SECRET ADMIRER By R.L. Stine

April 26, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

SECRET ADMIRER By R.L. StineSecret Admirer by R.L. Stine
Series: Fear Street #36
Published by Simon Pulse on 6/30/08
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 164
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Selena has it all. She just scored the lead in her high school play, and everyone adores her. So when she starts receiving dead flowers from a secret “admirer” named The Sun, she just assumes it’s a harmless fan.

But Selena soon realizes that The Sun is serious...dead serious. First, her understudy is injured in a suspicious accident. Then, a speeding car almost kills her! Selena doesn’t know what this psycho wants. All she knows is that her number-one fan has become her number-one nightmare.

Short and Sweet Review

Selena is a great actress and she’s about to audition for the lead in the schools next play. When Selena gets dead flowers from a secret admirer she just brushes it off as a harmless prank until it becomes obvious that she’s in actual danger.

I will admit the Secret Admirer was a better read than the last Fear Street book I reviewed which is a few posts down. Selena comes across as someone who mainly cares about herself and not anyone around her. When Selena starts getting these threats from the secret admirer she tries to confide in people but they think she’s just looking for attention. Anyway there’s three guys vying for her attention and she has her eyes on Eddy a college student who is at the play rehearsals as a student consultant. So I think Stine did a good job making it seem like the culprit was obvious but in the end it was someone/ else. There’s not a lot of substance to these books we have a main character who is going through some issue that comes across as spooky and then we have the ending. Overall Secret Admirer got the bad taste out of my mouth that The Dare left and hopefully the other Fear Street books can hold up too. I just think these books are fun to read for nostalgias sake. Pick these books up for a short thriller but keep in mind some are hit or miss.

Filed Under: Reviews

THE DARE By R.L. Stine

April 22, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THE DARE By R.L. StineThe Dare by R.L. Stine
Series: Fear Street #21
Published by Simon Pulse on 6/30/08
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 164
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Johanna Wise has always longed to be part of Dennis Arthur’s rich, popular crowd, and she can’t believe it when he finally asks her out. She thought she’d do anything to keep Dennis, but when he dares her to kill their teacher, she’s not so sure. Will she really kill for love?

Short and Sweet Review

The Dare follows our main character Johanna on her quest to be apart of the popular crowd. Johanna sees an in when she overhears that Dennis wants their teacher dead and for some reason our dummy of a main character offers to off him. Johanna thinks her offer is just a joke but Dennis and his crew take her seriously. Dennis and his friends start to hangout at Johannas house and they dare each other to do stupid things and it’s just so convenient that Johanna happens to be neighbors with the teacher they’re targeting. Let me just say Dennis and his friends are rich so they’re not used to dealing with consequences which is why when the teacher won’t just let Dennis pass he becomes so enraged he thinks about murder. Anywho Johanna has violent fantasies throughout the book and she feels the pressure to do what Dennis says but she can’t because she’s not a killer just an idiot. I’m not sure why she thought that his was love because Dennis was just using her and he had a girlfriend. The real victim of the story was the teacher, who doesn’t get paid enough to deal with this nonsense. Johanna was a horrible main character and quite frankly very stupid. The decision making in this book was awful and it’s obvious that their frontal lobes aren’t fully developed. This book was originally published in the 90s and you can tell. The writing and gimmicks of this book just don’t work in the 2000s. I have a few more Fear Street novels to read and I’m not sure if those will also disappoint or be a pleasant surprise. I would say just skip this book, I don’t give out a lot of 1s as ratings but this book deserves it.

Filed Under: Reviews

PARTY GAMES By R.L. Stine

August 29, 2022 by Leave a Comment

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

PARTY GAMES By R.L. StineParty Games by R.L. Stine
Series: Fear Street Relaunch #1
Published by St. Martin's Griffin on 9/30/14
Genres: Horror & Ghost Stories, Mystery & Detective, Thrillers, Young Adult
Pages: 286
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
Buy on Amazon

Her friends warn her not to go to Brendan Fear's birthday party at his family's estate on mysterious Fear Island. But Rachel Martin has a crush on Brendan and is excited to be invited. Brendan has a lot of party games planned. But one game no one planned intrudes on his party—the game of murder. As the guests start dying one by one, Rachel realizes to her horror that she and the other teenagers are trapped on the tiny island with someone who may want to kill them all. How to escape this deadly game? Rachel doesn't know whom she can trust. She should have realized that nothing is as it seems… on Fear Island.

Short and Sweet Review

Rachel Martin has a crush on Brendan Fear, so when he invites her to a party an all night party on fear island she says yes. Despite the fact that her friend and ex-boyfriend are warning her not to go, Rachel doesn’t want to miss a chance to get closer to her crush. At the party some of the guests end up dying one by one and it doesn’t help that the teens are trapped on the island. Now they all need to survive and figure out a way to get off of Fear island.

This book isn’t original it’s something we’ve all seen: go to a mysterious house people start dying and now you need to survive the night. Honestly I’ve read lots of books like this but that didn’t stop me from reading this book because I wanted to be entertained. This book started off promising I love mysteries I wanted to know who could be killing off the other teens, but then things went downhill fast because it turned into a kidnapping plot? It just got weird from there and I was not happy with the change. It was a plot twist one that I wasn’t expecting but it didn’t work. The dialogue is cheesy especially when the teens are throwing insults back and forth. The romance between Rachel and Brendan made me roll my eyes, there was nothing cute about it. She likes him and all he cares about is pulling off a good prank. Also the fact that they think making out when people are dying around them or when they were kidnapped just makes you wonder how serious they’re taking their predicament.

This was an okay book like I said it started off promising and then just went in a direction that did nothing to improve the situation. I probably would read other books in the series just for the entertainment factor.

Filed Under: Reviews