 since it’s just okay, not much to say about it. First, I love the tagline drop. Never seen that done before! Anyway, most likely the best I’ve read, at least critically. A solid plot, a good villain, great suspense and A CHAINSAW MURDER! The most badass thing Stine ever wrote…besides any scene with Billy in Welcome To Camp Nightmare, but whatever. But the scene with the disguises was too sitcom-y for my tastes. But I still loved this one.

The Sleepwalker

I just read this one the other night. I like it, actually! Some decent suspense and we have a okay mystery. Not a great book, though, bogged down by some…Stine-ism. Yes, that is a thing. Walker (I don’t think anyone cares about spoilers, this book is like 20 years old) being the villain…was obvious. But in an odd way. I first pegged Link for it “excuuuse me princess!”

 

SHUT UP LINK.       

 

-because it seemed obvious in a Stine book. But he got me there. He created a character so obvious I didn’t think of the more obvious one! I like Walker being a bit too bossed with Myra, I have a thing for creepy fanboys. Always creepy! Despite some dumb moments, I like this one

 

Haunted 

Okay, I loved this one as much as everyone else!  Good mystery, ghosts, a Weird Al name drop, and a smart main character! What's not to love?! The twist shocked me. I mean, a ghost from the future? Never thought that would happen…not much else to say. I mean ghosts from the future! Can I add to that?! No. Good book.

 

The Stepsister and Ski Weekend

Not too much to say about either so I am combining them. The Stepsister was good and had a great killer. Not much to say...it just has a good killer. I OWN this one and have little to say! Ski Weekend was so dumb it rocked.

Lou said jackass. Love that. The only other swearing in a Stine thing is in the recent Haunting Hour show, where someone says “bitch”. No joke. Anyway, good killer and a cheesy yet awesome dude named Lou. That is all.

 

The Best Friend 1 & 2

 

Another crazy killer. I love killers that obsess over their victims. Okay, I love psychological horror, I admit. She counts, right? First book was mostly just alright, just with a good killer. Oh, and the ending? Love it. I know it’s unhappy, but it was great. Funny thing: people bitched about the downer so much they wanted a sequel. Goosebumps has downer endings all the time. No-one cared. What. The second one had a good first half and a crappy second half. I love how Sarah, the winner of  that contest, found this blog. Amazing. Okay books.

Final Grade

Confession time. This book scared me. No joke. Why? The villain. A guy who loves Lily to the point that he kills people to make her happy. I am scared shitless by ax crazy fanboys/girls. So Misery made me shit my pants, you see. I know this blog said this book sucks, but I was creeped out by the bad guy and thought it had a good story.

I’ve read some others (some of the Sagas, which I adore, Bad Dreams, The Thrill Club, which sucked hard. When a ghostwriter makes me miss Stine YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG) but I have little to say. Long, pointless blog here. But Stine’s books, even the awful ones, changed my life. I've made ideas for my own type of books, which read as parodies in a way. I had one that featured a robot working at a fast food place using the meat of his victims in the place of food. I had one with ghost pirates, one with a killer laptop, and other stupid shit. I mostly made this to help pay tribute to the blog that introduced me to Fear Street. Maybe it can be too harsh, but it’s still very funny and tells me which books to stay away from. I will never read Goodnight Kiss, but I may buy it to stare at its SEXAH cover. 

As for Goosebumps…over on my blog, my Wordpress one (look it up) I am doing a big Goosebump-A-Thon, looking at all the books. I’m on 52, so close to done. Shameless plug aside, this is my stroll down Fear Street. I will show these books to my kids and I hope you induct me into the Order of the Mole. See ya.

*****

Maybe I should revisit Final Grade. I do enjoy torturing myself. Hmm. Anyway, Spongey, I thank you and OF COURSE you have been inducted into the Order of the Mole for wanting to psychologically scar your future spawn with these paper tragedies.

Next guest post: Amanda F.