Young Adult – Page 48 – The Library Ladies

A Revisit to Fear Street: “College Weekend”

89804 Book: “College Weekend” (Fear Street #32) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, 1995

Where Did I Get This Book: An eBook from the library!

Book Description: Nightmare weekend

Nothing can ruin Tina River’s big weekend at Patterson College with her boyfriend, Josh Martin. She’s so excited, she doesn’t even mind that her cousin, Holly, will be tagging along.

But when Tina and Holly arrive, Josh is gone. His roommate, Christopher Roberts, says Josh is stuck in the mountains, delayed by car trouble. That’s weird—Josh never mentioned he was going away.

It gets even weirder when Holly suddenly disappears. But Christopher isn’t worried—about Holly or Josh. Christopher seems to have the answer to everything. Tina is confused. But one thing is clear—she’s about to learn more about love and murder than she ever wanted to know.

Had I Read This Before: No.

Review: We open with a short prologue in which our protagonist, Tina, is on the phone with Josh, her college boyfriend. She’s going to visit him that weekend and unfortunately has to bring her cousin Holly with because her Mom doesn’t want her traveling alone. While Josh is a little miffed, they are still excited to see each other and he’s convinced his friends are going to like her. But we find out from the omnipotent narrator that they are going to have some problems that weekend.

Fast forward to Tina and Holly riding the bus from Shadyside to Patterson College. Tina is excited to see Josh because she hasn’t seen him for three months, and Holly is excited to check out all the college boys during the Spring Fling Weekend. Tina wants to be a fashion model, but as of right now all she is interested in is seeing Josh. I’d make fun of her or get snarky, but during my freshman year of college my then boyfriend/now husband and I were in a long distance relationship and I KNOW how it feels like the end of the world until you can see them again. So Tina, you’re a-okay in my book. The train arrives at Patterson Station, and Tina practically drags Holly off the train by her hair. The conductor tells them that they’re the only ones getting off and that the station is super deserted, so they should be careful, but JOSH is supposed to be meeting them so all is well!… Except, big shocker, Josh isn’t there when they get off, and the station is basically empty. Holly says that she hopes this isn’t a sign of how the weekend is going to go, and Holly, you have NO idea. Holly says that she has a bad feeling, but then asks if there are any good dance clubs around because she’s SO breaking curfew and staying out all night, so she’s not THAT worried. They leave the platform and go into the station and it’s JUST as deserted outside of a black cat (BAD SIGN Holly says), and when they go out onto the platform AGAIN Tina sees Josh! Except it’s not, it’s a random creep who demands that they give them money or else. But then another guy swoops in to rescue them from the person who is no doubt a casualty of Reagan Era Social Policy! The guy says his name is Chris and he’s Josh’s roommate, and that Josh got caught on a geology field trip and won’t be back until later that night. Tina is bummed because she wants to have as much time as possible with Josh, but they follow Chris to his Jeep. Chris is confused to see Holly because he thought Tina was coming on her own, but Tina explains the situation of a human chastity belt.

In the car Holly goes on about the drama programs she’s visited, while Chris puts in a CD by Psycho Surfers, which happens to be Tina’s favorite! Chris then tells her that he heard she wants to be a model, and that his uncle is THE Rob Roberts, famous fashion photographer! He could take some photos of her this weekend and then send them to Rob, but Tina says she may not have enough time because she’s planning on spending it all with Josh. They get to the dorm and Chris says that the girls can sleep in his and Josh’s room and he and Josh will crash at his photography studio (I should mention Chris is RICH). Tina asks Chris to call the studio to see if Josh is there yet, but he’s not. Chris leaves for the night, and Holly and Tina settle in. As Tina admires the absurd amount of rocks on Josh’s side of the room, she also notices that the plethora of photos Chris mentioned are all gone. Then there’s a knock on the door, and when Tina opens it a girl is there, who seems to freak out at her appearance. But then she says that Tina just looks like someone she used to know, and introduces herself as Carla. She’s dating Steve, who is in the geology program with Josh, AND she went to high school with Steve and Chris so she’s an old friend. Carla confirms the car trouble situation, and then tells Holly and Tina about Chris’s old girlfriend in high school, Judy. She died in a sailing accident and Chris is still really broken up about it. Carla says that she’s going to talk to Josh when he gets back, because she doesn’t think he appreciates Tina, and Tina thinks that’s a little weird. Chris comes back because he forgot his chemistry notes, and he suggests that they all go to a party to pass the time. Tina is reluctant at first but eventually agrees, and says she needs to put some things away first. But when she opens Josh’s closet, she sees his hiking boots. Why did he leave them behind on a geology trip? The others come back and Carla says that Josh doesn’t deserve Tina because he’s on that trip and he hasn’t seen her in months, but Chris stands up for him and they go to his Jeep. Tina asks Chris about the boots and he says Josh got new ones. He puts in another CD and OH WOW, it’s another band that Tina likes! How coincidental, I’m sure.

They get to the party and Holly is stoked while Tina is intimidated about the COLLEGE GIRLS. Carla takes Holly to meet some drama kids, and Chris asks Tina if she wants a drink. As they drink soda (SUUUUURE) they talk more and they have so much in common! He then asks her if she wants to dance and she says sure. Then they go out to the back porch and he tells her to wish upon a star (Christ). She says that she wishes to be a famous model one day, and he says he can help make that come true by taking her pictures. Then he kisses her. They’re BUSTED by Carla, and Tina is first scared that Josh is going to find out about this. But then she realizes that Holly isn’t there. Carla says she las saw her dancing with a townie. When they go back inside, the party has TAKEN A TURN BECAUSE THOSE ROWDY TOWNIES ARE THERE and perhaps a bike race is the only way to solve all their differences? I’m saying it now, I’m Team Cutters!

acidicmasculinearabianhorse-max-1mb — “Breaking Away”, anyone? Anyone? (source)

One of the townies tries to get Tina to drink beer by forcing it in her mouth and no, the Cutters wouldn’t do that, they’re gentlemen, and Tina can’t find Holly anywhere. But she does hear a scream that sounds like Holly, and she runs out back to see a curly haired girl (like Holly) being dragged off “Road Warrior” style on the back of a motorcycle, and Tina chases after them for a bit but tells herself maybe Holly wanted to go with them (UHHHH), but maybe it wasn’t even Holly at all. Then she finds an earring that looks just like Holly’s and yikes. She runs to find help but finds Carla instead, who tells her that she JUST SAW Holly go off with drama major extraordinaire Alyssa Pryor, who Tina remembers from Shadyside High. Phew, thinks Tina, but then wants to talk to Carla about the kiss she walked in on. Carla says Tina shouldn’t worry because in COLLEGE you totally hook up at will, and she and Steve aren’t monogamous so it’s really not a big deal.

Tina is in a mood by the time they get back to the dorm, and she hopes that Josh is finally back. Chris says he’ll walk her up because he has MORE THINGS to grab, and when they enter the room it’s still just them. She worries Josh has been in an accident, and Chris says he’ll call the studio to see if Josh has left a message, and says he’ll call her when he finds out after he gets there for the night. He does so, and claims that Josh did leave a message that he won’t be back until the next afternoon because the garage can’t get the car part they need til the next morning. Tina is now full on peeved and decides to try to sleep. But she’s awakened by a strange sound, and is convinced that someone is in the room with her, and the door is indeed open (there’s a weird moment here where she doesn’t realize it until she turns the light on, BUT wouldn’t the light from the hallway be a tip off??). She closes the door and locks it, admonishing herself for not locking it in the first place. Then she goes to Josh’s desk and finds his CAR KEYS. How is he on a trip WITHOUT HIS CAR KEYS???

The next morning Tina wakes up at tenish, and sees that Holly’s clothes remain untouched. She still isn’t back! While Tina knows she isn’t Holly’s mother, she is a good cousin and wants to make sure she’s, you know, ALIVE. She calls information and asks for Alyssa’s phone number, but there is no one listed under that name. She calls Chris at the studio to see if he’s heard from Josh, but nope. He says he’ll give her a tour around campus, and when she asks about Josh’s keys he says he can’t hear her and hangs up. Subtle. When he arrives with donuts she asks him about they keys again, and he says that he must have taken his spare set, and when she asks why he didn’t just bring his regular set with the quartz key chain she got him, he says he probably didn’t want to lose them. and she TOTALLY buys into it. Look, there’s gaslighting, and then there’s willful stupidity, Tina, and you are being WILLFULLY STUPID right now. He takes her to fraternity row and tells her that Josh is pledging, and Tina thinks that’s odd since Josh has never been into fraternity life, and maybe she doesn’t know him like she thought she did. They can’t find Holly at the drama department or the cafeteria, and Chris says he’ll go grab Alyssa’s number from the student directory at the bookstore. He comes back with it and gives Tina a quarter for a pay phone, but when Tina calls the number the voice on the answering machine is NOT Alyssa’s! Chris suggests that perhaps Alyssa is trying out a new voice because actresses, and once again Tina thinks that’s a very reasonable explanation.

giphy13 — The absurdity of this. (source)

Carla shows up and tells them that she just heard from Steve and Josh and their car broke down AGAIN, so she’s off to pick them up. Tina says she wants to go but she says no, she can’t come because her car is only a two seater and one of the guys is already going to have to trunk it (I’ve done this before. Don’t be dumb like me, kids!). Tina suggests the Jeep, but then realizes that she should wait around for Holly and Carla heads off to get the boys. Chris suggests that they should go rent a motorscooter and go for a ride. They go around town and he takes pictures of her on his camera, and then they go to the Spring Fling Carnival that afternoon because OBVIOUSLY Holly will turn up there.

As they hang out at the carnival, they run into a guy named Jack, who when to Shadyside the year before. Chris tries to get Tina to head off with him, but Tina wants to hang with her old friend for a bit. She tells him that Holly is here too, but she went off with Alyssa and she hasn’t seen her since. Jack tells her that Alyssa transferred to a school in Seattle and doesn’t go here anymore. Tina FREAKS, and Jack heads off totally unconcerned. Tina says that Carla must be lying, and Chris tells her to relax and that Holly is probably fine and just enjoying a spot of rebellious independence. He suggests they just try to enjoy themselves, and they end up at the Ferris Wheel. And they get stuck at the top, which makes Chris think it’s the perfect time to put the moves on her. They do kiss a little bit, but then Chris gets all pensive and shit. He says he hasn’t been on a Ferris Wheel since Judy, and she comforts him. He starts ragging on Josh for leaving, and says that if HE were her boyfriend he’d NEVER leave her. He then scoots closer, offsetting the balance of their car, and tries kissing her again, and when she refuses he threatens to tip it over because she’s a TEASE. Before he can, though, the car starts up again, and they start to descend. He tells her he was just kidding. and that he’s sorry. Now Tina is back to the ‘I feel sorry for him’ portion of our reading journey, and thinks that if she’d never kissed him in the first place none of this would have happened. To that I say HELL NO AND I HATE THAT STINE EVEN PUT THAT OUT IN THE UNIVERSE.

