Hello, Spongey here.

I’m getting back into the groove of talking about R.L. Stine stuff again so I think it’s finally time to discuss Fear Street once more. It’s been three years since I talked about Broken Hearts, so this is long overdue.

I’ve only talked about three books before and none of them were fully positive reviews, although I’ll give Broken Hearts credit for trying to be “deeper”. I feel bad because I don’t want to talk about the only bad with this series, since I talk about all sides of Goosebumps.

In the past year or so, I’ve gotten myself even more used to the series so I can be ready to start reviewing it again. It has plenty of things to make fun in review form so it’s time to actually do more reviews for it.

I will say I do indeed have a preference to Goosebumps. It may be because I got into it earlier, but it is more my speed and I tend to prefer the wacky supernatural stuff. Fear Street’s flaws tend to be bug me slightly more due to being more “Down to earth”.

That said, it did try harder to be a bit deeper in the stories and I can respect that, even if I don’t think it’s that amazingly better on a pure literary level. Still, it has its own charms that I can go on over, so here we are.

One aspect I didn’t discuss before for some reason is the continuity. Because this is all set in Shadyside, that means you’ll see some of the characters floating around. There actually are nods to previous books, either through name drops or even having full cameos that reference the events of a previous book, usually in a way that will still make sense if you’re reading these out of order.

I think that’s pretty cool, as it makes the world feel a bit more real, and it’s a nice treat for those who have been paying attention. I’ll be sure to touch on the callbacks in future books I cover.

Speaking of covering books, I wanted to come back with one I actually like just to show the better side to the series after previously doing entries I wasn’t keen on. I actually haven’t read this one in a while but I thought it would be fun to do it like this, while other reviews will be on stuff fresher on my mind.

I do remember who the killer is at least and at least a few moments so I have an idea of what I’m in for. In the least, it should be better than what I’ve covered before.

Oh and yes, one of the reasons I wanted to get back into reviewing these is that there is a trilogy of films currently in production. It seems it’s actually happening so yes, I will be seeing them and reviewing them in some form.

They’re being made by Fox so get hyped for Disney’s Fear Street, bitches! …Let’s just talk about the book.

This, is The Stepsister

The book starts with our protagonist Emily Casey complaining about how she looks, especially compared to her sister Nancy. There’s no better way to start than with teen body image issues!

She thinks her hair looks like shredded wheat, while Nancy has smooth red hair. That was fast. Oh yeah, I need to point out the red heads more. I’ve now discovered that Stine puts them in what feels like every damn book, and not always as the bad guy like I would sometimes joke about.

Anyway, their mother recently got married to a fellow named Hugh Wallner which means a The Stepsister named Jessie that they have to get used to. It’s going to be an adjustment but I’m sure nothing terrible will happen. They live on Fear Street, by the way.

There’s a stepbrother too, named Rich, but he’s so unimportant that even Nancy has to remind everyone he’s here too. Also, he is reading a Stephen King novel, nice. Jessie seems nice enough, until they go up to Emily’s room and she randomly turned on bitch mode.

“I never liked red hair”

Well, clearly she’s either evil or going to die, Stine won’t put up with that!

“I’m really sorry. Please. Forget everything I’ve said up here, I–I’m just so nervous”

Oh wow, she noticed that she was starting to act of line and caught herself. Even if she is evil, she can at least hide it better than most. Jessie was basically living with both her mom and dad but once mom found out dad was getting re-married, she pretty much immediately shoved Jessie and Rich onto Hugh full time.

“It’s not too cool to find out your own mother doesn’t want you around’

It’s nice to know Fear Street parents are no better than Goosebumps parents. Jokes aside, we’ve already got more depth in one page than some of these have in over 100 pages.

She then goes back to being a bitch by taking Emily’s bed and ripping off the head of her old teddy bear. That’s bad and all but she also insults the dog, so she must die. Huh, she hates everything Stine loves.

At dinner, we get Hugh making fun of how silent Rich is, just to keep up the bad parenting trend. Thankfully, he is called out which is refreshing to see. If you’re wondering what happened to Emily’s biological, father, he died. And in a pretty bad powerboat accident too. This is shown in a pretty effective flashback that does a decent job in showing their reaction to something so traumatic. But enough of that, back to the stepsister drama.

We cut to a few days later as Emily and Jessie are not much closer and Hugh is no less of an asshole towards Rich.

“He’s very sensitive”

“Don’t defend him”

No matter who the killer ends up being, I feel like I’ll end up hating this guy more. At least his attempts at being funny won’t be in poorer taste.

“That’s what I like about living with four women. There’s always someone to clean up after dinner”

…Nevermind. I was going to skip over that but geez, that’s bad.

Anyway, time for Jessie to start looking evil. Emily gets on her 1990 computer to finish a report but Jessie used it last and when Emily tries to open the file, it’s gone. As someone who has lost computer work, I can say this is the most evil act in this series. Naturally, the parents don’t believe her when Emily says she thinks Jessie did it. Speaking of Goosebumps trends!

