Freddie Kölsch: Every Story Goes in Directions That Surprise Me https://www.writersdigest.com/freddie-kolsch-every-story-goes-in-directions-that-surprise-me #Writer'sDigestAuthorSpotlight #AuthorSpotlightSeries #WriteBetterFiction #AuthorSpotlights #AuthorSpotlight #YoungAdult #YAHorror #Horror #Genre

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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This book was chock-full of so many red herrings that I‘m not sure if it was deliberate or if Stine was giving himself options with how he felt toward the end of the book.⁠
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But I had an idea who it was pretty early on, so maybe deliberate? ⁠
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This is one of those books where you wish there was another twenty pages or so (and it‘s already longer than most Fear Streets) because Stine was aiming for a case of the protagonist going a little nuts and it was abruptly there and abruptly gone in this book. Another twenty pages would have made those transitions smoother.

Definitely one of the better Fear Streets out there, though I still think the best is One Evil Summer.

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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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he’s broken containment! DOOMFLOWER is on the shelves at the San Diego airport in Bay Books, Terminal 1. Grab this irreverent mean girl vs. plant monsters and teen angst extravaganza.
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A pretty quick ride, but there was a stutter in the beginning when two bodies are found and the innocent party doesn’t immediately call the cops. Why would you NOT call the cops if you found two bodies cut to pieces?

In this story it’s justified by saying the person who found them needed to let her friend know her parents had been murdered before calling the cops.

But then cops show up and she realizes that SHE’S going to be a suspect and that’s what makes the whole rest of the story happen.

That said, it was a fun, fast ride and it had the highest body count I’ve found so far (4), but they’re also explained away by the end so did they really count?

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So, I’ve read more than a couple Fear Street books now and this one?

This one’s my favorite.

I’m a sucker for imposter stories (probably from watching The Hand That Rocks the Cradle at too young of an age) and this story is definitely that.

But it’s also FAST and exciting. Spooky and actually kinda logical - a huge ask for Stine.

This was a true pleasure to read.

What’s your favorite Fear Street book?

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I hate to throw up qualifiers but if you actually take the time to put yourself in the positions of these young women and really bask in the story rather than try to rush through it, this might be one of the spookiest Fear Street books of the lot.

It’s good.

Really good.

And you should read it.

But can we talk about this cover? Does this feel weird and kind of… I don’t know… icky to anyone else?

No? Just me?

I mean, there’s nothing misleading or disingenuous about this cover - I would actually say it does a good job portraying the sisters’ appearances. But the whole nightgowns and horror-stricken faces feels a little… I don’t know. Exploitative? Definitely SOMETHING. I just can’t put my finger on it.

What do you think?

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I think I’ve reached the point where I’m beginning to look beyond Stine’s penchant for characters who don’t use much (if any) logic or rational thought.

It’s best to just… give in and go with the flow. It makes the story way more enjoyable when I’m not getting hung up on why anyone would, I don’t know, start fires for funsies.

For instance.

And, once I got over that hurtle, I enjoyed the story as a whole.

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