Tina thinks they’re heading back to the dorm, but Chris says they should go to his studio instead so they can take indoor shots. She is reluctant, but he reminds her that his uncle is THE Rob Roberts, and Tina thinks that this is the only way to achieve stardom. As they ride the scooter Tina thinks she sees Carla who is supposed to be going up to pick up Josh and Steve! But when they swoop back they don’t see her, but another girl in similar clothes and with similar hair. So they get to the studio, which is in a basement, nothing sketchy about that, and she looks at all his state of the art equipment. She sees a picture on the wall of a girl who looks a LOT like her, outside of the darker hair and different eyes, and it’s implied that it’s Judy. Chris shows her where she can go get into modeling makeup, and when she nearly opens a closet door he FLIPS and tells her not that one because it holds lots of chemicals. She finds the bathroom, freaks out because she thinks a mannequin is a body (it’s not), and then he starts telling her how to do her makeup for his ‘vision’. He then applies it the way he likes and tells her what kind of outfit to pick out. Lucky for her all of the dresses are just her size! He starts taking her picture and telling her how to pose, and retouches her makeup just the way he likes….

giphy14 — It’s so fucking creepy, you guys. (source)

And when she compliments the dress he says that it belonged to Judy!!! She continues the shoot, and then he starts calling her Judy and tries to kiss her. She tries to remind him that she is NOT Judy, and he kind of gets it but, like, not really? She realizes that she has to play along or he’s going to flip out on her, and he tells her to put on this old fashioned dress now.

As she’s changing, Tina finds a picture in a drawer. It’s of HER SLEEPING IN THE DORM ROOM THE NIGHT BEFORE. When she exits he says that they’re going to photograph a beach scene, and it makes no sense given her gown but Judy died at the beach so it probably makes sense in his mind. She asks if she can have a soda, and when he goes to get her one she bolts! But all the doors and locked. And as Chris starts to chase her around, he says that he’ll have to kill her ‘again’. SO HE KILLED JUDY TOO. They struggle a bit and he locks her in the dark room. When she finds the light for the room, she realizes that she’s surrounded by pictures of her of all shapes and sizes, the photos being the ones that she sent to Josh, and the last one is of her at the train station the night before. She decides she needs to find a weapon, but when she opens that cabinet, JOSH’S BODY TUMBLES TO THE FLOOR!!! Looks like she threw chemicals in his face and then based his brains in. Chris bursts in and grabs her, calling her Judy all the while. She tries to reason with him, and then tries to throw acid in his face… but it’s just water. Some acid does drip on her arm and it sizzles, and just as Chris is about to lunge she distracts him and then hits him in the head with a tripod.

She runs and tries to think of a way to escape and/or call the police. THen she opens the door that Chris didn’t want her to open, and HOLLY IS IN THERE! Chris introduced her to a guy the night of the party, and when hse got back to the dorm Chris grabbed her and tied her up and threw her in the closet. Tina tells her that she thinks she killed Chris, and unties her. But unfortunately, CHRIS IS ALIVE! He’s about to lunge at them with scissors, but then Carla and Steve enter. THey look like they are taking Chris’s side, talking him down and suggesting that he get one more picture of Judy, the two of them together. Tina refuses, but then does when it looks like it could mean life or death. But when Chris goes to get his camera, Carla and Steve subdue him and tie him up. Carla explains that they were only going along with him to disarm him. Chris had told her that Josh was with another girl this weekend and to cover for him, which is why Carla was participating in the lies. But then Steve told her as she picked him up that Josh would never do that, and they put two and two together. Holly calls the police, and Tina tells Carla and Steve that he killed Judy too, and Carla and Steve feel like fools for thinking otherwise. As Chris rants and raves about developing ‘Judy’s’ photos the next day, Tina runs outside into the night. As she looks up at the first start of the night, she thinks forlornly that no matter how much she wishes it away, she’ll never be able to forget what happened to her and Josh this past weekend. The End.

giphy15 — Gee, for once I wish we did have a dumb quippy end line. (source)

Body Count: 1, but if we’re going to count Judy it would be 2. The injustice of Josh dying is too much.

Romance Rating: 2. I feel so badly about Josh because he and Tina seemed happy, but we never saw them actually interact. And Chris and Tina is obviously gross and creepy as hell.

Bonkers Rating: 7, just because of the SUPER disturbing ‘dress this girl up like my dead girlfriend’ photo session that sounds like something out of “The Neon Demon”.

Fear Street Relevance: 1. ONCE AGAIN, we aren’t even in Shadyside and the only time Fear Street is even mentioned is when someone says something about Fear Street having a carnival, but NO, R.L., FEAR STREET wouldn’t have a carnival, SHADYSIDE would have a carnival, and it feels like you just forgot to even mention Fear Street and tossed it in at the last second.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“She glanced down at Josh’s body sprawled on the floor. Then she let out a horrified gasp. ‘Chris! It’s Josh! He’s moving! He’s getting up!'”

… But it was just a distraction tactic so she could hit him. I mean, of course it was, but what a stupid cliffhanger. A kid reading it might think this was turning into a zombie story, which would have been SO cool….

That’s So Dated! Moments: Chris’s Jeep is described as not only having a fancy CD player, but EVEN A CAR PHONE!!!! And he has a COLOR MAC WITH A CD-ROM AND A LASER PRINTER!

Best Quote:

“‘Well, I always say,’ Carla continued with a grin, ‘if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.'”

Uh, NO, Carla, YOU don’t say that! Stephen Stills says that, you goddamn plagiarist! And he isn’t exactly the best person to ask for relationship advice, if you’re going to ask a member of CSN about love I would argue Graham Nash is the way to go. He wrote “Our House” for Joni Mitchell for God’s sake (not that she was very, uh, grateful in the end)….

Conclusion: “College Weekend” was surprisingly dark and a pretty good, creepy read. Definitely one of the more twisted “Fear Street” novels I’ve read. Up next is “The Stepsister 2”!

Book Club Review: “Six of Crows”

We are part of a group of librarian friends who have had an ongoing bookclub running for the last several years. Each “season” (we’re nerds) we pick a theme and each of us chooses a book within that theme for us all to read. Our current theme is “B-Sides,” where we pick different books from previous authors that we read in the club.

For this blog, we will post a joint review of each book we read for book club. We’ll also post the next book coming up in book club. So feel free to read along with us or use our book selections and questions in your own book club!

Book: “Six of Crows” by Leigh Bardugo

Publishing Info: Henry Holt and Company, September 2015

Where Did We Get This Book: Serena owns it, Kate got it from the library

A-Side Book: “Shadow and Bone”

Book Description: Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price–and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager.

A runaway with a privileged past.

A spy known as the Wraith.

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Serena’s Thoughts

This book is probably one of the perfect diverging points for Kate and my own differing book tastes. I’m pretty sure that everything I love about these genres are the same things that turn off Kate, so be ready for some whiplash in our opinions!

It’s no secret that I love fantasy. Pretty much any fantasy, but high fantasy (rather than, say, urban fantasy) is definitely my preferred type. After all, that’s the primary genre that I cover on this blog. But I also love heist stories. I don’t read many heist books, because frankly most of the ones I’ve tried fall into the worst category of “beach reads” where the writing and plotting is so simplistic that I just can’t acknowledge it as worth my time to read. But I do love heist movies (though even I have my doubts about this new “Oceans 11” reboot…). So reading this book description, I was all over this!

I did have a few points of hesitancy, however, going in. I don’t typically prefer books with multiple narrators, let alone five. And I’ve been burned by Bardugo in the past. While I liked the first book in her “Grisha” series, my rage boiled over in the second and I don’t think I even finished the third. So, I was excited, but hesitant.

All for nothing! I had a blast with this book! Set in the same world and a few years (?) after the events in the last book of the “Grisha” trilogy, our team is made up of a ragtag group of individuals all with complicated pasts and motivations that lead them to be involved in what everyone says is an impossible mission.

I very much enjoyed the world building in this story. It’s been a few years since I read the other two books, but for the most part this world and history is presented in such a way that prior knowledge of it was not necessary. If anything, I think my half reading of the first trilogy almost made it worse, as I could sort of remember things here and there and was never quite sure whether something new was being introduced or whether I should be remembering it from before. In that respect, it might even be easier to read this book with zero knowledge of the original trilogy. All of that said, this story takes place in two new and distinct locations: the gang-riddled streets of Ketterdam and the Ice Court where the people of the north capture and exterminate Grisha, as they see their magic as contrary to the natural world. Bardugo does an excellent job in painting clear and brilliant scenes on which to work her stories. I particularly liked the Ice Court itself, and the complex inner workings that the team had to overcome to break in and out.

As for the characters, Bardugo masterfully juggled a very full cast, somehow managing to weave together a very action-packed story while also slowly revealing the complicated and often dark histories of each individual character on this journey. I had a few favorites, but I ultimately enjoyed them all. I would say that Jesper was probably my least favorite, due to the fact that he had the least developed back story of the group and, for plot reasons, had to be kept in the dark about certain events. I enjoyed Inej the most, as her character type (silent, deadly, masterfully proficient at what she does best) is one of my favorites. But I think that Nina and Matthias, as a pair, had the most compelling journey in this story. Raised in very different cultures and with very different views on the world, they both have to confront prejudices and the darker side of their own beings.

I had a few quibbles of plausibility here and there, as far as the heist itself goes. But for the most part, I was having such a blast that I didn’t have time to pause and really think about the viability of some of their more outrageous plans. Bardugo is particularly effective with her dialogue, and with a cast of 6+ characters, there were ample opportunities for this strength to shine and overcast any weaker plot points. Over all, I greatly enjoyed this book and have the second one sitting on my shelf ready to read!

Kate’s Thoughts

Say it with me folks: I don’t like heist stories, I don’t like high fantasy, and while I read “Shadow and Bone” in Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse, I didn’t particularly care for it and never went back to that trilogy. So yeah, going into “Six of Crows” I wasn’t terribly stoked. But I like to think that I’m a good sport and something of a trooper, and given that I really liked other works by Bardugo (specifically “Wonder Woman: Warbringer”, and the short story “Verse Chorus Verse”), I had a little bit of hope that I would enjoy at least parts of it.

Turns out I was right on both counts. So, yay?

For not liking heists or high fantasy, there were plenty of things that I did find likable in this book. As Serena mentioned, Bardugo has a knack for world building, and while I remember very little from her Grishaverse I greatly enjoyed seeing aspects of it popping up in this book, even if it was in a different time and place. The Dutch influence in Ketterdam is a fun thing to watch as well, with references to various familiar landmark types and certain words clearly being derived from the Dutch language. Bardugo has a clear world idea, and in some ways she expands upon it in this book (as far as I know) with how Grishas (or witches) are viewed, and how this society functions in a more poverty stricken and corrupt society.

Bardugo also has a talent for characterization and dialog, and I ended up really enjoying a number of the characters. While in book club the solid consensus seemed to list Inej as a favorite, I myself greatly, GREATLY enjoyed Nina and her morally grey, duplicitous yet empathetic ways. Like Serena I was quite intrigued by her relationship with Matthias, and how they both have a deep connection but deep resentment and mistrust because of past actions. Whenever the story was focused on her, it had my rapt attention.

But, at the end of the day, Serena knows me very well: “Six of Crows” manages to run with a number of story themes that I don’t care for, mostly heists and high fantasy. And because of that, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have, and as much as others have. I am not a good judge for how good this story is because this is not a book that was written with me in mind, and it’s not quite strong enough (outside of a few aspects I did like) to rise above my preferences and prove me wrong. It’s no one’s fault. It just didn’t do it for me as a whole.

Serena’s Rating 9: Strong dialogue and a great cast of characters added to what was already a thrilling heist story.

