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