Young Adult Revisited

It's been like a whole year since Nancy tried to kill her sister and got sent to an institution, so of course she's ready to come home again. Emily starts out the book thinking about what happened over the last year and watching her stepsister Jessie move her things into her room so Nancy can have a room of her own. While holding a swan that someone gave Jessie after her mother died, Emily hears a scream that causes her to jump and break the swan. The scream came from Rich, her younger stepbrother. He got really dark over the last year and now spends all of his time working on a horror movie with his friends. Rich is pissed off because someone told their dad that he sneaked out and went to a party, which ended with him getting grounded for six weeks. Both deny him getting in trouble, but he doesn't believe them. Jessie's friend Cora-Anne comes over, forgetting that Nancy is coming home. She helps diffuse Rich by talking to him about horror movies. They h...

Remember back when Jessi took part in that club for kids after school? Danielle Roberts, who was in that club, has cancer but is now in remission, which means her parents naturally need a sitter. The other girls agree to let Jessi take the first sitting job. She asks Mrs. Roberts if they need to watch her closely or do anything special. While watching over her little brother Greg, they hear a big noise. Danielle was wearing her mom's rollerblades and accidentally knocked over a bookcase. Mary Anne is the next one to have problems with her. While spending time with Greg, she lets Danielle invite Haley, Becca, and Charlotte over to play. She realizes that she hasn't seen them in awhile and goes downstairs. She finds them "sledding" down the basement stairs on a mattress from a baby crib. Kristy then gets a chance to see her in action. Danielle and her friends turn the water on in her parents' shower, closes the door, and uses duct tape to seal it of...

Billy and Sheena Deep are back with their uncle for the summer, but Billy somehow feels that something bad is going to happen. The first thing that happens is that he imagines his sister is an octopus attacking him. Then he decides to scare his sister and make her think he's a shark. She freaks out, but she freaks out because there's an actual shark behind him. This shark "20 times as big as a normal shark." It kind of floats around and wanders off. They go to tell their uncle, Dr. D, what they saw, but he doesn't believe them. He does give Billy some plankton to feed his fish and mumbles about some random fish he caught. Billy thinks it looks familiar and goes through a book. D tells him it's too big to be in that book but then realizes that it's a minnow. Even though minnows only grow like one inch long and this one is four foot long, it's a perfect match. Billy wanders off to feed his fish and screams when he sees a head in the...

Sasha and Cal are twins and friends with Kate, who invited Jody, our main character, on a skiing vacation. Kate couldn't go at the last minute but she pressed Jody to go without her, even though she doesn't really know anyone else. Along for the ride is the hunky Drew, his friends Billy and Chris, and Ellen who has a crush on him. This is way too many people to introduce in the first three pages of a book! Jody makes a comment about the town being smaller than she thought, which causes Chris, who turns out to be a girl, to snap at her. They finally get to the cabin, and Drew does a little flirting with her. Apparently Chris has the hots for him, and this sets her off too. I get the feeling these two won't like each other very much. After telling everyone that she planned a party, Sasha takes them all out on the slopes. She comes up with this crazy game where she leaves an orange peel in the middle of the slope. They all have to ski down and try to grab it wi...

Dylan and his brother Steve live on Fear Street but somehow have never had any weird experiences, which annoys Dylan because he really wants to see a ghost. After talking about it with his brother, they hear a strange crashing sound outside, which turns out to be their dad cutting down trees to make room for a new swimming pool. With the trees gone, Dylan can see the outline of a tree house in the woods. He convinces his brother to go with him into the woods to find the tree house. They notice that the boards are black and that it looks like it went through a massive disaster. As they walk home, Dylan also notices that the temperature suddenly gets warmer the closer they get to their house, which is proof that the tree house is haunted. It doesn't help when they see a weird light near the tree house later that night. They head out to investigate and come across sisters Betsy and Kate in the woods. They are supposedly visiting from Connecticut, but I totally d...

Jessica found out that if she can increase her grades just a little more, she can make it honor roll. While Elizabeth believes in her, she thinks it's pretty funny. That is until her twin actually does make the honor roll. The Wakfields suddenly want to take her out to dinner and make a big deal out of it, which makes Liz feel bad. The two girls also argue over the television. Jessica wants to watch Lifestyles of the French and Famous, while Elizabeth wants to watch an interview with Amanda Howard. While they fight over the remote, Steven sneaks in, steals the remote, and turns it to a game. When they get to school the next day, they're still so mad at each other that they can't talk or work together, which leaves Jessica to whip up a batch of cookies on her own. The teacher gives them a recipe but leaves out spices and decorations so they can make their own recipes. Jessica and Elizabeth start fighting again, and she accidentally knocks some random ingredi...

Dove, Luce, and Connie are best friends arguing over the new perfume Venom. The manufacturer only ran one ad that informed people it was available from Dry Ice, which is some random trendy store that sounds like Hot Topic. Since Dove is incredibly shy and quiet, they think it's ridiculous that she would even think about buying a bottle. She still checks under her bed before going to sleep and worries about everything in the world. When they get to the store, she instantly worries about the perfume. She picks up a lingering underlying scent in the store and feels uncomfortable. Her friends open the bottle, which by the way looks like an ancient snake and not the bottle on the cover, and they don't like the smell. It appeals to Dove though, and while her friends think she's crazy, she decides to buy a bottle. Connie and Luce drop her off at home, which turns out to be some mass produced condominium complex. She keeps thinking about the perfume to the point whe...