Kate’s Rating 6: While the characters compelled me and the dialog was snappy, the story line and themes didn’t interest me.

Book Club Questions:

This story is set in the same world as Bardugo’s original “Grisha” trilogy. How did reading that trilogy before (or not reading it) affect your experience with this book?
This book is made up of a large cast of characters. Which ones stood out to you as particularly interesting? Were there any that you felt less connected to?
Through Nina and Matthias’s story arc, this book confronts some challenging themes regarding prejudice and persecution. What moments stood out to you in this area? Do you think this could have been explored even further?
The heist itself is made up of several moving pieces and changed throughout the story. Did any parts of it strike you as particularly surprising or fun to read about? Did you have questions about any parts of it?
There are a lot of surprises revealed throughout the story. Which ones took you by surprise and which ones could you predict?
The story ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. Where do you think it will go from here?

Reader’s Advisory:

“Six of Crows” is on these Goodreads lists: “Villain Protagonist” and “Speculative Fiction Heist/Caper Stories.”

Find “Six of Crows” at your library using WorldCat!

Next Book Club Pick: “Deathless” by Catherynne M. Valente

Serena’s Review: “Whisper on the Tide”

Book: “Whisper on the Tide” by Sarah Tolscer

Publishing Info: Bloomsbury USA Childrens, June 2018

Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher

Book Description: Caro Oresteia spent her life waiting to be called by the river god, as those in her family had been for generations. But when she’s swept away on an adventure to save the Akhaian royal prince, Markos, her destiny is sealed by the sea god instead.

For now, Caro is landlocked, helping Markos reclaim his throne after nearly his entire family was assassinated in a political coup. Without any financial or military support, Markos is desperate for allies, and Caro has fought off more than one attempt on his life. When a powerful Archon offers his army in exchange for Markos’s marriage to his daughter, Caro must choose: Her love for Markos, or the fate of Akhaia? And more importantly: How much is she willing to risk to defy the sea god’s wishes and chart her own course?

With shipwrecks, lost treasure, old and new enemies, dark magic, and breathtaking romance, Sarah Tolcser weaves another epic story about chasing your fate.

Previously reviewed: “Song of the Current”

Review: Remember a time, not so long ago, when “Pirates of the Caribbean” was actually acclaimed and not a national joke? I mean, those first few movies were a blast! I may, may, have even seen the first one in theaters three times. I remember being almost giddy over just how much unadulterated, unquestioned fun that first movie was offering up. Adventure! Romance! Great characters! And some top notch humor that the other films never seemed to really understand or replicate in all the many, MANY, iterations that followed. So you can imagine just how thrilled I was when I discovered about halfway through this book, that “Whisper on the Tide” was essentially what you’d get if you took that first movie and then took Kiera Knightley’s character from the third movie, but actually made her, you know, a good character and had her run the show.

While Caro has finally discovered her true calling, with the goddess of the ocean in her ear and a ship to her name, her time of late has been spent decidedly NOT at sea. After pledging herself to help Markos regain his lost throne, she’s recently discovered that much of what this help is made up of is running a few messages here and there and sitting through various speeches and rallies while Markos looks to drum up support for his cause. And all is not going well. The ocean god is displeased with Caro’s lack of sea time adventures and Markos few followers are pushing towards a marriage of convenience that would bring in much needed support. Caro has more and more difficulty seeing a path forward that allows her to keep both of her loves, the sea and Markos himself.

For all that the description of the story, both mine and the official one, puts a lot of weight on Caro’s decision about her future, part of what has made me like this series so much so far is Caro’s no nonsense approach to life and decision making. She doesn’t wilt away from tough choices and she is endlessly practical. In many ways, she sees her ability to make hard calls as her biggest asset to Markos, whom she often derides as getting too caught up in the emotions of things. Here, these character traits move the story along and keep it from being marred in the emotional duldrums of soap opera-ness that could have come about with a different character in this situation. But what makes it all the better is that through this book, Caro must learn that her own practicality and willingness to follow the harder path is not always a boon.

In short order, she’s back out on the ocean and beginning to understand how very little she knows of life as a sea captain, for all that she has her own ship and the ear of the sea goddess. The action never lets up and Caro’s adventures are filled with everything you’d want from a pirate adventure. We have storms, and ships sinking, and maroonings on islands, and lost treasure, and pirate lairs. Really, like I said at the beginning, all the best parts of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, though each with their own unique spin and connection to the larger plot.

For secondary characters, we sadly saw much less of not only Markos, but Caro’s magic-wielding cousin, Kente, was also out of commission much of the time. But what we did get from her was integral to the plot, and I liked the the fact that she had a role at all, as with the way the last book ended, I wasn’t sure we were going to see more from her. Markos, also, was abscenfor much of the middle portion of the book. I was ok with this. I still very much enjoyed the romance between him and Caro, and their banter and Markos’ own cluelessness about certain things were still some of the most fun pieces of dialogue in the story. However, by sidelining him and their romantic entanglements, Caro was given the space and time to really come into her own as a character and drive the plot on her own.

This also gave room to add a surprising new (?) character who I had not expected to see at all. I don’t want to spoil it, but I thoroughly enjoyed this addition and the character added a much needed sense of ambiguity and moral greyness to an otherwise fairly straightforward adventure story. To continue the “Pirates” compariosons, if Caro is Elizabeth and Markos is Will, this new character was Jack Sparrow and lived up to the utter delight that any character should be if trying to fill that role.

I also greatly enjoyed the expanded idea of Caro’s relationship with the sea god. While we heard a lot about the river god and the solid, calm prescense that he transferred to those who were chosen by him, we only briefly met the sea god in the last book. And true to the nature of the sea, she is much more volatile and unpredictable than the god of the river seemed to be. I was relived that she wasn’t reduced to just another magical ability for Caro, but given her own agendas and whims that often came into conflict with Caro’s. Their ongoing battle of wills was a large secondary driver of much of the story and I was very pleased with how it played out.

In the end, I enjoyed this book even more than the first. While “Song of the Current” had a slow start, this one jumped right into the action and never let off the gas pedal. Caro was her same sassy self, but was given more room to proactively drive the plot herself this go around. I still very much enjoyed the romance, but was pleased to see that it played second fiddle to the action and adventure. And between the ocean god and the surprise Jack Sparow-esque character, there was enough double crossing and cross purposes to keep readers on their toes about what would be coming next. If you enjoyed the first book, I’m sure you’ll love this one!

Rating 9: Take all the good parts of the “Pirates” movies, make them even better, and turn it into a book and ta da!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Whisper on the Tide” is a new title, so it isn’t on many relevant Goodreads lists, but it is on “Teen Pirate Books.”

Find “Song of the Current” at your library using WorldCat!

Kate’s Review: “Bruja Born”

Book: “Bruja Born” by Zoraida Córdova

Publishing Info: Sourcebooks Fire, June 2018

Where Did I Get This Book: I received an ARC from NetGalley.

Book Description: Three sisters. One spell. Countless dead.

Lula Mortiz feels like an outsider. Her sister’s newfound Encantrix powers have wounded her in ways that Lula’s bruja healing powers can’t fix, and she longs for the comfort her family once brought her. Thank the Deos for Maks, her sweet, steady boyfriend who sees the beauty within her and brings light to her life.

Then a bus crash turns Lula’s world upside down. Her classmates are all dead, including Maks. But Lula was born to heal, to fix. She can bring Maks back, even if it means seeking help from her sisters and defying Death herself. But magic that defies the laws of the deos is dangerous. Unpredictable. And when the dust settles, Maks isn’t the only one who’s been brought back…

Review: I first want to say a special thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC to this book!

Awhile back I read the book “Labyrinth Lost” by Zoraida Córdova, a fantasy novel that took some influence from “Alice In Wonderland”. I remember liking the characters in it for the most part (well, mostly Alex, our teen witch protagonist), but having a harder time with the fantasy world setting that she found herself in. Look, I have lots of opinions about “Alice in Wonderland,” as you guys know, and that one didn’t really live up to my very high expectations. But I liked Alex and her family enough that I told myself I’d continue in the series, so when I saw that “Bruja Born” was on the way I requested a copy from NetGalley, thinking I had little to lose. But I have great news. If “Labyrinth Lost” has similarities to “Alice in Wonderland,” “Bruja Born” also has a book to which it has similar themes and concepts. And that book is “Pet Sematary”.

The whimsical and dreamy fantasy setting from the first book has gone out the window, and Córdova has taken us straight into dark fantasy/horror for the second book of her “Brooklyn Brujas” series. And this is where, for me, the series has spread it wings and flown high, because THIS is the kind of book I was waiting for. This time, our main character is Lula, Alex’s older sister who was one of those who was in need of rescue in book one. Her emotional and physical scars from her time in Los Lagos have really weighed her down, and she has changed from popular and bubbly extrovert to sullen and bitter killjoy. I was really happy to see that we got to focus on her this time, as while I liked Alex I liked having a new character to explore. And Lula was so flawed and complex, more so than Alex, and getting to know her (as well as Rose, their youngest sister) made this book all the more rich. In fact, this book gave us a better grasp on all of the family members, and world building exploded and really sucked me in. Lula’s relationships, be it with her sisters or her mother or Maks as he becomes the living dead due to a spell that was cast, felt deeper and more rewarding this time around. I also really have to give Córdova props because while I found Lula to be really hard to take at times, I TOTALLY understood the choices that she made and believed every single one of them. And her romance with Maks is so, so emotional and tragic, as you know that it is doomed once he becomes more and more in tune with the undead side of him. But his emotions and feelings and memories are still there, and we have to slowly watch him fall away, and watch Lula potentially lose him all over again. Man was it painful and an emotional rollercoaster, and I, of course, was living for all the agony it was causing me.

The stakes have grown exponentially in this one as well. While those in danger in “Labyrinth Lost” was limited to the Mortiz family alone (which are high stakes for them, of course), the threat of an undead horde threatens all of New York City after the Mortiz Sister’s healing/resurrection spell goes terribly wrong. We get to see how the magical systems within the book not only affect the characters, but how they could potentially affect the world that they live in. There was a lot of loss in this book, loss that actually caught me off guard. This book goes dark, far darker than “Labyrinth Lost”, but I think that it is richer for it. Córdova also brings in concepts from her other stories outside of the “Brooklyn Brujas”, and fits them into this world and the Bruja culture seamlessly. When we find out that this world is not limited to witches, Córdova opens up a world of possibilities that I cannot wait to see her explore as the series goes on. This series has officially gone from ‘yeah, I guess I will go on with it’ to ‘OKAY SERIOUSLY WHEN DOES THE NEXT ONE COME OUT?!’, and now looking at both “Labyrinth Lost” and “Bruja Born” as two parts to the same whole, I’ve gained more appreciation for the former. The stories are very complementary, and the next one, almost assuredly following the youngest sister Rose, can only strengthen it more.

If you like teen horror and an emotional chaser to your terror, “Bruja Born” is definitely a book that you need to pick up. You do need to read “Labyrinth Lost” before going into this story, but given that I have a feeling that the “Brooklyn Brujas” series is going to be VERY strong overall, you’ll be glad that you did. And now seriously, when does the next one come out?

Rating 9: A solid dark fantasy that borders towards horror, “Bruja Born” brings the Mortiz Family into their own and expands into complex and deeply satisfying world building and magical systems.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Bruja Born” is included on the Goodreads lists “Latinx MG/YA Speculative Fiction”, and “#OwnVoices Novels of 2018”.

