Salem's Lot-en bigarren irakurraldiak zapore oso ona utzi dit. SK-en lanik borobilenetakoa da eta, seguruenik, guztietan ilunena. #ConstantReader

What a good, interesting book. The premise is a little boy can see dead people (which is familiar), but when he asks then a question they have to tell the truth.

This is a small but significant twist on the Sixth Sense base of the story because the boy goes from random medium to a tool people could potentially use for nefarious purposes.

Honestly, it’s a great story about how if you gained superpowers in any way, you have to keep that shit to yourself or you will absolutely be hunted down because of it, either by people who are jealous and want to hurt you because you have more than them, by people who are trying to use and abuse you to their own ends, or by people who will be negatively impacted by your power(s).

So take note: if you ever get super powers, just keep it to yourself. Only misery lies beyond letting people know.

I loved it.

I also love the storytelling style where it feels almost oral. King did this with Joyland (later with Fairy Tale) and it feels more approachable as in “gather round, kids and let Uncle Stevie tell you a story.”

I know some people aren’t keen on modern King, but I think there’s a swing to these stories that make them not only readable but devourable. The kind of stories you can read and grab another book right away and dive right in.

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I genuinely think Stine gets 90% through an outline or a story and says to himself “you know what would make for a good twist?” and then does it irrespective of whether it creates more problems for the story.

And I keep remembering that he got his start with joke books and that he thought so much of Goosebumps (at least) was basically comedy where the cliffhanger is the setup and the beginning of the next chapter is the punchline. But sometimes you get to the end of a story and he pulls out a twist and you go “hm. But if that’s the case…” but by then he’s already halfway through writing the next book and not listening to you.

My absolute favorite part of this book is that the protagonist was super gung-ho about going to this beach town and slaying some vampires - he‘s ADAMANT about it.

Except he SUCKS at making plans and then completely fails to commit when he comes across real vampires in repose.

Which… doesn’t really fit in with the twist…

I don’t know. I wouldn’t say there were plot holes in it, but I gave the side-eye to an awful lot of stuff when I finished it.

I kind of hate how I feel when I read these books specifically because of that. *I* think it’s just a matter of logic, but my pocket friend TJ once said I get a little nit-picky and I really don’t mean to - I just want stuff to make sense and a lot of Stine books feel like he drops logic in favor of cheap twists and I don’t like that. You can blame the autism.

But followers like TJ should know I really do try to go along with the story and I hate to be the guy holding up his finger and asking how stuff makes sense. I can imagine even Stine himself sighing in exasperation and saying “bro, it’s just a story. You’re supposed to just read it and have fun.”

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This was a really short one-shot so it didn’t have a lot of space to stretch out and build any sort of ambiance (not that ambiance is Stine‘s strength), but it did do something I liked:⁠
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A girl is at camp and she feels like she’s had enough vague threats and weird occurrences and she calls her parents to come pick her up.⁠
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And they COME!⁠
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I mean, she let everyone know that they were coming so the bad guy had to move up the timetable, but I like the effort anyway. Any other Stine book and they would have said “weird how people keep dying and I’m being chased by something I don’t know, but mom would be so disappointed in me if I came home early from camp...“

This was a fun one. Fun and fast.

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Okay, elephant in the room: this is nothing like the (80s) movie.

It’s significantly darker and deals WAY more with classism and mob mentality. Ben’s not running in an ARENA, he’s got the entire US to run in!

And the ending… Jeez Louise. Talk about a finality to it.

I hear they’re remaking the movie to be more faithful to the book and I really wonder if they’re going to keep the same ending. It’s, uh, something else.

I suppose the core is the same: a man runs from hunters. But that’s about where the similarity stops. Book Ben is doing it for money that he needs where movie Ben was a framed prisoner.

Book Ben is also a lot less interesting than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Sorry, Mr. King.

I thought the book ran a little long and the critiques on classism was enough without a subplot about how the air in the future is becoming poisonous and the poor are dying because they can’t afford fancy nose filters.

Kinda slowed the book down and, where a lot of King’s slower parts are there deliberately to show you the passing of time, this is a CHASE book. If there was ever a “go, go, go,” kind of book, this is it.

Also, this is the only time (so far) I’ve thought this, but The Running Man feels like it was a BIG inspiration to Chuck Palahniuk. A lot of it felt like he could have written it.

Pretty interesting.

