by RL Stine
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Series: 99 Fear Street: The House of Evil #1
Release Date: 1 August 1994
ISBN: 0671885626
Format: Paperback
Pages: 148
Genre: YA/Horror
Time to read: 2 hours
Source: Craiglist
aStore Link (Real Book): The First Horror
aStore Link (Kindle Book): The First Horror
Summary
(source: Goodreads)
The Scariest Address of All
Twin sisters Cally and Kody Frasier aren’t thrilled that their family has moved to Fear Street. They’ve heard the strange stories. They know about the centuries of nightmarish terror. But what they don't know is that they’ve moved into the one house that even their neighbors on Fear Street are afraid to enter. The house that has stood mysteriously empty for the past thirty years. They moved to 99 Fear Street.
Now they must learn the secret of 99 Fear Street or they will become the next victims of the house of evil.
My Reaction
Having grown up with and only ever read Stine's Goosebumps series, I was completely surprised by the writing style in this first of the 99 Fear Street: House of Evil series. I had no idea the author of the light-hearted spooky stories that enthralled me as a preteen was capable of such horrifying imagery and downright terrifying undertones as I just discovered as an adult in this book. I'm a bit regretful that I put off reading his non-Goosebumps tales for so long.
This book still had a lot of the same elements one comes to expect from Stine's voice: unfulfilling end-of-chapter cliffhangers, references to brand names, faulty leaps of logic, et al. But unlike what I'm used to, there's an actual romantic story arc and a point at which I thought I knew where the story was headed, but then it went so much farther.
I simply have to find the other two books in this series. Though some references are a little dated reading them now, once I grew accustomed to the setting, I was sucked right into this story.
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