Find “Bruja Born” at your library using WorldCat!

Serena’s Review: “Cruel Beauty”

Book: “Cruel Beauty” by Rosamund Hodge

Publishing Info: Balzer + Bray, January 2014

Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!

Book Description: Since birth, Nyx has been betrothed to the evil ruler of her kingdom-all because of a foolish bargain struck by her father. And since birth, she has been in training to kill him.

With no choice but to fulfill her duty, Nyx resents her family for never trying to save her and hates herself for wanting to escape her fate. Still, on her seventeenth birthday, Nyx abandons everything she’s ever known to marry the all-powerful, immortal Ignifex. Her plan? Seduce him, destroy his enchanted castle, and break the nine-hundred-year-old curse he put on her people.

But Ignifex is not at all what Nyx expected. The strangely charming lord beguiles her, and his castle—a shifting maze of magical rooms—enthralls her.

As Nyx searches for a way to free her homeland by uncovering Ignifex’s secrets, she finds herself unwillingly drawn to him. Even if she could bring herself to love her sworn enemy, how can she refuse her duty to kill him? With time running out, Nyx must decide what is more important: the future of her kingdom, or the man she was never supposed to love.

Review: Sigh. I don’t know, I think I’m in some very specific, “Beauty and the Beast” related slump. Don’t get me wrong, you can tell from the above alone, this was better than the “Star-Touched Queen.” I mean, at least I finished it! There were things I legitimately liked about this story, but in the end, I was still very disappointed by yet another much-lauded retelling of this classic tale.

Nyx has known her entire life that she only has one destiny: to marry the Gentle Lord and try to save her world. But in reality, she is likely a sacrifice who will die on her wedding night at the hands of a demon lord who has imprisoned her world and tempted her people (including her father) with wicked bargains that never turn out well. But when she finds herself finally married and in a castle with secrets around every corner, she begins to question this mission. Who is this Gentle Lord really? How did he get here and what will it take to truly save herself and her people?

This story started out strong. As I said in my review of “The Star-Touched Queen,” I was enjoying this read as a palate cleanser for the first several chapters. The writing is strong, freed from the syrupy prose that drove me nuts with the former, the world-building was unique, and Nyx herself was complicated and interesting.

Nyx’s world is essentially a version of England had it remained under its Roman influences. Her people have combined the folklore of the original residents of Arcadia and the Roman pantheon of gods and myths. These myths and characters are sprinkled throughout the story, and I enjoyed this new take on the magical elements that came directly from some of these myths and how they could be twisted to fit a Beauty and the Beast like story.

Nyx also started off as a promising heroine. She’s a brave, strong young woman, but also embittered and resentful of the role she is meant to play. Her father’s deal required he choose one of his twin daughters to marry the Gentle Lord, and Nyx has felt the weight of being the lesser loved for her entire life. What’s more, her sweet and naive sister has played a complicated role in Nyx’s life. She is innocent and has done no wrong, and Nyx can’t help but resent her. And this resentment leads to Nyx’s own self-loathing at her inability to disconnect her father’s choices from her relationship with her sister. So this was all a strong foundation. Nyx is presented as conflicted, but determined. Not perfect, but recognizing her own flaws. Seemingly, a character I should root for.

The problem became that Nyx was SO conflicted that I couldn’t root for her because I could never be sure what her actual goals were from one page to the next. Once she gets into the castle, meets the Gentle Lord, and begins going about her mission, Nyx becomes a bundle of confusion and indecision. This would be fine, except for the fact that every other page she states that she is DETERMINED to do such and such. Then a few pages go by and she’s DETERMINED to do the exact opposite. Her emotions are all over the place, and they are all the most extreme at any point. She hates her sister and the Gentle Lord. But no, she loves her sister and maybe the Gentle Lord is OK. It got to the point that whenever she had a new revelation, I couldn’t invest any true meaning into it, because chances were good she was going to walk back that decision/emotion in just a few pages, depending on whatever position on things the person she next interacted with had.

There was also a dreaded love triangle introduced almost immediately. Granted it was a unique version of a love triangle (more on that later), but a love triangle it remained. What’s more, both points of the love triangle capitalized on flaws that particularly irk me in romances. One was pretty much an instalove connection, with Nyx and this man kissing on almost their first interaction and their practically announcing their love a few interactions later.

The other came with all the complications of the romantic character being a truly bad guy as far as Nyx knows at this point. Obviously, with any Beauty and the Beast story (or Hades/Persephone, what have you), you know going in that there is going to be a change of heart somewhere along the line. But my one requirement for these types of romances is that the change of heart comes AFTER the love interest has done something to make the heroine begin to question her assumptions about his cruelty. He needs to earn not only her love, but first even the opportunity for her to consider him as even a decent person who might be worthy of love. When the heroine, like Nyx here, falls for the “Beast” when he’s still full-on in beast mode and has done nothing to redeem himself, it’s not a tragic love story but instead another example of setting up unhealthy and scary expectations for the type of behavior that is acceptable in a romantic partner. No amount of “hotness” makes it OK. When Nyx first starts feeling drawn to him, he’s still only the demon who killed her mother and is actively killing more of her people. She has no reason to question this, even if we the readers know this tale backwards and forwards and can suspect there’s more to it than that. She doesn’t know that, and it makes any attachment she feels for him at this point just another example of problematic romances in YA fiction.

The other big problem I had was that this love triangle also gave away the answer to the end of the book. I had no problem whatsoever immediately guessing the secrets involved in this story right off the bat. Not only does this drain any dramatic tension from the story, but it damages Nyx’s characterization by making her seem rather dull-witted for not figuring it out herself. What’s worse, the author makes the bizarre choice of having Nyx discover the answer halfway through the story and then conveniently forget. And that’s not even getting into the fact that the device used to reveal these facts to her had killed every wife of the Gentle Lord before, but not Nyx. It’s never explained why not Nyx, not even a tertiary throw-away comment that would somehow make her an exception. Nope, she’s just special because the story needs her to be.

Between the love triangle, Nyx’s inconsistent and hard to root for characterization, and the early reveal of an obvious conclusion, I really struggled with this book. It did have a unique magical world set up and I enjoyed Nyx at the beginning, but after she arrived at the castle, the story took a distinct downwards trajectory and never managed to recover.

Rating 4: Another disappointing “Beauty and the Beast” retelling, this time with improvements to the heroine, but an unnecessary and plot-revealing love triangle.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Cruel Beauty” is included on a million Goodreads lists about heroines who fall for bad guys and best fairytale retellings, but I just can’t. Go read “Beauty” if you haven’t already. And if you have, give yourself a treat and re-read it!

Find “Cruel Beauty” at your library using WorldCat!

Serena’s Review: “Like a River Glorious”

Book: “Like a River Glorious” by Rae Carson

Publishing Info: Greenwillow, September 2016

Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!

Book Description: After a harrowing journey across the country, Leah Westfall and her friends have finally arrived in California and are ready to make their fortunes in the Gold Rush. Lee has a special advantage over the other new arrivals in California—she has the ability to sense gold, a secret known only by her handsome best friend Jefferson and her murdering uncle Hiram.

Lee and her friends have the chance to be the most prosperous settlers in California, but Hiram hasn’t given up trying to control Lee and her power. Sabotage and kidnapping are the least of what he’ll do to make sure Lee is his own. His mine is the deepest and darkest in the territory, and there Lee learns the full extent of her magical gift, the worst of her uncle, and the true strength of her friendships. To save everyone, she vows to destroy her uncle and the empire he is building—even at the cost of her own freedom.

Previously reviewed: “Walk on Earth a Stranger”

Review: As I said in my review of the first book in this series, “Walk on Earth a Stranger” was pretty much what you’d get if you turned the old Oregon Trail game into a full length novel. Add in a small dash of fantasy with Lee’s gold sense, a few more references to the prejudices and wrongs of the time, and there ya go! As a travelogue, I very much enjoyed the story. But in the end, they arrived at California. Without the travel/Oregon Trail part of the story, would this series continue to hold up. And the answer is…kind of?

Lee and her friends have finally arrived in California, found a claim spot ripe with gold, relying on Lee’s gold sense, and begun to set up their own little town. But when a string of misfortune’s start befalling the growing township and its residents, Lee’s the only one to suspect the truth: her uncle Hiram is back after her and these little “accidents” are his way of warning her. Determined to set things straight once and for all, Lee and Jefferson set out to confront her uncle and gain Lee’s freedom. But it all goes wrong, and Lee is about to find out just how awful her uncle truly is.

So I have very mixed feelings on this book. But I’ll start with the things that I know I enjoyed. I still very much liked the mixture of a historical setting and Lee’s magical abilities. If nothing else, the author makes you feel like you’re in this time period. There are no missteps, and I always felt fully immersed in this world. The challenges of living during this period are clear: weather, nature, sickness/injury, they must overcome it all and the day to day life is so distinct and well-described that I never questioned the authenticity of this world. The real skill was then in merging Lee’s magical abilities into this world without disturbing the balance of realism. Her gold sense played a background role in the first book, serving primarily as a motivation for the villain and coming into play here and there when needed. Here, even with Lee’s growing understanding of her own powers, her gold sense still remains mostly in the background. It is the crux of the conflict, but it isn’t really used much beyond that, besides in the final conflict. This balance allowed the historical elements and characters themselves to serve instead as the main point of interest for the book.

I also still enjoyed Lee as a character. Here, she is forced to confront the role that she plays in the way that history is unfolding. Yes, she is sympathetic and “ahead of her time” for a character living in this period of history, but she is not excused from responsibility. She’s still claimed land that belonged to others and through her and the others mining for gold, irrecoverably changed the very landscape upon which they’re living. I liked that she wasn’t let off the hook for these actions and, while she recognizes the harm, she doesn’t have, or is given, any quick and easy solutions. What’s more, she doesn’t always come to these conclusions on her own, but must be informed of her own ignorance and remaining prejudices by those around her.

However, Lee wasn’t given much to do in this book, frankly. In the last, we saw how she contributed to the wagon train which she was a part of. She took action on her own and used her own skills, not just her gold sense, to solve problems. Given the nature of this story, Lee is sidelined for much of this book. It is up to others to plan and plot, and while she’s not strictly speaking a damsel in distress, she’s probably only one step away. And, because the story is told from her point of view, the reader is left with a lot of inaction and waiting, just as Lee is herself.

And in that time, the book becomes very hard to read. As I said, the author doesn’t flinch away from portraying some very ugly realities for what this time period could be like for many people, especially at the hands of the worst of the white settlers (though, as I said, even the “best” are not let off the hook for their own compliance and ultimate self-interest). While I admire this dedication to revealing the ugliness that existed, it also began to be almost too much as the story progressed. Because of Lee’s own captivity, the reader also feels like a captive audience to pages and pages of depravity and various horrors.

It is this combination of reduced action for Lee herself and this laser focus on some very tough scenes that made the story lag quite a bit in the middle. “Lag” is even a strange word for it, since boredom was definitely not the emotion most sparked by the harsh images presented. But plot-wise, the story did feel adrift and wallowing. The action picked up again in the end, and I liked that even in the resolution, things do not end in any type of perfect, utopia-like fashion. This specific horror might have been ended, but the world that they all are living in is unchanged.

