Oops...I did it again. Fear Street #5 - The Wrong Number

I read another one. For some reason, I remember The Wrong Number being one of my favorites. It wasn't bad.



And here is your one warning:



It begins with Deena and Jade hanging out while Jade makes her hair more shiny with Jell-O. I don't quite get it, but her mom is a stylist and it works, I guess.



They decide to add some excitement to their lives by prank calling all of the hottest boys. Then Deena describes her sexy yet semi-criminal half-brother who will be coming to live with her. There are some slight incestuous tones (eww) but Jade is instantly in love with the strange, troubled guy.

Chuck (danger-brother) is almost instantly seen as a hero as he saves a little boy's puppy from an exploding car on the way home from the airport. <3 But he's got an attitude problem.

It seems as though Jade and Deena spend a lot of time together. But don't worry, there's nothing sexy there. Hot Jade is always described as wearing jumpers.



They decide to make more prank calls, and Chuck eavesdrops and picks on the girls, especially poor lonely Deena whose only connection with the class hunk is whispering sweet nothings to him over the phone. But Chuck has a better idea!

He decides to first call a bowling alley. I was half expecting him to use my old prank call:

Yeah, no. Dude called in a bomb threat. The girls go cray cray like "THAT'S ILLEGAL!" But no worries for Chuck - Caller ID doesn't exist yet. Fun side note: There was an article in the paper about the bomb threat and our old friend Cory the gymnast was one of the poor souls evacuated because he was bowling when the threat came in. 

On another night when Deena's parents are mysteriously out of the house (AGAIN! Do these teens have no supervision?!?) Chuck calls a house on Fear Street and a woman answers. She's yelling and scared and needs help/ These kids are her last hope! So they do the logical thing: Call the police Drive over to Fear Street to break into her house (884 Fear Street, if you're keeping track). They get to the house to find Mrs. Farbersen, the screaming lady, on the ground dying. Big Scary Man (tm) in a ski mask comes down the stairs and Chuck throws a knife at him so they can escape. A car chase ensues, and the kids make it home. 

Police come, arrest Chuck for having prints on the knife, and question Deena. Blah blah blah. Then the next day. we are re-introduced to Cher Lisa (also from The New Girl) as she tries to get Deena to do an exclusive interview for the school paper. 

The story goes on and on with Deena and Jade trying to find evidence clearing Chuck. They find a few things that we in real life know wouldn't hold up in court, but teens in books are dumb and think they have the key. At one point, Mr. Farbersen is interviewed on TV and OMG HIS VOICE IS THE SAME AS SKI MASK GUY!!! It's at this point anyone with half a brain realizes that Mr. Farbersen killed his own wife!! But it drags on a bit as the girls gather non-evidence and whine a lot. 

And it keeps dragging on. Deena visits Chuck in jail, Chuck says he'd go to the Farbersen house if he were out, then the light bulb goes off in Deena's head.

Jade and Deena go to the house, Ski Mask guy (a.k.a. Mr. Farbersen) catches them, cops come because of being psychic, and all is well in the world. Jade and Chuck hook up, Deena and Hunk agree to go do some coke together, the end.

Here we are at the end, and I need to give a rating. This wasn't as exciting as the last one. Story was good, writing was good, but the real killer was so predictable way early. From that point until the end, it seemed like a lot of filler content. So, my rating for The Wrong Number is...

THREE Q-STARS!

Plus points for good writing and action scenes being pretty dang fun. Minus points for trying to stretch a short story into a full novel. 

If your're interested in reading this book, please consider using my Amazon affiliate link. I'm not paid or sponsored for this review. It's all just for fun.

I just finished Fear Street #3 - The Overnight

I'm not reading these in order because I don't have them all and the book number doesn't show up in my Kindle. I'm sure I can fix that.

Today's book is Fear Street #3 - The Overnight. Have a cover:



This is one I didn't remember from my youth, but even those I remember by title/cover I've still forgotten most of. We shall get on the way with the review, but as always...



One day I'll make my own spoiler alert gif. That day won't be today.

Our story opens with a girl named Della looking in her locker. She is making sad faces about some lovey-dovey bullshit scratched in her locker that reminds her of the boyfriend (Gary) she recently dumped. Then it goes into how she didn't think he'd take her seriously, she didn't really want to break up with him, wah wah prom, and so on. Basically, a summary of teenage breakup woes.



We then learn about an overnight (SHOCK!) trip to Fear Island coming up for the school's Outdoor Club. Six students, one teacher, and one wild weekend of fun! Sounds normal, right? But WAIT! Mr. Teacher had to cancel because of some family thing. Will that stop a bunch of randy teenagers?



Della is super excited because Gary is in the Outdoor Club as well and this overnight is the perfect way to bring him back into her arms.....except not. Another Clubber named Suki is making her moves on Gary. So much so that Della overlooks Pete who is obviously crushing on her. Della thinks he's handsome, but she isn't giving up on getting back with her ex.



Oh, and I forgot to mention Della's BFF Maia. She cries a lot and is pretty paranoid, but that's about the extent of her role in this book.

So, they all decide to go without Mr. Teacher. What could go wrong? Well, splitting up on Fear Island probably isn't the best idea. This leads to Della being confronted by a murderous goon who tries to scare her. She throws him over the cliff as her friends sneak up and observe the whole thing. As in past books, they do the right thing and contact the police cover him in leaves. Right.



They go back to camp and hit the hay. Della is woken up by noise, pokes around at night, then goes back to bed. They all head home. But wait! There's more! They've taken a vow of secrecy to not tell ANYONE! They'll pretend they went on the trip and it was great. Yay!