After a little fight, Jessie kicks the dog just so you know she’s evil. Emily’s suspicions grow further when Nancy tells her that she heard Jessie got into trouble at her old school. MURDER trouble, perhaps? If so, I’m impressed with how she covered it up so easily and was able to move without problems. And just in case you aren’t sure if we’re supposed to suspect Jessie, she is overheard saying this over the phone:

“I could kill her. I could really kill her”

Well…she only said could, I’m sure it means nothing.

The next day at school, we get some name drops of characters we’ll meet some other time I swear, and then Emily sees her boyfriend Josh talking to Jessie in a way that makes her paranoid. Side note, Josh used to be with Nancy. It’s a good rule of thumb to not date people who previously dated people you know really well, because in this series it never ends well.

Anyway, Jessie does start to loosen up a bit and they have fun at home involving whipped cream.…Don’t read into that too much.

After a shower, Emily discovers that her shampoo has been replaced with a bottle of peroxide, so now her hair is all messed up Even with the previous scene, Jessie is a suspect, as even Nancy is suspicious now. Emily joins in especially after Jessie just casually mentions “what happened to Jolie”. Things can happen to people without murder being involved, come on guys.

This is one of those books with named chapters (I thought that was a pure Super Chiller thing but okay), and I mention this because this chapter ends with Emily wondering what Jessie will do next, and the title of the next chapter is “Murder”. Nice.

Sometime later, a police officer informs them that Rich has committed a crime. Don’t get too excited, it’s just shoplifting but this does start to make him a suspect. Honestly, it being him makes way more sense. His victim should have been the dad though.

He doesn’t really explain himself and they end up eating dinner in awkward silence. So we abruptly cut to a school dance I wasn’t aware was coming up but not much really happens so we go home to get out murder. Sadly, it is of the dog. Damn you Fear Street and your hatred of animals that live!

Since Jessie hated Tiger, she is naturally the one Emily suspects. It’s a bit rude to accuse someone of murdering a dog in front of their parents, Emily. I like how Rich is briefly accused based on the fact he was reading Pet Sematary, I find that funny for some reason.

“Just because I read books doesn’t mean I’m a killer!”

10/10

I should say that Jessie starts acting a bit nicer after this moment but Emily still doesn’t want to take a bath that Jessie starts for her due to the shampoo incident. Then we get a dream sequence, which is followed by a chapter break fake out, which is like twice the fake out. At least that’s the only bad one so far.

Emily finds Jessie’s diary and of course she reads it to find out a bit more about her past. (Oh hey it’s the cover) One entry talks about the Jolie girl Jessie mentioned earlier, and how she died and Jessie was blamed for her death simply because they had been in a big fight.

The thing with this is that if she doesn’t turn out to be the killer, we were told so. But if she does, they can just say she was lying to herself since she’s unstable, which is either clever or lazy when you think about it. Regardless, being blamed for murder isn’t a great look, even if Emily is jumping to conclusions a bit.

The next day, Emily finds the dog’s corpse stuffed into her backpack. Okay, that’s pretty messed up…and then we cut to sometime later as they’ve just kind of dropped that. …Well okay then. Jessie pulls Emily aside at school and calls her out so being so weird and distant. Emily gets a bit upset given she thinks Jessie is the weird one here.

“:I don’t think you should be calling anyone crazy. I’m not the one who sees a shrink twice a week!”

…Not cool, Emily. Based on what has been implied alone, I think she’s got valid reasons for seeing one, but you say that like it’s some terrible thing. Jessie naturally runs away crying and Emily doesn’t care. Uh-oh, you were doing so well in the first half.

She goes to bathroom, where a fire soon starts. That escalated quickly. Emily manages to escape and no guesses as to who she is blaming on all that. She tells Nancy about this, and she joins in on the murder accusation train. She’s even going to finally get proof so they can actually have a case.

Jessie showing actual concern isn’t enough to stop their suspicions, but I guess that’s how stubborn people can be with any theory. Also, in this series this could all likely be justified.

A few days later, Emily comes home after a trip to a friend’s house and is surprised to see Josh’s car. But she takes a peek inside andthink she sees him making out with Jessie.

“She had killed her dog, tried to kill her—and now she had taken Josh!”

That’s some real Arson, Murder and Jaywalking right there.

Emily’s reaction to this is captured pretty well, and I understand her better than in some of the other situations. I wish we got more of a confrontation right now instead of just having her walk away though.

Sometime later, Hugh tells the family they are going on a camping trip so they both get some air and try to bond like a real family. I should mention there was a bit earlier when he was actually trying to get to Rich after he was caught shoplifting so I suppose he’s improved somewhat. Kind of.

“How can I get my harem into an up mood?”

‘’His harem? I’m going to be sick, Emily thought”

…Nevermind.