Again, this story also resolves in a way that leaves me questioning where the third book will go from here, similarly to the first. While I did struggle with this book a bit, I’m still curious to see where things will ultimately end up and I’m sure I’ll pick up the next one soon!

Rating 6: A reduced role for our heroine combined with some really tough scenes seemed to negatively affect the pacing of this book. But the historical aspects are still excellent.

Reader’s Advisory:

“Like a River Glorious” can be found on these Goodreads lists: “YA & Middle Grade California Gold Rush Fiction” and “YA Historical Fiction of 2016.”

Find “Like a River Glorious” at your library using WorldCat!

A Revisit to Fear Street: “Switched”

2534782 Book: “Switched” (Fear Street #31) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, 1995

Where Did I Get This Book: An eBook from the library!

Book Description: She traded places with a killer…

There’s a little cabin in the Fear Street woods where a girl can really lose her mind. In fact, she can change it into someone else’s. That’s what happened to Nicole and Lucy. Now Lucy is in Nicole’s body, and Nicole is in Lucy’s. What a trip!

But for Nicole, what a trap! Because Lucy is using Nicole’s body to get away with murder!

Had I Read This Before: No

The Plot: We meet our protagonist Nicole, who is having a REALLY BAD DAY YOU GUYS. She broke a nail, her parents are totally unreasonable in that they want her to tell them where she is and if she’s going to be late (what the HELL parents?), and her boyfriend David has been acting SO distant lately! To make matters worse, when she didn’t hand in a biology paper that she didn’t even both to do (and when asked why she didn’t do it all she can say is ‘I don’t know’), her teacher Mr. Frost says that he will accept it late as long as she gets it in on Monday. BUT YOU GUYS, IT’S FRIDAY, THAT IS SO UNFAIR BECAUSE SHE WANTS TO HANG OUT WITH DAVID THIS WEEKEND!

giphy6 — Yes, please tell me why your middle class healthy teenage existence is the worst thing in the history of ever…. (source)

Mr. Frost remains steadfast and Nicole is stuck taking responsibility. As she leaves the classroom she runs into David, and is about to break the news to him that she has to cancel their date, but before she can he stumbles through some monosyllabic wishy washing saying he can’t hang out because he made other plans. After more mumbling on his part, she asks if he’s breaking up with her, and he confirms that he is because it’s ‘too much’. She doesn’t know what that means but I’m sure we’re going to find out. He then hurries away but promises he’ll call her. As Nicole leaves the school, she runs into her BFF Lucy. When Lucy asks what’s wrong, Nicole tells her that she had an awful day, but confides in the reader that she trusts Lucy with all her heart and is so happy that she has such a good friend. To that I say ‘uh oh’. Lucy says that she had a bad day too, and says she knows how to fix it all! They should switch bodies!!! As if this is something totally natural, as natural as saying ‘let’s go to Pete’s Pizza!’, or ‘let’s have a slumber party!’.

Nicole is also confused but follows Lucy through Fear Street Woods and past the old Fear Mansion. She asks Lucy if they are REALLY going to switch bodies, and Lucy wants to be sure that Nicole is all in. Nicole says that she is, because 1) she’s so sick of her life right now, and 2) she wonders what it would be like to be with Kent, Lucy’s boyfriend. I feel like there is an absolute consent problem going on with that though, and even she herself admits that these are sick, strange thoughts. But they sally forth, and come upon a stone wall in the forest. Lucy says that her grandfather told her that no one knows how the wall got there, but it’s called the “Changing Wall”, and criminals would force innocent people to switch bodies with them so they could get away from the consequences of their crimes while someone else took the fall. Her grandfather learned this from the caretaker at Fear Street Cemetery. Lucy explains that all they have to do is climb to the top of the wall, grab hands, and jump. When they land, they will have switched bodies in a “Freaky Friday” kinda scenario. Nicole is skeptical and hesitant, but when Lucy insists that they HAVE to she’s convinced. They climb up the wall, and a bird’s freaky-ass screech is kind of putting Nicole off, and she wonders if it’s a warning? But to hell with it, because they grab hands and jump!…. AND IT WORKS! They have a moment of giddiness, and swear that the won’t tell anyone and that when they’re sick of it they’ll come back and change back. Nicole admits that she may not want to change back, and tells Lucy that David dumped her, and Lucy says that she may just try to win him back. When Nicole brings up the VERY UNETHICAL fact that she will be wooing Kent under FALSE pretenses, Lucy says that she doesn’t care. They start to walk back (though Nicole is having a hard time at first, not used to this body, which is actually kind of an interesting concept), and they part ways, Nicole excited to be trying out a fun, new life…. Until she gets to Lucy’s house, because when she opens the door, the finds Mr. and Mrs. Kramer SPRAWLED OUT DEAD ON THE FLOOR IN POOLS OF BLOOD!!!!

giphy7 — THAT WAS FASTER THAN I EXPECTED. (source)

Nicole SPRINTS back to her own house, wanting to tell Lucy what happened, but no one is home. Which is ODD, because wasn’t Lucy going straight to Nicole’s house? Regardless, Nicole has no luck there, and decides that she can tell Kent EVERYTHING because Kent will OBVIOUSLY believe her, right? I am DUBIOUS, but she does run to Kent’s house and when he answers she immediately spills her guts about the Changing Wall and finding Lucy’s parents dead, and he seems to believe her story… But then when he goes to get her some water, she hears him talking to someone. When she looks into the kitchen, he’s on the phone with the police. Whoops. He comes back with water, but Nicole bolts and decides to go back to Lucy’s, get into clean clothes, and make a plan from there.

She goes back into Lucy’s house and goes to her room to change, but finds that her closet is empty! And so are her drawers! And what’s worse, there’s a bloody knife on her desk. Nicole is blindsided by this, but honestly, I’M not because of COURSE Lucy was going to be the worst because it’s fucking written on the back of the book! Lucy also left behind a note in her handwriting, with a bloody fingerprint and everything, saying ‘I HAD TO KILL THEM, I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE’. So now Nicole finally figures out that Lucy killed her parents, convinced Nicole to switch bodies on her, and is going to let Nicole take the fall since she’s in Lucy’s body and no one will EVER believe her.

So as Nicole tries to formulate a plan (force her to switch bodies again? Kill her?), but decides that just finding her for now is the best first step. But then there’s a knocking on the door. She goes back to the main area and she peeks out the curtain and sees two police officers on the front step. Determined not to give up without a fight, Nicole escapes out the back. The police pursue her on foot for a bit, but she escapes through the trick boards in the back fence and hides in a neighbor’s play house. The police don’t find her, and once they leave she climbs out, formulating a new plan in her mind.

And I am SO FUCKING EXCITED THAT THIS BOOK IS SO BATSHIT INSANE.

Nicole runs back to the school, and is able to get into her car because she is one of those people who hides an extra key in a magnetic box under the fender. So lucky for her it actually came in handy with it’s intended purpose, and didn’t end up being used by a car thief who knows all the tricks. As she drives, hoping to find Lucy at her house, she thinks about what she’s going to say, going for ‘I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS’ kind of guilt trip. But there isn’t a car in the driveway and no one appears to be home, but the lights they leave on when they are gone AREN’T on so Lucy must have taken their car? It seems like a strange tidbit, but this is by far the strangest Fear Street story yet so I’ll let it slide. She eventually finds Lucy at Pete’s Pizza hanging out with some other girls, their friends Margie and Hannah, seeing her through the window (but seeing her in Nicole’s body, which has to be weird no matter how you slice it). The girls are arguing over the last slice of pizza. Nicole goes into the pizza parlor and Margie and Hannah look shocked to see her, AND they know that she’s Nicole instead of Lucy? So Nicole surmises that they must be in on it, and when she asks where Lucy is they say she isn’t there, and hasn’t been here. But Nicole points out that if they haven’t seen her how do they know that SHE is actually NICOLE? When they are still playing dumb, she leaves, thinking Lucy can’t be far. But she can’t find her, and when she gets back to her car she THINKS that she’s seen her, but no, it’s Margie, and she and Hannah say that they just want to talk. But Nicole CAN’T be bothered and zooms off, wondering why they looked so scared, and thinks that Lucy must have threatened them, and decides to go back to Kent’s house. She thinks that maybe she can threaten him for information and grabs a knife, but when she enters the den she finds that he’s been DECAPITATED!! And to make matters worse, as she’s processing this two police officers peek in the window and see her with a knife in her hand!! When they enter they also know that she’s Nicole…. And I finally see where this is all going. But anyhoo…. She tries to run to the back door but finds herself cornered, so she instead runs to the basement, dives into the coal shoot, and shimmies her way out and into the night.

She runs all the way to Fear Street and finds herself thinking about Lucy, whom she thought was her best friend, and the stuff in her life that might have driven her this far. Her parents didn’t like that she and Kent were so serious, but Nicole had always liked him. And when Lucy was in that car accident while back Nicole had stayed by her side in the hospital, never giving up on her when others had. She then remembers that she has a picture of Lucy in her wallet, and thinks that maybe she can use the picture to switch bodies back! So finds the Changing Wall, climbs up on it, and jumps off… but yeah, it doesn’t work of course. So in despair she falls asleep in the dirt.

The next day Nicole decides to try and get into some new clothes at her parents house, and when she arrives she scans the newspaper on the stoop for any news on the murders. There are no stories, but Nicole figures that perhaps they aren’t letting any info out until she’s caught. She peeks in the window and sees her parents looking way stressed and worried, and while she wants to go in and tell them that she is there she knows they won’t believe her. They get in the car and drive off, and Nicole sneaks inside, showers, and thinks that if she can just talk to Margie and Hannah again she may get information about Lucy. So she goes to the school, avoids the grey suited police officers from the night before, and hides until they leave (after a crazy rigamarole involving a bus, a hedge, and a crabby woman with a hose). She goes inside the school and runs for the girl’s locker room, knowing Margie has gym fourth period. She hides in a closet and waits. Eventually fourth period comes by and familiar girls voices fill the locker room, including Margie’s, who SCREAMS! When Nicole runs out to see if she’s okay, it turns out a Charley Horse just got the best of her. The other girls go ahead of her when Miss Hawkins blows the whistle, and then Nicole confronts Margie. Margie asks her to sit so they can talk but Nicole tells her EVERYTHING, the Changing Wall, the dead people in Lucy’s life, and she asks if Margie knows where Lucy is. Margie says she does, but before she can say any more people come into the locker room. Nicole hides in the closet again, and when she leaves MARGIE IS NOW DEAD ON THE FLOOR WITH A SKULL CRUSHED BY A SHOT PUT!!!