After Della gets home, she realizes her wallet is gone! WTF? One other dude realizes his wallet is missing, and the two of them get stalked by someone - assumed to be the partner-in-crime of Mr. Dead Guy. I guess Dead Guy and Partner Man murdered some old guy together and escaped. Cue whining and crying, especially coming from Maia.



Mr. Teacher returns and announces that YAY he can make up the trip. Groans ensue but they can't get out of it, so they get ready for the trip back to Fear Island. Once on the island, Mr. Teacher is bopped in the head, Della smartly runs off to find something she left behind on the last trip, then is attacked by....who is that?? THE DEAD GUY! Guess he wasn't really dead after all.



Police get there in a timely manner, Not Dead Guy is arrested, and Della realizes she actually does like Pete and lets Gary and Suki go about their business. All's well that ends well.

So, I've got to say that aside from some stupid choices, this book is well deserving of

FOUR Q-STARS!

It was pretty good. Plus points for some side twists to add to the story, decent characters (aside from Maia), and an actual feeling of "What's going to happen next? OMG a bad guy is going to jump out and kill them!". Semi-minus points for some stupid decisions, but they are teens in a YA scary book so it's to be expected. Actual minus points for Maia.

I definitely recommend this book, and would appreciate it if you purchase it through my Amazon affiliate link, I'm not paid for this review, and it's all done on my own out of sheer boredom. Hope you enjoyed it!

I decided to read Fear Street #1 - The New Girl

I know this is off the usual course of topics for this blog, but I got a bit nostalgic and wanted to switch things up a bit. So, here we have it - my adult review of Fear Street #1 - The New Girl.

A bit of backstory here: I am a child of the 80's. I used to love Fear Street (but not Goosebumps, for some reason) and Christopher Pike. I had Shelves full of YA scary books. I assume my parents tossed them years ago, which now makes me sad.

In looking for these books online, I came to find out that some had been "updated". So, my memory of the original versions are way gone and this will be in response to the updates. My first impression of the updates was "WhyTF are there references to Kanye West and iPods in an 80's book?!?"

With that being said, let's get on with the show! Here's your warning that spoilers are likely to be up ahead!

Here is the cover I remember:



And here is the one showing on Amazon:



Great. We're in for some sexification. :/

Book opens in the way I remember them to - with a brief glimpse into something that happened to create suspense. In this case, someone being pushed down the stairs to their death, with the pusher scheming to play it up as a terrible accident. OH NOES THERE'S A KILLER ON THE LOOSE!

The story opens with our main dude Cory pulling off some shenanigans to impress his goofball (erm...I mean "dork") friends. Of course, he's a gymnast that's been on the varsity team/group/squad/mob since his freshman year. He's a stud on the rings and can perform magic tricks when faced with danger. But for now, he's performing a menial routine of balancing on his head and a hand while holding a tray. I imagine it looked something like this:

My Photoshop Paint skills are PHENOMENAL! You can barely even see the effed up watermark from this person's arm adjustment! Ahem....moving on....

So, dude's just chillin' with his tray and his buddies when the blood begins rushing to his brain and he sees a "New Girl" (dun dun dun!) and topples onto his face. Probably from his blood not knowing which head to rush to, if ya know what I mean. So, New Girl (who we later find out is named Anna) is described almost like this:

Except, you know, she's so hot. 

Cory also has a friendzoned lady in his life named Lisa. Rumor has it she looks like Cher. Lisa is the only one that has seen Anna in class so Cory is all up in her grill like "Who is she? What's her name? What's her number?" And she's just rubbing herself against Cory and trying to get out of the friendzone. He's oblivious though. 

Artist's rendition of Lisa

Yes, he's oblivious until Lisa hears a rumor from her cousin that Anna is DEAD. They find the newspaper with the article and it gets weird. 

Cory calls Anna at all hours of the night, gets her address from 411 (it's 444 Fear Street, if you're interested), and decides to stop by. That's when evil brother Brad becomes a key player, with his signature line being "Anna is dead! Anna is DEAD!" and things like "You'll die too!" But Anna and Cory make out in the car and he tastes blood, so he doesn't care. There's also a quite mysterious dog-walking neighbor that's always around, but I won't spoil his plot significance (Hint: there is NONE)!

So, there's all this back and forth. Lisa wants the D, Cory wants Anna but she is playing hard to get, and there's some super gymnastics competition (Allstate! They're in good hands!). Cory is starting to fail at things because he's obsessed with Anna and her blood kisses. He's falling off things and missing practices. It really is sad.

The time comes when we're far enough into the book to get things wrapped up. As it turns out, "Anna is dead! Anna is DEAD!" as Brad has been telling us all along. So who is this chick that's been running around pretending to be Anna? Well, I won't give it away. But she's a horny beast who tries to get Cory up into her bedroom for some nookie after he finds out how fucked up that family really is. I assume the sex offerings were one of the "updates" to the book, because I don't remember any sex stuff in Fear Street. but maybe I was just naïve?

In conclusion, for being a YA novel, The New Girl is worthy of (drumroll please!)...

 

FOUR Q-STARS!

Yes, there is some cheese factor to the book, But all out, it's pretty dang good. + points for great writing (grammar, style) and actual suspense. Really, I would not have suspected the ending.- points for Kanye West and a bit lacking in the character development.

If you're interested in getting this book for yourself, I'd appreciate if you use my Amazon affiliate link. This review is my own, and is not sponsored or endorsed by anyone.