Point Thriller The Girlfriend by R.L. Stine

Ah poor stupid Scotty.

Scotty is that guy we all hate, but secretly love in high school. He’s captain of the football team, smart and dates cheerleader Laura. Everyone thinks they’re the perfect couple and they have their whole life mapped out. They’ll go to college, get married, Scotty will become an architect who works for her dad’s firm and everyone will live happily ever after.

Her dad throws them a huge party to congratulate them on getting into the same college. He takes Scotty off to the side to tell him that he wants the teenage boy (with absolutely no) training to work for him the next summer in his architecture firm. Laura’s family is about to head off to Paris for vacation and she’ll *gasp* miss the Homecoming dance and they’re king and queen! She jokingly tells him that he should take another girl to the dance and he laughs it off.

After the big game and the big bonfire (boring), Scotty decides to skip the dance and…Wait, they have the dance right after the game? What kind of crazy school is this? Anyway on the way out of the parking lot, he sees a cute redhead fighting with her bike and decides to stop. Her name’s Shannon and he kindly offers her a ride home, while checking her out the whole time. He decides to ask her out for dinner and then takes her someplace where no one will see them.

He takes her home, they make out and then he leaves but only after asking if she wants to get together the next night. They go out again and Scotty notices that they have nothing in common. Seriously, they run out of things to talk about within the first 20 minutes. That doesn’t stop him from going home with her and ramming his tongue down her throat yet again.

Then he realizes that Laura is coming home so he decides to break things off with Shannon. When he tells her that he has a girlfriend, she remarks that she has three older brothers who will beat the shit out of anyone who hurts her. Okay so she actually tells him she has three big brothers and one once worked as a professional wrestler. Oh! And they’re super protective of her.

The next day he realizes that he left his favorite hat at Shannon’s house, a hat that his girlfriend gave him. Uh-oh. But he decides to just leave it and goes back to macking on Laura. Shannon sees them, throws a hissy and that night he discovers that someone cut his pet snake in half. Gross. Good old Scotty though just buries his snake and decides not to say a word.

Shannon starts getting even more protective and obsessed with him. She follows him and his friend one night and tells her baby that she loves him. I forgot to mention this, but she calls him baby constantly, never his name, just baby. I’d love to count how many times R.L. Stine uses this word in the book. On one page alone, there’s six baby references.

Anyway when he turns her down, she grabs his hand and breaks it…right before the big game! Strong gal there. Scotty gets his friend to go along with his story of getting it caught in the door. A few days later he goes over to Laura’s house and they’re chit-chatting when they come across his hat in her backyard. Laura grabs it, only to discover the body of her dead cat inside. Great Stine, two dead animals in one book.

Scotty tells everyone that his hat’s been missing for a few days and everyone recovers pretty fast. They have to because Scotty and Laura are getting crowned teens of the world that night. Actually it’s like Teens of the Community or something and he only goes because his girlfriend reminds him that they both get a check for $500.

Before the dance he sees a big guy lurking around and realizes that Shannon sicked one of her brothers on him. At the big party, someone tracks him down and tells him he has to go to the front. He finds Shannon dressed really tacky and trying to get inside. She’s wearing a red minidress with a low cut back and front, plus red gloves. Scotty makes mention again of how hot she is, while also being disgusted at how tacky she looks.

She tells him that she’s going to tell Laura (smart girl) and he convinces her to wait by promising that they’ll spend next Saturday alone together. She pouts, but finally leaves and he has a run in with the big guy once again. This time he manages to run away before the guy can talk to him.

He tries to get out of plans with Laura on Saturday because of his big date and she reminds him that it’s his birthday. He heads over to Shannon’s house, tries to break up with her once again and she attacks him. The two start fighting and he ends up clubbing her over the head. Not finding a heartbeat, he takes her lifeless body home with him, thinking that he’ll hide her somewhere…only to stumble into the middle of his surprise party.

Scotty claims that she’s dead, only to have Shannon start moaning and rolling around. She wakes up as he’s trying to explain himself to Laura and rips open one of his birthday gifts. She charges at him with a ski pole when the lurky guy breaks through the front door. Turns out he was a parole officer tracking Shannon on his off hours. She killed some girl, got a few years in juvie, got released and seemed to be rehabilitated. Apparently not.

Laura and Scotty sit down at the end of the book and she tells him that things are too serious. She says that they’re seventeen and acting like an old married couple so maybe they need a break. Scotty apologizes for his crazy behavior, they kiss, make up and go back to acting like nothing ever happened.

Where do I start with this one? I vaguely remember reading The Girlfriend a long time ago, but I didn’t really remember the details. Shannon is more exciting than anyone else in the book. I’m also tired of these teen authors making the perfect couple. It’s freaking high school! No one stays together after high school anymore! At least Scotty acts like a typical guy. He cheats on his girlfriend with a random girl and then realizes he doesn’t like her, but still fools around with her. Guess Stine remembers a few things from his teen years…