Despite some grumbling, they go on a trip and we find out there happens to a cemetery close by their spot. Man, who wouldn’t want to go camping in a place as cheery as that? Naturally, when Emily is alone she gets shoved into one of the open graves.

After some struggling, we finally get the reveal of the killer as they show their face.

“Nancy, it’s you!”

“I hate you, Emily!”

Dun dun dun! What a twist! First off, this is one of the few things I recalled for sure about the book and it was kind of hard not mentioning it the whole time. Re-reading, it’s hard getting through all the blaming stuff Jessie when you know it’s not.

But wait, let’s get through the motivation. See, Nancy blames Emily for their birth father’s death, as she thinks she could have done something to prevent it. She’s also pissed Emily “took” Josh from her. Infact, that was actually Nancy in the car and not Jessie. It took too too long to cover one of these where the killer’s motivation all comes down to a man.

Not sure how Emily confused the two, honestly. Nancy has been behind everything and Jessie made for the perfect suspect. She wanted to ruin everything Emily liked, so this included the dog, and her home life. And now she’s going to bury Emily alive so she’ll “die like Daddy”

Yeah, I like this twist. I mean it couldn’t have been Jessie at this point but having it be Emily’s actual sister does make it decently shocking. More so than if it had been Rich or something. Her motivation makes about enough sense, although I’m not sure when she went into murder mode. Still, this makes enough sense and is a solid concept for a killer, so I can’t complain too much.

Jessie appears and a fight ensues. After a bit of that, Jessie pulls Emily out and Nancy falls in. And that does it for our climax. Yeesh, the book is fine enough for this to not be the worst but when you type it like that it sounds even more anti climatic than it is.

A few days later, Nancy is in the hospital and Jessie is finally explaining herself. Those calls late at night were to her boyfriend Darren, who she is not allowed to see due to being three years older I won’t even think too hard about that. She’s not used to having to sneak around like that, so that made her nervous and act a bit weirdly sometimes, on top of having a new family.

She did not kill Jolie but everyone thought she did simply because she found the body. She had a fight with her and somehow people figured that would escalate super quickly. Naturally, being accused of horrible things again after all that wasn’t very pleasant to go through. Okay, a few iffy moments aside, that checks out well enough and it makes her quite sympathetic. I like this.

“I-I promise. We’ll be real sisters from now on”

D’aww. Huh, nice to have a moment like that. With that, Rich shows up to tell them it’s time for lunch. One crack about him reading Hardy Boy’s now later, the book ends.

…So what was Rich’s deal anyway? Whatever, nice happy super abrupt ending I guess. Seriously, I wanted to see the parents reaction to Nancy being a dog killer. Not to mention Hugh having a better ending note.

Eh, maybe they’re saving it for the sequel. Yes, this had a sequel later on but I haven’t read it and it may be ages before I’m able to get to it. Anyway…

Final Thoughts:

I liked this one, it was one of the better Fear Street books I’ve read in general but it could have been better. The best thing this has going for it is that it has a bit more depth to it than usual. It’s not super complicated but did we get to know at least a couple of the characters better.

The first 40 pages or so were the best part, as get to know them and explored some small good moments. Even in the weakest sections, there are small background moments that do a good job of making you feel for the characters.

Having the killer pin the blame on Jessie like, driving a wedge in their relationship works pretty well, so the “person being accused clearly isn’t the killer” thing works better on the level. I also like that we avoided the evil step-sister thing given everything seemed to point to it being played straight.

It does fall prey to the series’ trappings though. The middle portion is fairly typical and while it is done a bit better due to certain details, I think Emily gets a bit too judge-y. I know, that’s the point but she goes so deep into blame made that it made it hard to like her at times.

Ultimately she’s a likable enough protagonist though. Some parts end up being rushed, and I really wanted more depth for certain aspects. Especially when it comes to Rich. They build up some decent stuff with him but it’s just dropped in the end.

Things that could have made the story more well rounded end up being a bit more rushed than I would have liked, especially with that ending. But as a whole, it was a good one. It had some decent depth in places, a sweet moment or two, solid tension and a pretty okay killer with a better motivation than usual. It could have been explored but this was still a pretty decent one.

The first quarter was probably some of the best Fear Street stuff I’ve read but the rest is merely one of the pretty good ones. Hey, I’ll take it. Hopefully the sequel is good.

Rating: Good

I may sound slightly hard on the series with how I phrased some of that, but I can say all the same about Goosebumps when I review one of the “Better but not great” entries so my slight bias isn’t too big a factor here. In both cases, I will still enjoy it if I can get enough out of it, even if it could have been better.

Anyway, very glad to finally review a good one. Hopefully I can do more, there’s actually some I like more so look forward to that.

Next month, I’d like to go back to Goosebumps in some way. However, I’d like to see it \in a different medium in some way. And maybe with someone else at the reigns, just to see how an outsider handles things compared to Stine. Maybe something I should have done a while ago..

…Yep, that’ll do.

See ya.