Young Adult Revisited

The HorrorLand books have three different sections in each book, which is a little odd. The second section is part of a story that takes place at HorrorLand, but in a sneaky move by R.L. Stine, the story continues from book to book. So if you want the whole story, you have to buy every book. I only have a few, but we’ll see what happens. The first story in the book has absolutely nothing to do with HorrorLand; it’s just a shorter version of a Goosebumps book. Michael and his friends hate their teacher Mrs. Hardesty because she would rather have them learn about monsters than do any real schoolwork. He takes a dog whistle to school and somehow when he blows it, the shade rolls up. Hardesty gets pissed off and hauls him in after school. When she hears his friends Daisy and DeWayne laughing in the hallway, she drags them in too. As punishment she makes them do a community service project that Saturday near her house. Their principal Mr. Wong asks her to rethink her decision, but she is ...

Kristy just got back from a week-long vacation in Hawaii and cannot wait for their first BSC meeting, but no one else feels the same way. In the last book, Abby took over as president and wasted most of the club treasury on a Mexican festival. The girls keep talking about how much fun they had, which makes Kristy feel like they don’t need her. Jessi gets into a ballet class for top students, but it meets on Friday afternoons. Everyone considers letting her skip those meetings, but Kristy decides it is all or nothing: either she stay in the BSC or quit for ballet. Abby thinks they should move their Friday meetings to Thursday and takes a vote. Everyone agrees except Kristy, so they send out new fliers with the new time listed. Things start going downhill from there. Mary Anne and Claudia set for the Barrett/DeWitt house and have an argument. Mary Anne wants to play relaxing board games and calms the kids down. Then Claudia gets them all riled up with art projects. They start fighting ...

*I swear that I read and recapped this one before! I must have done it last year before my computer got infected and I lost my review file. Anyway, I bought this at a book sale last October, so it’s definitely been a long time coming! Amy Sutton, slut extraordinaire, is moving back to Sweet Valley and for some reason, Liz Wakefield is super excited. Naturally we get a short recap of their friendship and how Amy moved away after sixth grade. Was this covered in any of the books? I know she isn’t in The Unicorn Club, but I wonder if she appeared in any of the other books or had a goodbye book. Liz and Enid made plans to spend a weekend with Enid’s aunt Nancy at her ski cabin in Tahoe. They put off the trip until Amy gets into town and Enid even suggests she join them. Liz runs around, telling everyone about Amy coming back. She can’t wait to show her the Oracle, take her on a tour of town and introduce her to Enid. Liz makes plans to meet Enid at the beach, but Amy calls because the...

Stoneybrook is in the midst of Heritage Days, which seems like an excuse to give all the younger kids extra assignments for school. Mary Anne sits for Charlotte, who is doing a report on her family history. She finds bunch of photographs and an old locket belonging to her distant relative. Mary Anne starts thinking about her own life and wondering about her past. When she gets home, she sneaks upstairs and digs through boxes in the attic. She finds some old photos, showing her sitting on a porch with an older couple. She keeps having dreams about a kitten and an older couple and she realizes that the couple are the ones from her dreams. After sneaking around some more, she finds a stack of letters. The letters detail how her dad sent her to live with her grandparents in Iowa when she was a baby. Instead of talking to her dad or talking to anyone, Mary Anne mopes around by herself a lot. She convinces herself that her dad sent her away because he didn’t love her. She go...

Steve went as a hobo for the last five Halloweens straight and he wants a change. I don’t blame him, but then again, I don’t remember my last five costumes! He remembers that his friend Carly Beth had an awesome costume last year and wants to know where she bought it. He and his friend Chuck used to tease her a lot, but stopped after she scared the crap out of him. Steve sneaks up on her and grabs her head, but it comes off in his hands. Just as he is about to scream in horror, she pops her head up from her sweater. Carly Beth tells him that her mom loves artistic stuff and started making plaster casts of her face, which she used to scare him. She won’t tell him where she got her old mask, but when he steals the cast, she confesses that it came from the party store. Since Steve is a moron, he ignores her warnings. He and Chuck sneak over to the party store and when they see that it closed down, they find a way inside. They find a bunch of masks in a cardboard box in the basement, but...

Part of why I didn’t like the “miniseries” books and part of why I stopped reading the books was because not much happens. There are 700 storylines going on in this book, but nothing really happens. #1: Nicholas Morrow is suddenly best friends with Olivia. When he has bad luck on the dating scene, she submits his name for the TV show Hunks. They immediately hire him and send him a time to show up, despite never talking to him or getting his permission. He has three dates. The first date takes him to a biker bar, has a butterfly tattoo on her face and wears all black. The other date turns out to have a boyfriend. The last date, Ann is perfect for him. When he shows up in shabby clothes, she changes to match him. When he forgets his wallet, she pays for the date. Then, when the other girls bad mouth him during the filming of the show, she steps up and defends him. They kiss and live happily ever after, or whatever. #2: Bruce is mooning over Pamela after finding out she’s...

Jean hops on a plane to Hawaii, planning to meet her friends Michelle and Mandy. Originally, she planned on leaving when they did, but had to stay an extra day to makeup a test she missed. She meets Mike, a good-looking guy from a small town that won a free trip to Hawaii. They talk for awhile and he talks about a mysterious place in Hawaii. She thinks it’s odd that he knows the place, given that he has never been there before. She doesn’t have a chance to talk to him about it though because he goes into convulsions. The flight attendants work on him, but he dies. Jean cries in her seat and eventually falls asleep. She talks to one flight attendant before climbing off the plane and they both mention how nice Mike was. Mandy picks her up from the airport and tells her all about the things they already did. Jean is pissed because she cannot afford to do everything and has to use coupons. They do whatever they want, including renting a more expensive car and doing a bunch of stuff wit...