Nicole is now convinced that Lucy is following her because whenever she talks to someone about this, they end up dead. So for whatever reason her new plan is to go visit Lucy’s grandmother Carla who lives on a farm out in Conklin. Nicole used to spend a couple weeks of the summer there with Lucy and Carla, and Nicole thinks that maybe Lucy is there because she took all of her clothes. And Carla knows Nicole so if she saw Lucy in Nicole’s body it wouldn’t be too weird. So Nicole gets on a bus to Conklin (side note. I’m pretty sure that the witch girl in “One Evil Summer” was named Conklin, surname wise), and ends up at Grandma Carla’s farm. She knocks on the door, and Carla lets her in, happy/surprised to see her. She asks Carla is ‘Nicole’ is there, and Carla dodges the question and offers to give her some soup because she’s made a large pot today. When Nicole asks if ‘she’ has been there, Carla balks and goes to get the soup… and then calls the police. When Nicole confronts her about it, Carla suggests that they talk about it, but Nicole runs again and hides in the barn, certain that the cops are coming for her. And in the barn, who does she see? LUCY!!! When Nicole grabs her and confronts her, Lucy says that her name is not Lucy, but NANCY, and that Lucy made them switch bodies too!! Nicole freaks out but then ‘Nancy’ says no she really is ‘Lucy’ and she bolts out the barn door. Nicole follows her, but then is tackled to the ground by…. KENT!! He says that he has come for her to help her, and Nicole sees Lucy fall into the well, and hears her asking for help. Kent says that Nicole should just ‘let her drown’, and YOU GUYS KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING RIGHT?!?! Nicole elbows him away and runs for the well to help Lucy, but it’s no use, she can’t pull her out, and Lucy drowns in Nicole’s body. Kent does come back to her and pulls her away, and he leads her back to Carla’s house. As they walk up the drive, suddenly Lucy appears and tells Kent that they should switch bodies….. AND PULLS HIS HEAD OFF LIKE IT WAS ATTACHED WITH VELCRO. Nicole freaks, but then a car door slam gets her attention. The Grey Suited police officers are here, and they come up to get Nicole. When Nicole turns back to Kent and Lucy, they’re gone. Then ANOTHER car comes up the drive, and who is inside???? Well, Nicole’s parents, for one. But then THE KRAMERS!! LUCY’S PARENTS!! THE ONES WHO NICOLE FOUND DEAD!!! AND THEN KENT TOO!!! They all swarm her, making sure that is is okay. Because Y’ALL, LUCY IS LONG DEAD. SHE DIED IN THAT CAR CRASH AWHILE BACK. And Nicole has been having delusional spells ever since, imagining that Lucy is still alive, or SOMETIMES imagining that she IS Lucy!!! Those grey suited men?? NOT police officers!! THEY’RE DOCTORS!!! AND APPARENTLY, sometimes Nicole ALSO has hallucinations of people around her dying awful, violent deaths!! So The Kramers, Kent, and Margie are ALL just fine!!

giphy9 — R.L. STINE YOU MAGNIFICENT BASTARD!!! (source)

We last see Nicole in a mental ward, feeling like the worst of her hallucinations are behind her. She’s going to be let out any day now, given a clean bill of health. And the best part is that Lucy has been by her side the whole time. Nicole knows that when she and Lucy are let out they are going to graduate together, and it will all be perfect. THE. END.

Body Count: None, I guess! Except for Lucy off page before the story started.

Romance Rating: 1 because David dumps Nicole in the first chapter and there’s nothing else to see, romance wise.

Bonkers Rating: 10!!! A perfect 10!! This was actually a really great twist, the kind that you see all the time in thriller and mystery books now, but I didn’t expect R.L. Stine to craft it back in 1995 for his “Fear Street” fans!….. So did he actually write this?

Fear Street Relevance: 8, because the Changing Wall is in the Fear Street Woods and we revisit the good ol’ Fear Mansion ever so briefly.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger: Honestly, they were all golden. There was not a dud in the bunch. All were relevant and none felt like cheats.

That’s So Dated! Moments: At the mall there is still a CD store to make note of.

sam-goody — Rest in Peace, Sam Goody. (source)

Best Quote:

“I wore a black tank top and dark denim jeans. Black to match my mood.”

2Edgy4Me.

Conclusion: “Switched” was AWESOME. It has a place up there with the other books I’ve greatly enjoyed in this series, like “Missing” and “The Secret Bedroom”. Definitely read this one if you have the chance because it won’t disappoint!! Up next is “College Weekend”!

Serena’s Review: “The Star-Touched Queen”

While I make an effort to complete most books I read, every once in a while I come upon one that I just can’t get through. When I find myself repeatedly putting down a book to the point that attempting to finish it is taking up weeks of my time, I sometimes come to the conclusion that a book is a book, not a life and death contract to read until completion. There are too many books in the world that I will never get to to spends days on end trying to finish a book that I already know will not be my cup of tea. Sadly, one such of these books came across my desk recently.

Book: “The Star-Touched Queen” by Roshani Chokshi

Publishing Info: St. Martin’s Griffin, April 2016

Where Did I Get this Book: audiobook from the library!

Book Description: Maya is cursed. With a horoscope that promises a marriage of death and destruction, she has earned only the scorn and fear of her father’s kingdom. Content to follow more scholarly pursuits, her whole world is torn apart when her father, the Raja, arranges a wedding of political convenience to quell outside rebellions. Soon Maya becomes the queen of Akaran and wife of Amar. Neither roles are what she expected: As Akaran’s queen, she finds her voice and power. As Amar’s wife, she finds something else entirely: Compassion. Protection. Desire…

But Akaran has its own secrets—thousands of locked doors, gardens of glass, and a tree that bears memories instead of fruit. Soon, Maya suspects her life is in danger. Yet who, besides her husband, can she trust? With the fate of the human and Otherworldly realms hanging in the balance, Maya must unravel an ancient mystery that spans reincarnated lives to save those she loves the most…including herself.

Review: Thankfully, it’s been a while since I’ve had to write a DNF review. There have been a few stinkers here and there, but usually I was able to push through for one reason or another. In all honesty, I’m not quite sure what makes up the real difference between a very low rated book that I managed to get through, and one that I just put down. But with this one, since it was an audiobook, I had the extra discouragement of looking down at my book and seeing how many hours, and hours, and hours were left of it. And I just couldn’t.

The story is one that we’ve all (those of us who read fantasy/fairy tale fiction, at least) read before. And that’s not a mark against it! I love “Beauty & the Beast”/”East of the Sun, West of the Moon”/Hades & Persephone stories. They’re probably my favorite of the typical fairytale inspiration pieces out there. And luckily for me, there are a lot of them. But unluckily for this book, there are a lot of them THAT ARE BETTER.

As Kate and I have said many times, each reader has their book and each book, its reader. What’s more, this was a very popular book when it come out so I know this is an unpopular opinion. And I can even see some of the aspects that would have drawn other readers to it. For me, the best part of this story was its connection to India, its traditions, food, clothes, and own fairytales and legends. This setting and cultural connection provided a unique stage upon which to set a very familiar story. And if it had been successful in other ways, I would have been praising this all the day long for pushing the conventions of what we’re used to seeing for stories like this.

However, it was not successful in other ways. There were three main flaws that lead me to reaching a breaking point with this book: the main character, the instalove relationship, and the writing style itself.

Maya is a terrible leading character. If you asked me right now to name personality traits for this character, I couldn’t. Is she brave? Does she have a good sense of humor? What drives her? I don’t have an answer. In the very beginning of this book, we get a few hints that she has an interest in scholarly pursuits, but this never comes into play throughout the rest of the story, leaving it less as a character development piece and more of a “oh, well Disney’s Belle loved books, so…” What’s worse, the entire story is driven by events happening around her and her being lead by the nose by others. She literally decides to kill herself because someone tells her to. And then five minutes later, marries a complete stranger because he tells her to. She also has strong tendencies towards the “too stupid too live” trope. What’s that? The castle is dangerous and might tempt me down bad paths? Yes! I will immediately run away from those I know and not tell them about a mysterious door that is COVERED IN BURN MARKS AND CHAINS that is calling to me. Nothing suspicious there!

This all leads into the instalove. Amar arrives out of no where, tells her to marry him, and then proceeds to wax poetic about his great love for her throughout the rest of the story. But why. Not only can I not identify a single personality trait that Maya can call her own (besides cow-like docility, perhaps), but given the nature of their “marriage” they know nothing about one another. It’s not flattering to have a complete stranger proclaim undying love, it’s creepy. What’s worse, the “happy ending,” as it were, is arrived at about halfway through the story. But, again, because Maya is an idiot, she must make terrible decisions and ruin this. Again, because a complete stranger tells her to and against all of the “love” that she has for Amar.

The older I’ve gotten, the more curmudgeony I’ve been about instalove stories. I never liked them, but now it’s almost an immediate death knoll to any enjoyment I might find in a book. Do you know what readers mostly like about romance? They like reading about how it develops! What makes these two people form this incredible and rare connection with each other? How do they learn to know, trust, and rely on the other? What challenges do they overcome, either plot-wise or emotionally to make this burgeoning relationship work? I only need about a paragraph tops of them fully in love telling readers about how great it is. Authors like this have taken literally the most boring part of the story and made it the ENTIRE story.

And this ties neatly to the writing itself. This book takes purple prose and melodrama to a whole new level. If you cut out the metaphors (and that’s a generous term for what’s going on here) and sugary drool of prose out of this book, you’d be left with maybe half? a third? of what the book is now. Let me put my English major nerd glasses on for a moment here. A metaphor or simile or comparative description of some kind is meant to draw an image in the reader’s mind. It might not be the common image associated with whatever you’re discussing, but it must be clear and make sense.

“I want to measure eternity with your laughter.”

“I see only night and smoke, dreams and glass, embers and wings. And I would not have you any other way.”

What does this mean. Seriously. What. And that’s only two examples. When it wasn’t straight out not making a lick of sense, the insta-love congealed with the prose to form a sappy, saccharine, gushy mess. Amar (again, after knowing Maya for a day) says that he would literally trade anything…for a strand of her hair.

His voice echoed with all the desperation of someone who has not slaked his thirst in eons and had just spied a goblet of water sweating beads of condensation, thick as planets. His voice lulled me, coated me.

Sentence, after sentence, after sentence of this. It was exhausting. If, as an author, you just want to string together pretty words that sound pretty together, perhaps write a nice poem. A novel requires more. Words that makes sense together is a very low bar.

I did not enjoy this book at all. The Indian setting was unique and there was a horse friend that I liked, but neither were enough to get me past the overly wrought language and a heroine who I began to actively root against shortly into the book. There was a very distinct decision that she made about halfway through the book that cemented my decision to put this down, and I really have no regrets. There are too many books in the world. And, most notable in this case, there are too many books in the world that tell almost this exact same story but do it well. I actually moved straight on to “Cruel Beauty,” a book this has been compared to, and am already enjoying it so much more. And I’m on page 30.

Rating: DNF

Reader’s Advisory:

“The Star-Touched Queen” is included on these Goodreads lists: “Hades and Persephone” and “South Asian YA/MG.”

Find “The Star-Touched Queen” at your library using Worldcat!

Serena’s Review: “Honor Among Thieves”

Book: “Honor Among Thieves” by Rachel Caine & Ann Aguirre

Publishing Info: Katherine Tegen Books, February 2018

Where Did I Get this Book: bought it

Book Description: Petty criminal Zara Cole has a painful past that’s made her stronger than most, which is why she chose life in New Detroit instead of moving with her family to Mars. In her eyes, living inside a dome isn’t much better than a prison cell.

Still, when Zara commits a crime that has her running scared, jail might be exactly where she’s headed. Instead Zara is recruited into the Honors, an elite team of humans selected by the Leviathan—a race of sentient alien ships—to explore the outer reaches of the universe as their passengers.

Zara seizes the chance to flee Earth’s dangers, but when she meets Nadim, the alien ship she’s assigned, Zara starts to feel at home for the first time. But nothing could have prepared her for the dark, ominous truths that lurk behind the alluring glitter of starlight.

