Fear Street: Bad Dreams (R.L. Stine)

I’ve had this one for awhile, but couldn’t get around to writing the review until now.

Maggie and Andrea are sisters who do nothing but fight. They’re getting ready to move to Fear Street from fancy North Hills, which pisses Andrea off. Actually everything seems to piss her off, mainly because Maggie is the “good” sister, or at least the popular one. They were once pretty well off, but had to move after their mom died.

They get to their new house and Andrea lets the dog out. He runs off, almost gets hit and it takes up like three chapters. Maggie goes up to her new room and finds a huge canopy bed in place. The last owners left it behind and Andrea wants it because she claims she wanted one her whole life. Maggie tells her to suck on it because apparently Andrea got to pick the first bedroom and since she chose the best one, Maggie gets the bed.

Maggie meets up with her boyfriend Justin and tells him all about her sucky life. She also briefly mentions that he once dated her friend/teammate Dawn. Maggie then blows up at Andrea for wasting all the hot water. That night, Maggie dreams of a girl sleeping in her bed, who keeps tossing and turning. Andrea says it was probably a dream about Dawn because the girls are all up for some relay swim race or something.

Justin turns out to be kind of a douche bag, so basically just like a teenage boy. He shows up hours late to her house and brings a gift of…sponges. Then they make out for awhile, she tells him about her creepy dream and he just goes back to making out again. They have a run-in with Andrea, who was watching them make out. Then Justin gets annoyed by her dreams and acts like he’s dying. This is getting to be a really lame review.

They go to their swim tryout thing and Andrea accuses Maggie of stealing her swim cap, until she finds it on the ground. Maggie wins, but Andrea bitches at coming in last. Maggie finds Dawn floating in the pool and freaks out, but she was just practicing or something. Maggie then has another dream, where she sees someone with a knife. Andrea tries to comfort her, kind of, but it doesn’t really work.

Maggie and Dawn have a run-in and Dawn falls down the stairs. She breaks her arm and blames Maggie, saying she pushed her, but eventually says it was an accident. Maggie feels all depressed and sits in the backyard, where she meets their neighbors. Mr. Avery invites her over to meet his wife and they spill the beans about the former owners. Apparently they moved after their daughter Miranda was stabbed to death in her canopy bed.

Maggie goes a little crazy when it comes to the bed and won’t shut the fuck up. She gets named to the swim thingy, along with this chick Tiffany, then has yet another dream. This time she sees her killed, wakes up and sees Andrea with a knife, only it’s actually a curling iron. Wtf? She wanders around the house for awhile, goes back in her room and finds a knife in her pillow. She tries to blame Andrea, but her sister swears she was sleeping the whole time.

Maggie is so upset that at their next practice, she actually loses. Not to Andrea, because that would just be sad. The coach warns her about getting enough sleep, which will be hard since three seconds later, she finds Tiffany stabbed in the locker room. Then she has another dream, wakes up and sees the girl there, but she jumps out of the window.

Of course no one believes her, but they do make her see a shrink. She goes on some random field trip, gets lost in a cave and thinks someone’s following her, but it’s just Justin. He comes by her house and she sees Miranda, which is her chance to show him she’s not crazy. Unfortunately, when he looks where she’s pointing, there’s no one there. Then she gets stuck going to a barbeque at the neighbors, where she’s the now sullen one and Andrea is on top of the world. Whatevs.

She goes home and finds the bed missing. Turns out that their mom locked it in the attic to help her get over all her bad dreams. She sneaks upstairs after everyone is asleep and sees a blond sleeping in the bed. The blond grabs a knife and goes after Maggie. Andrea shows up and the girl acts all calm.

Apparently she was Miranda’s sister, but she was the sucky one who didn’t have friends or anything, kind of like Andrea. She killed her sister, escaped from the mental hospital and basically hid around the house for months. She started killing people so Andrea could have a good life. The two girls knock her down and wrap the canopy around her, then call their mom for help. Days later, they completely get over the event and decide to keep the bed in the attic. Me? I’d be calling Goodwill…