Is it worth reading? Yeah. A lot of Bachman books are, but you have to go in knowing they’re a little more hit-or-miss and always darker.

Well. Usually darker. The Regulators felt more like a King book than a Bachman book.

This book is a lot of fun, regardless. I wouldn’t have any problems re-reading it during my next King re-read.

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I hate to say it, but this book was just okay. There wasn’t really anything special about it one way or another. I actually read it, then read another Fear Street, and completely forgot the title of this one.⁠
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I did remember that the cover is pretty bitchin’.⁠
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You know, I will say that I thought I had it figured out. One of the characters is into film and it’s a running theme throughout the book. He’s making a movie about a prom queen that gets killed while the prom queen gets killed in real life.⁠
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Or DOES she?⁠
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She doesn’t. ⁠
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Anyway, I thought that the twist reveal would be that the whole book was the movie and the guy was so into movies that he went full meta and made a movie about making a movie about a prom queen dying when she actually dies.⁠
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But instead, the twist is that the boyfriend’s side piece was being manipulated for a humiliating video.⁠ There are clues that SOMETHING untoward is happening but this still felt pretty gross when the reveal happens. Let me tell you: it doesn’t endear characters to have them be the “victim,” when they’re taping a girl while they mess with her emotions just for a laugh.
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It felt cheap AND sleazy.⁠
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Definitely not my favorite Fear Street and it feels like I’ve been on a tear of subpar-to-mediocre Fear Streets, but that’s what happens when you have SO many entries into a series and you’re RL Stine - a guy who has no qualms about saying he’s in it for the money. I mean, he shifted to horror away from comedy SPECIFICALLY for the money.

And, once you know he came from comedy, so much of his writing structure makes more sense. He definitely uses the same setup/punchline approach to his books but these jokes? These jokes are gross.

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It’s got to be unfair that I expect Stine books centered around aesthetically scary stuff to be scary, right?

Alas, I do. Any author should know books centered around Halloween are supposed to be scary. Period. But I have yet to read a single Stine book that takes place around Halloween that’s scary. He has more scary CHRISTMAS books than Halloween ones.

Ugh.

Look, I’ll be honest here: this is a teenage drama and that’s about it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he’s demonstrated the ability to write fast, exciting books in the past and this one takes a few more breathers.

I want to read a fever dream of horror from him.

Is it good? Kind of. I don’t like that kids portrayed in divorces are always on the border of losing their minds. It’s a lame trope. I know when my parents were splitting up, it was nothing short of relief to me because they were obviously not making each other happy.

Now, all truth be told, without my mom to keep my dad grounded with supervision, he did become emotional, petty, and constantly swinging between threatening suicide because I would one day leave him all alone and being abusively neglectful to me for days or weeks on end and there were issues because of that, but those were his issues, not the divorce’s and look at me: I’m fine.

Mostly.

Anyway, had this book been centered on the drama outside of Halloween, maybe I would have liked it more, but I expected too much and was let down.

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Okay, bargain shoppers: in this book you get not one but TWO twists and they’re both pretty good.

Honestly, me being an adult was what messed up my ability to figure out one of the twists. One of the characters has a condition where they bruise easily and my adult brain is thinking something that’s real.

Turns out no. I was wrong.

But that’s fine.

Now I have to find the last one to figure out if Callie can ever break the hold 99 Fear Street has on her!

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Hot take from Sue Klebold that flies in the face of most of this book (which consists mostly of why forgiving is less letting someone off the hook and more about giving yourself permission to get over it): Forgiveness is elitist or, at the bare minimum, not egalitarian.

That’s the kind of statement that makes you hold up a finger like “wait just a second here!”

… But then the finger slowly drops.

Yes, by forgiving someone - by telling them you forgive them - you are automatically putting yourself in a superior position to BESTOW forgiveness.

How interesting is that?

And from Sue Klebold who really, REALLY wants people to stop telling her they forgive her for raising half of the duo that shot up Columbine High School and essentially changed American culture overnight.

You can’t really blame these people, though. The shooter is dead and they’ve worked through whatever emotional baggage they have and want to grant forgiveness, if not to the guilty party, the closest thing possible.

Makes me want to read Sue Klebold’s book!

The rest of this book is too fluffy for me. You read that forgiveness lets YOU off the hook, not the person being forgiven one time and then you read that story over and over and over.

But the Klebold chapter? That was a surprise that makes you reevaluate a lot of things in your life.

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