Review: It’s been way too long since I’ve reviewed a sci fi novel on this blog. While I love the fact that YA fantasy fiction is booming, it does make me sad that sci fi fiction seems to have been left on the sidelines for the most part. I mean, you can have just as much fun in space as you can riding around on a horse with a sword! Arguably, more. I’ve also read a few of Rachel Caine’s books in the past, and the book description for this one, of a teenage girl forming a connection with a sentient ship/alien, sounded right up my alley!

So this book was a bit of a roller coaster for me. There were things that I really enjoyed. Things that I wasn’t expecting at all that I quite liked. And other things that kind of knocked me out of the story with too many questions about plausibility and the pacing of the plot.

To start with the things I really liked: the characters. Zara is a great leading lady and the authors walk the line fairly well in keeping with the hardness that has made up her life on the street, the trauma that still exists from her childhood, while also making her sympathetic, and more importantly, believable. Her harshness is well-grounded in past events, and as the story progresses and she forms a connection with Nadim and her fellow shipmate Beatriz, we see her not only begin to open up to those around her but begin to question her own understanding of friendship and loyalty and how damaged some of her past relationships really were.

Nadim was everything I could have wanted from a sentient ship/alien. He was sufficiently “other,” with his own biological quirks and distance from human concepts of gender and other social norms. As the story unfolds, we begin to unravel the mysteries of his species and see in what ways Nadim stands out from the other Leviathan. While his relationship with Zara and Beatriz are at the core of the story, we also see glimpses into the role he plays among his own people and social hierarchies that exist there. I particularly enjoyed the parallels between the Leviathan and whales, especially their unique relationship to sound and music.

Beatriz took me completely by surprise. As you can see in the book description, there is no indication that this isn’t just a Zara/Nadim story. Instead, the Honors program is set up to send two cadets into space with their own Leviathan, and Beatriz is Zara’s crew mate. We all know how much I love sisterhood/girl friendship stories, so I was thrilled when I realized that’s what was being set up here. What’s more, Beatriz is an excellent contrast to Zara. Originally, she struggles much more with the vastness of space and the otherness of Nadim. But she also brings unique strengths to the crew with her abilities as a pilot and masterful singing voice. What made this all the more interesting was the idea that while Zara and Nadim have a special connection, it is by no means the only connection that matters. Beatriz, too, is just as much a needed and valued member of this team. It really is more of a three-way relationship than a traditional romance, with each pairing having their own specific connections to each other.

My struggles with this book had a lot to do with the first third of the story. The pacing seemed off for much of the beginning, with Zara rushing through several different set pieces and action scenes before finally landing herself with Nadim. We have her on the streets! Then she’s caught! Now she’s in a facility! Now she’s famous! Finally out to space! It all zips by in only a few chapters. I get that the authors wanted to get to the good stuff, but the story might have been served better had these things been told in flash backs. As it stands, I felt off balance for the entire first third and had a hard time really connecting to the characters and the story because it was too busy jumping from one thing to another.

My other criticism also comes from this first bit and it’s a straight out plausibility issue. Again, I get that the authors wanted to get Zara to the ship as fast as possible and for her to go through most of her character growth through her experiences there. However, the way it is set up, we’re supposed to believe that all training and preparation for the Honors takes place over a single week. And that somehow, after that, they’re ready to go out on a year-long mission and manage complicated scientific and mathematical equations during their work. The way the Honors are chosen makes this even worse. It’s not like they’re coming from a pool of candidates who have all had rigorous training up to this point and could theoretically be made ready with a short turn around. No, this is just a random draw from the entire population and Zara herself has been living on the streets for years, with no education to speak of.

I would always have a problem with this set up, and it’s just made worse by the story its serving. I LIKED the science and action in this book. It’s a true science fiction story with discussions of the equations needed to pilot in space, the knowledge of natural science needed to explore new planets, and the machinery skills necessary to maintain a ship. But with each moment when these skills were necessary for their survival or the completion of a task, I was reminded of how impossible it would be for Zara and Beatriz to have learned any of this in only one week. So each time it came up, I was thrown out of the book. Again, maybe flashbacks to a longer training time period would have helped this. All I really needed was something saying that, say, even 6 months went by with blah blah boring training blah. Great! Now I can buy it! But as it stands, I had a real problem with it.

But those things aside, I still very much enjoyed this book. It reminded me of how awesome books in space can be, and it fully capitalized on the concept of a living spaceship forming a connection to its pilots. The action was suspenseful and varied, and the mysteries about the Leviathan that were answered and that still remain are enough to keep me reading. Plus, one can hope that now that we’re through the first book, in a second outing, I’d have less problems with their skill sets since maybe they just picked things up what with their time on the ship. If you like science fiction and are able to turn your brain off a bit, this is definitely one worth checking out!

Rating 7: Plausibility issues aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of teenagers in space with a living ship!

Reader’s Advisory:

“Honor Among Thieves” is a newer title, so isn’t on many relevant Goodrads lists, but it is on “Teenagers . . . IN SPACE!”

Find “Honor Among Thieves” at your library using WorldCat!

A Revisit to Fear Street: “Final Grade”

Book: “Final Grade” (Fear Street #30) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, 1995

Where Did I Get This Book: ILL from the library!

Book Description: Everyone thinks she killed her teacher

Intense, competitive, Lily Bancroft had good reasons to hate him. She lives to win, and he was about to destroy her dreams. But murder? That was going too far, even for someone as driven as Lily.

She’s innocent. But that hasn’t stopped the whispers behind her back. Or the weird phone calls late at night. Then someone else is brutally murdered and suddenly Lily is drawn into a nightmare she can’t begin to control. Will her final grade be her last?

Had I Read This Before: Yes.

The Plot: We meet our protagonist Lily Bancroft as she’s arguing with her social sciences teacher Mr. Reiner. Seems that he gave her a B on her test and she feels that she deserves an A because she just does, okay? Mr. Reiner isn’t swayed, and after having a fantasy about killing him, Lily leaves the room, angry that she may not get the A that she needs to be Valedictorian at the end of the year to get the scholarship she needs. She runs into her friend Julie and says that she could just kill Mr. Reiner, which is poor phrasing and Julie’s older brother was murdered during a grocery story robbery, but hey, Lily is a Type A personality who is very much in her feelings. Besides, both of her older sisters were Valedictorian and she needs to keep up with them in her parents eyes. They stop by the library so Julie can drop off some books, and run into Lily’s boyfriend Alex, who used to date Julie but whatever, hormones gonna hormone. They then run into Scott, the editor of the school literary magazine The Forum, who mentions the deadline they have. But Lily says she can’t go to the meeting today, she has to work at her Uncle Bob’s pharmacy that night. See, her mother had a stroke and now Lily has to bring in a second income to help make ends meet at home. Damn, I feel like the college application essay alone will get her into any school she wants with a full scholarship, but hey, that’s not my business.

As she’s starting to walk to work Graham, Julie’s cousin and Lily’s rival for Valedictorian, offers her a ride in his sea foam green Porsche. He’s a total douchebag, but Lily accepts the ride because she doesn’t want to be late to work. He then brags about his grades and asks her if she’s ready for the state trivia contest they’re both trying to get a seat on, and she grits her teeth until she gets to work and thanks him for the ride. She really wants to win that because there’s a cash prize. While at work that night Lily is trying to do her homework as well as serve customres, when all of a sudden a guy pulls a gun and holds up the place. Uncle Bob comes out of the back room and then grabs the pistol he keeps in the drawer. The robber chickens out and runs off, and the new pharmacy delivery boy Rick runs after him (like a dope). Lily calls the police and Rick comes back empty handed. When Bob points out that he could have been killed, he shrugs in a ‘macho’ manner, and oh, he’s gonna be one of THOSE characters. He asks Lily what she’s doing, and she says homework. Then he asks her out, and is only swayed when she says she has a boyfriend. He confides that he’s a drop out because he had problems in classes, and she tells him that hey, she has problems too, and tells him all about that AWFUL Mr. Reiner. He asks her out again, and she says nope.

She gets off the bus at Fear Street and starts walking home. Then someone jumps out of the bushes, but it’s just Alex. She tells him about the robbery and he’s worried about her, but he also gets frustrated when she says that she has to go inside and study instead of sitting and talking with him for a bit. But he does agree, and lets her go inside. Her father seems less concerned about the robbery and more concerned about the B grade she got on that test, so Lily is more determined than ever to study her butt off. Her room phone gets a strange call, where the person on the line says that they know her and watch her ‘all the time’. They then hang up, and Lily focuses on her work.

The next day on the bus to school Lily is exhausted, but has decided that she is just going to ask Mr. Reiner if she can do some extra credit work to boost her grade. Alex says that’s a good idea, and they get off the bus and part ways. At her locker Lily runs into Lisa Blume, who heard about the issue with Mr. Reiner and needles her a bit. Lily says that she’s going to get her A ‘one way or another’, and Lisa, being a huge gossip, is probably not the person to say that to. When Lily goes to Mr. Reiner’s classroom to propose the extra credit idea, she finds him sprawled on the floor, a ladder and a broken lightbulb on the scene. And the poor man is dead.

So while Lily does feel bad about her bad thoughts about him, and the fact that there are rumors about her maybe killing him instead of it being an accident where he fell off the ladder and died, she is pleased that she is potentially going to get a better grade now, as the substitute has given her more options to raise it. She’s playing a friendly couple of games of tennis with Alex, Julie, and Scott, and this is the one place where she isn’t competitive (much to Alex’s chagrin). After the games Scott suggests that they all hang out some more, but Lily says she has studying to do, which miffs Alex even more. As she’s walking home Graham drives up next to her and offers her a ride. She agrees, but gets mad at him when he insinuates that maybe she killed Mr. Reiner over her grade. She gets out of his car and storms off. That night she gets another weird phone call, and the caller says that he knows she got what she wanted. So now she thinks that Graham is the caller.

Maybe a day later Lily meets up with Scott to look over her essay and the covers for the forum. Scott says that her essay is great (natch!) and that she should come to the paper mill that night to watch them print out the new edition on a huge printing press. She says that sounds fun and that she’ll come by after work, and then he asks her to help pick a cover. Alex comes in and is jealous, and when Scott leaves he tells Lily he doesn’t like that Scott likes her. Lily assures him he has nothing to worry about, and he trusts her. At work that night Rick comes in and starts pestering Lily. He teases her about Mr. Reiner, and she blows up at him. He asks her out again and she says no, and he GRABS HER HAND and asks her if she’s stuck up and he only ‘wants to get to know her better’, and she tells him to knock it off. He then apologizes profusely (of course) because he ‘needs this job’ so please don’t say anything to Bob. Stine LOVES these characters, the assholes who are actually just ‘misunderstood’. It’s so 90s. I like me a good bad boy trope as well, but you are NO Bender in “The Breakfast Club”, Rick, so fuck off. Uncle Bob asks if everything is okay, and Lily says yes, saving Rick’s undeserving ass from a swift firing.

Lily goes to the paper mill after work to meets her friends, but as she enters a bunch of HUGE rolls of paper start rolling towards her a la Indiana Jones. She jumps out of the way before being crushed to death, and her friends and the night foreman Mr. Jacobson all find her. He says that he has no idea how that happened, but now they’ll have to reload and delay the printing until later that week. Graham says that Jacobson is an idiot and that HE would know how to run this place better, and fuck yourself Graham because he’s the foreman and you aren’t. I don’t care if your Dad owns this place. They all decide to go to pizza instead. But because of this Lily doesn’t get home until after 11, and the trivia contest is the next day. She gets another weird phone call. Now the voice is saying that it wants to ‘help her’.

