Fear Street Mini-Reviews: The New Girl, All-Night Party, and Killer's Kiss by R.L. Stine

Nostalgia re-reads! I read every single Fear Street book I could get my hands on as a kid and I'm rereading them to see how they hold up over time.

* The New Girl by R.L. Stine

Gymnast Cory falls for Anna without knowing anything about her. He loses interest in everything but her and she isn't who she seems. This is the very first Fear Street novel and it shows. Cory is an absolute idiot, throwing everything in his life away for a random girl he sees a few glimpses of. He has no idea that his best friend Lisa has a crush on him no matter how overt her feelings. The book is choppily written and doesn't have a lot of connective tissue. The only really interesting parts have Cory escaping a house out of a tree with his gymnast skills and visiting the very spooky Fear Street with its abandoned mansion and eerie residents. The ending ties up a little too neatly and the whole thing is a bit forgettable.

My rating: 1.5/5 fishmuffins

* All-Night Party by R.L. Stine

It's Cindy's birthday so naturally her friends kidnap her and take her to Fear Island for an all night party. Cindy is killed during the night. Was it one of her friends, her boyfriend, or the escaped convict? This is #43 in the series. The writing feels more fluid and the story more complete. This is a nice intro to murder mysteries. Most of the characters have some sort of motive and plenty had the opportunity. We follow Gretchen as she works to figure out who killed her best friend on a remote island with no phones and pre-internet. The characters feel a bit like paper dolls and not real teens, but it's so much better than The New Girl. The dialogue in particular feels unnatural. The ending is clever and unexpected with suspicion cast on many. I didn't predict who it was in the end and that impressed me.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins

* Killer's Kiss by R.L. Stine

Delia and Karina compete over everything from a prestigious art scholarship to their unknowingly shared boyfriend Vincent. Delia is terrorized with worse and worse instances of destroying her work or physical attacks, making everyone suspect Karina. The escalating harassment and attacks get pretty scary for a teen book of this era. I don't like Vincent at all, who works to keep both girls in the dark about his relationship with the other, and I wonder why these two talented girls bother with him at all. It all seems so misogynistic like girls have nothing better to do but fight over trivial things. This type of relationship between girls is seen in almost all the Fear Street books I've reread. I guess it's a sign of when it was written, but it's disappointing nonetheless. I remember Killer's Kiss being a favorite of mine as a kid because of the crazy twist at the end which seems more obvious reading as an adult and the ending monologue out of nowhere seems a bit bizarre. 

My rating: 2.5/5 fishmuffins

I'll be covering a few more and hope the supernatural stories are a bit better. With the Netflix movies, people are charging kind of a lot for second hand copies, so special thanks to the LA County Library system for having all of these on Libby to borrow. Kindle Unlimited also has a few Fear Street titles. 

I Won't Be Shamed for Reading YA

An article came out a few days ago detailing why adults should feel ashamed for reading YA. First, Ruth Graham asserts that YA fiction of the 90's is just as good as it is now, which I vehemently disagree with. I devoured books by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike when I was much younger, but many of those books aren't as well written or varied as what's available now. I've tried to reread some of them and find that I've outgrown them. I appreciate that they shaped me as a reader, but they just don't hold my attention anymore. Sure there are some great books, but overall, the quality has gotten much better over the years as the genre has expanded.

Graham also asserts that love of YA stems from instant gratification, nostalgia, and escapism. Escapism is a reason to read anything. Nostalgia may play into it, but I think it has more to do with the fact that movement from teen to adult is one of the most powerful experiences of our lives and it makes for powerful storytelling. In an age where there is no defined experience that introduces us into adulthood, it isn't surprising that people turn to literature to get that experience in some capacity over and over again. So Graham, maybe you didn't like The Fault in Our Stars because you just didn't like it. Saying you don't like because you're an adult is ridiculous and you're basically calling everyone who likes it a child.

I find no evidence in the assumption that we have to abandon the adult perspective to like YA books. I like some books because I completely give in to the emotional aspects and forgive the maybe not great writing, like Twilight. I find these to be brain candy, but books like this are not exclusive to YA. I like a great many other teen books for a variety of reasons: writing, world building, characters, themes, etc. She also asserts that the endings of YA books are too simplistic. The problem with much of this article is that she seems to be writing about one type of books rather than encompassing all of YA. I think she read The Fault in Our Stars and decided that since it's revered, it must be the same as every other YA novel. You wouldn't do that for any adult book, so don't do it for YA.

The fact that she has to define a book she read as "literary" is ridiculous. Every book is literary. To say that a particular genre is not is a lazy way of dismissing it as low quality without actually looking critically at the individual books. Science fiction and fantasy are looked down upon as "unliterary" genres, but the numerous great books in those genres disproves that. Instead of being an elitist, why not just enjoy reading what you like to read instead of building yourself up by shaming others.

The assertion that more new adults would not move on to adult books is also not proven. With around a third of people not reading any books at all, the passion and excitement that YA books have given both teens and adults for reading is amazing. Why begrudge those people because of what they choose to read? C.S. Lewis said, "Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on in middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of being really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up." I think he brings up excellent points. This critical view of literature written for youth isn't new, but it's nice that public opinion has been swayed more towards acceptance.

So, for some other compelling reasons to keep reading what you like without shame, read this wonderful list and this hilarious rebuttal. Ignore the haters and keep reading.