Despite a strong start, the book doesn't stick the landing, but it’s still suitably scary for fans.
A teen babysitter encounters monstrous demons as the nightmares on Fear Street continue.
Lisa Brooks is new to Shadyside, but she's been able to make friends and form romantic entanglements pretty quickly. When a devastating car accident leaves her with nightmarish hallucinations, Lisa's world is turned upside down, her only respite her babysitting job. Her charge, Harry, is sweet and adorable. He only comes with one rule: Harry absolutely cannot stay up late. Unfortunately, Lisa's problems seem to follow her to the boy's house, with grisly murders and creepy creatures on her heels. Stine's macabre sensibility and threadbare narrative approach are on full display here. After a successful return to Shadyside with Party Games (2014), Stine wastes no time continuing to wreak havoc on the horrifying town he knows so well. Longtime readers will chuckle and squirm at all the right places, only rolling their eyes at the melodrama Stine seems to feel is obligatory. Why should readers care that Lisa kisses a boy who isn’t her boyfriend when her father is dead and a bloodthirsty animal is on the loose? Stine also stumbles a bit when it comes to the explanation for the monster, which is weird and gross but comes about 50 pages too late.
Despite a strong start, the book doesn't stick the landing, but it’s still suitably scary for fans. (Horror. 10-14)Pub Date: April 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-250-05162-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin’s Griffin
Review Posted Online: Jan. 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2015
This series opener is funny, mystical, and endearing, if flawed; here’s hoping Baylor continues his journey with a more...
A pair of twins, one living and one dead, facilitate communication between the two communities.
The dead appreciate Baylor Bosco for his help communicating with their loved ones. The living struggle to understand or embrace those messages, especially if they involve a botched family recipe. Living white boy Baylor and his ghost twin sister, Kristina, have set a clear afterlife arrangement. Baylor relays the messages, and Kristina handles crowd control. One night their supernatural bond is threatened when a dark spirit visits Baylor in his bedroom. Unsettled and unable to get answers, Kristina and Baylor search both worlds for answers. Whatever problems lie ahead, they will face them together. In his debut, Imfeld creates in Baylor, Kristina, and their band of friends kids who could be found in any middle school. Well-rounded but not perfect, each main character has a moment to shine. However, for all the depth of the white protagonists, the side characters are given short shrift and occasionally even reduced to stereotype. Evoking a Latina’s accent with rolled R’s and phonetic spellings and describing a black character's hair as “out-of-control” distract readers and mar this work. Baylor's adventures will intrigue, excite, and captivate young readers, but they also risk alienating young brown and black children looking for adventure.
This series opener is funny, mystical, and endearing, if flawed; here’s hoping Baylor continues his journey with a more multidimensional cast. (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4814-6636-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Aladdin
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A skeleton with no meat to speak of.
A cursed landmark complicates the lives of four teenagers.
An abandoned Western film set lies in the middle of the Arizona desert. Narrator Alex and his friends live nearby, on Edmonds Air Force Base, and they’ve heard the stories. Everyone who worked on the set back in the 1980s, when it burned down, was cursed, and it’s still active, inflicting “eternal bad luck” on anyone who enters. But Alex’s friend Gabby is a budding movie nerd, and she’s itching to check it out. After a creepy expedition to the site, bad luck plagues the group of friends, and it’s up to them to break the curse. The tale moves from story beat to story beat with little fuss and no padding. Unfortunately, the author speeds along so fast that character work gets left behind, with the result that nobody has a particularly individual voice. Aside from the Islamophobia endured by pal Ahmed, the story sticks to Main Street to its own detriment. When there’s no emotional involvement in characters, there’s little reason to worry whether they’ll make it to the end in one piece. Alex and Gabby are Latino, and the base is realistically multicultural. Three other entries in the Atlas of Cursed Places series publish simultaneously: Deadman Anchor, Radioactive, and Skeleton Tower.
A skeleton with no meat to speak of. (Horror. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1351-9
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Darby Creek
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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