At the trivia contest it’s Lily vs Graham, and at first she’s holding her own pretty okay. But then Graham tells her that he saw his midterm grades, and that he’s getting basically all A’s. So poor Lily gets inside her own head, and the stress and exhaustion prove to be too much, and Graham ends up winning. Lily is devastated. As she’s walking home, Rick just happens to be in the neighborhood making deliveries, and offers to walk with her. He actually acts like a decent human being as they walk, but then he says that he wondered if he could ‘help her’ somehow when it comes to cheering her up. She then asks if he’s the person who’s been calling her….. And he says he has. She freaks out on him, but he swears that he never actually waits for her to pick up and always hangs up before she does. Lily doesn’t believe him, and when there is no call that night she is further convinced that he was the caller all along. But it’s NEVER that easy on Fear Street.

The next day the midterm grades are posted for all to see. How humiliating for those who aren’t doing so well!! I don’t understand why schools would do this. It was bad enough that my school posted the names of those on the Dean’s List AND posted the name of the ‘most improved’ student for the semester. That’s not encouraging, it just opens up for your asshole classmates to be like ‘HOW BAD WERE YOU BEFORE?’ Anyway, Lily is indeed humiliated because she is number 2 behind Graham. When her friends try to comfort her at the magazine meeting, because number 2 is still pretty good and there is STILL TIME for her to get her grades back up to snuff, she yells at all of them and storms out because

Lily leaves work early because the store is dead and Uncle Bob takes pity on her, so she goes to the paper mill to see the magazine get printed. When she arrives Mr. Jacobson has left a sign that says he’ll be back at 9:30. It’s 9:20, but Lily finds the door open. She goes in, hearing the printing press. She figures they must have started after all, so she heads towards the pressing room. She walks in and covers her ears because it’s so loud as it prints, and she gets splattered in the face with red ink that runs through the press. But wait, it’s not red ink. It’s BLOOD!! She runs around the other side and finds Graham HEAD FIRST IN THE PRESS!! She turns it off and checks to see if he’s still alive, but he’s not. She faints, and only comes to when her other friends arrive, and ask her how she got all that blood on her. I mean, there’s a bloody corpse next to her, guys, there are LOTS of ways it could have gotten on her.

The next morning at breakfast her mother asks her why she’s not eating. I ask HER why Lily hasn’t been taken straight to a therapist after seeing what she saw. Lily gets in Alex’s car to go to school (!?!?!), and he tries to comfort her. It doesn’t help that a bunch of Graham’s friends proceed to cut them off and stare at them, and Lily thinks that this is somehow all her fault, even though the police said that it was a tragic accident. When she gets to school she can’t help but gleefully think about how she is number one now. Kinda ghoulish. You get me to a sympathetic point and then knock it all down, Lily.

At the funeral Lily is really starting to lose it. She feels like people are looking at her, and when she goes to the viewing of the closed casket she hallucinates that Graham sits up and accuses her, but she gets her wits about her enough to understand that Julie is really hurting, as she just lost her brother and now her cousin is dead too. The funeral retreats to Julie’s house for refreshments (this officially isn’t the Midwest small town dynamic because it’s not in the church basement and there isn’t a spread of various bars to go with an unabashed reluctance to a bother anyone in any way), and as Lily and Scott are talking, but when Graham’s mom gives her a suspicious stink eye Lily takes that as her cue to leave. She rushes home to her empty house, and has a nice cry. As she empties out her purse looking for some tissues, she instead finds Graham’s glasses!! Suddenly there’s a bang and footsteps coming up the steps, and Scott is there! He says he was worried about her, and she tells him about the glasses. Which which Scott says that of course he knew about it, as he put them there! He wants her to know everything that he did for her to prove his love, aka killing Graham!!! He got the idea after Mr. Reiner’s freak accident with the light and slipping off the ladder. He told Graham to meet him at the printing press at nine, knowing the foreman would be on a break and then pushed him into the press so that Lily will be number one! He also was the one making the phone calls, and now they can be together forever! Lily tries to leave the room to call the cops, but he says that he’ll kill her if she leaves the room. Oh, and if she DOES try to turn him in, he’ll say that it was all her idea and that she also killed Mr. Reiner because she wanted to badly to be number 1. He grabs Graham’s glasses for collateral, and tells her that they can be together now. He leaves, and Lily doesn’t know what to do.

At the magazine meeting the next day Scott suggests that they make a special tribute issue to Graham. Lily thinks he’s demented but goes along with it. Julie is driving her to work afterwards and apologizes for being so distant lately; she’s just sad that Lily has no time for her outside of studying and Alex. Lily is relieved that Julie doesn’t blame her for Graham’s death. But then Julie, being a regular Nancy Drew, says that she isn’t convinced that Graham died in an accident, and believes that he was murdered! After all, his dad owns the paper plant, so of COURSE he knows how to use the press and not get caught in it. Julie assures Lily that she doesn’t believe the rumors and thinks that someone else killed him. Lily is scared that Scott will hurt Julie if she voices her suspicions or goes too deep. That night Scott calls Lily and tells her to break up with Adam and start dating him. Lily tries to deflect, saying people may be suspicious if she does that and may ask more questions. Then she IDIOTICALLY tells him that Julie is suspicious. He then threatens Julie, so Lily agrees to go out with him.

The night of the shitty date she has to go on, Lily runs into Alex outside her house and makes up a lame excuse about the library and studying. He gets miffed and walks off. She then meets up with Scott and has the actually pretty good idea of making it a terrible date for him so he’ll not want to do it again. She makes him drive to a town twenty miles away to see a movie, won’t hold his hand, and then makes him take her to a scary pool hall frequented by bikers and potential meth heads for dinner. Unfortunately they run into Rick, who just makes polite conversation, which gets Scott all possessive. As they leave he says that she better not be into Rick and that she better dump Alex or else. He drives her home, basically assaults her when he tries to kiss her and won’t let her go, but she squirms away and he walks her to her door. He tries to kiss her again but she ducks inside, and tries to figure out what to do…. Maybe CALL THE COPS!!! SCOTT HAS THE GLASSES!! There is EVIDENCE that he says he’s holding on to for collateral but EVIDENCE IS IN HIS POSSESSION!!!!

Lily avoids Scott okay at school that Monday, but at the magazine meeting he talks about their date in front of everyone. Including Alex. Alex, angry that Lily has been lying to him and has made time for Scott but not him, dumps her. Later that week (maybe? Time is being weird in this one), Lily is at work and Julie calls her telling her that she thinks she knows who killed Graham, because someone left a message for Graham at the paper plant the night he did. She asks Lily to meet her there the next night, because she wants to tell her in person. Lily tries to dissuade her, but when a customer comes in she has to hang up but says she will call her back. But she never gets the chance, because after a number of customers and Rick take up her time with all their bullshit, Scott comes in with a flower and an urge to make out. He starts to get grabby again (so much casual sexual harassment and assault in these books), and Lily blows up at him, saying that they won’t be together forever because Julie is figuring it all out!

giphy4 — YOU ARE GOING TO GET ONE OF THE TWO LIKABLE PEOPLE IN THIS BOOK KILLED, IDIOT!!! (source)

So Scott says that they’re just going to have to kill her then. Ugh, SEE? She tries to get him to think that they can talk to her together and change her mind, and then SWEET KIND UNCLE BOB, in a moment if ill timed kindness, tells Lily that she can leave for the night and go have fun. Thanks, Uncle Bob! When he goes back to the back room with Rick to build some shelving, Scott tells Lily they’re going to take care of Julie now. Lily opens the drawer, hoping to grab the gun to intimidate him into stopping this whole thing, but oops, he grabs it first, and points it at her saying she better call Julie.

So they go to the paper plant, and Scott lets them in with his personal key the magazine has. Mr. Jacobson is nowhere in sight, and they wait for Julie. When she arrives, Lily screams at her to run before Scott can get the jump on her, but sweet idiotic Julie just stands there asking what’s going on. Scott confesses that he’s the one who killed Graham, but then tries to pin it on Lily as well. Julie doesn’t know what to think, but what does it matter because Scott presses her up against the press and points the gun right at her as Lily begs him to leave her alone. There’s a scuffle, and Lily almost gets the gun away from him, but to no avail. Scott aims the gun at Julie and shoots, and she falls to the floor. Lily cries over her best friend, and Scott says that they can be together now. He lets his guard down and puts the pistol in his pocket, but Lily gets the gun and aims it at him. She says that she’ll shoot him, but he calls her bluff. And he’s right, she wont’ shoot. So he embraces her…. BUT THEN JULIE STANDS UP, GRABS A LARGE METAL BAR, AND HITS HIM IN THE HEAD. He collapses, and the BFFs are reunited. Lily says she thought Julie was dead, but Julie says that nothing hit her. As they try to figure out why, Scott rallies for a moment, but then does drop dead while saying Lily’s name over and over.

So the police and medics come, as do Uncle Bob and Rick to pick them up and take them home. And turns out the gun was a starter pistol, and that’s why Julie wasn’t shot. Bob thinks real guns are too scary, and I LOVE Uncle Bob. Julie then eyes Rick and asks Lily if he’s single, and Lily says that Julie can have him because SHE needs to make sure that she keeps her grades up! After all, there’s still time to finish first, and she KNOWS that she will. THE END.

giphy5 — That’s absolutely what you should be thinking about right now, Lily. (source)

Body Count: 3. I feel bad for poor Mr. Reiner. Dealing with entitled kids all day and then he dies because maintenance won’t fix the damn light in his classroom is a rough way to go.

Romance Rating: 2. Alex was okay and I felt for him, but he didn’t support Lily’s need to succeed and was more focused on his own entertainment. Scott is a sexual extortionist, and Rick is definitely toxic in his own right so JULIE DON’T DO IT DON’T GO OUT WITH HIM.

Bonkers Rating: 4. Because of the printing press death. Everything else was pretty run of the mill.

Fear Street Relevance: 3, if only because Lily lives on Fear Street and because the past two books had absolutely NOTHING to do with Fear Street so that’s no doubt shading my opinions.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“Then she realized there was an answer. An answer that had been there all along. ‘I’ll kill him’, she thought.”

…. And then it’s NEVER brought up again. EVER. She goes back to just wondering how she’s going to get out of this mess.

That’s So Dated! Moments: There’s the fact that Lily says that Julie prefers reading while most kids their age like spending their time watching MTV, and I have to assume that it was a reference to the music videos and not to shows about teen pregnancy. Also, there’s a mention of Winona Ryder’s new romantic movie. But to be fair Winona has made a comeback and I’M SO PROUD OF HER!

Best Quote:

“She moved the press. She tugged at his waist. She pulled frantically. ‘Are you alive? Graham? Are you?'”

NO HE’S NOT ALIVE, HE’S HEADFIRST IN A PRINTING PRESS!! This reminded me of the scene in “Tucker and Dale vs Evil” where that one kid jumps head first into the wood chipper and Tucker freaks the hell out, turns if off, and asks ‘hey, you okay?’

Conclusion: “Final Grade” was better than “Dead End” but that’s not really saying much. Up next is “Switched”.

Share this:

Serena’s Thoughts

Kate’s Thoughts

Book Club Questions:

Reader’s Advisory:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: