Some of these books feel like very special messages: don’t make prank calls, don’t lie and spend the night on an island without any adults and try to cover up a murder, don’t cheat. The messages always seem to miss something, though, since kids making prank calls discovered and helped catch a murderer. I guess the idiots on the island helped catch a couple more murderers. The ‘don’t cheat’ message seems to work, though. At least don’t cheat with someone else’s boyfriend, because you might […]
SWF, Fear Street Style
I’ve read nothing but Fear Street books all year. I think they’re rotting out my brain or I’m developing some sort of book-based Stockholm syndrome. No murderer to ease us into our story this time around. Instead, we get to meet Becka and her irritating boyfriend. Well, before the first chapter is over, he’s her ex-boyfriend. We also learn that Becka has no control over her emotions, which I think makes her a teenager. Hopefully less common: she has a guy on the side she’s […]
Shadyside High Administration Is the Real Villain
We open once more in the head of a killer. Not just any killer this time, but a serial killer with his next victim. As soon as he’s dispatched her, it’s on to the next town: Shadyside. Ah, opening narrative from a killer, how I missed you. From there, we move on to Chelsea Richards. She plays saxophone, doesn’t have many friends, hates her life, and feels like an outsider in her family. Basically, she’s a teenager who plays saxophone. Her family recently moved into […]
Shadyside’s Real Secret
I’m not sure if this was the first Fear Street book I read or not. I do know that it was the first book I ever got to pick out brand new. I remember sitting on the floor in the bookstore (Walden Books in the mall in my grandparent’s town), looking through all the Fear Street books and trying to pick the right one. I don’t know if I was already familiar with Fear Street or if that was the moment I discovered it. I […]