Monday, December 21, 2009

Superstition Part Deux, or "Most Badass Campus Cop is Given a Minor Role"


Alright, here is the second posting of Superstitious, ooh so excited to see how it ends! Scroll down to catch up on the first posting if you missed it, or click here.

Part 4

Liam proposes to Sara, and wants them to get married immediately. She gets him to wait a few weeks, until Thanksgiving, so her family can be there. Margaret comes by the next day to congratulate her. Margaret is looking younger, and gorgeous, and Sara wonders how she hadn’t noticed before. Marg tells her she’ll try to stay out of her way once the baby arrived, then leaves quickly. Sara’s all, whatever, but I’d be a little more concerned how involved my sister-in-law was in her brother’s sex life and potential children.

Sara is in heaven, so she doesn’t really notice anything. Until, she’s walking home one night, and hears footsteps behind her. She runs, but something grabs her. It’s … Chip, her ex and former stalker, also would-be drowner. If I was Sara, I’d keep on running. Chip insists that she come back to him, and grabs her.

Another murder has happened. The victim is Devra Brookes, a professor in the college who also knew Liam from his days at Chicago, where he lived before Freewood. She may or may not have been fucking him. Regardless, she didn’t survive the acquaintance. Her eyeball was ripped out and stuffed in her mouth. Ick. So, all three victims were women connected to Liam O’Connor, and all were to varying degrees sexually promiscuous. What could this mean? Devra’s body has fingerprints on her, but they are not human fingerprints.

The college is aroar about the murders, but Sara can’t think much beyond her upcoming nuptials. And then, about the four bloody rabbit feet that were sent her in the mail. For luck? Oh ya, and Liam owns a rabbit, or did own a rabbit. Interestingly enough, his rabbit had to be put down that very day. Because she no longer had feet, maybe?

Sara and Liam fly off to Indiana for him to meet her mother. Sara’s father passed away a few years ago, otherwise I’d assume that her dad might have something to say about the very-quick engagement. Her mother, brother and sister in law are all nice and warm, and Liam is his charming self. That is, until the black cat jumps on his lap, and he freezes in horror. Guess the cat broke a superstition. That night, something rips the head off the cat. Hmmm.

The day of the wedding, Liam is getting ready, making sure every superstition is followed. The event is happening at Milton’s estate in the woods, outside on a cold snowy day. Milton was very generous to offer his house, but is probably still angling to somehow screw Sara. As Liam dresses, his brown eyes turn blue, and he freaks. A purple forked tongue falls out of his mouth, and he barely gets it back in in time for Milton to miss it.

Part 5

The wedding goes off without a hitch. Everything is beautiful and perfect in the sunlit snow. The newlyweds try to leave the party for the honeymoon, a weekend out in the country, but there are so many well-wishers that Milton sneaks them out the back, after propositioning Sara again. Liam freaks because they didn’t leave the same way they came in, and makes them go back in and leave again.
At the inn they’re staying at, they make love in the light of 16 white candles as Liam chants. Nothing gets me in the mood like some sexy chanting. He tells Sara he wants to have a baby, and she tells him she wants what he wants. Ya, that’s healthy.

A witness comes forward to the police, tells them he heard a scream the night of the latest murder, and saw someone in a monster costume with glowing eyes and long teeth. I wonder if it had a purple forked tongue?

Sara and Liam’s marriage starts off rocky, largely because of all his superstitions that Sara has to follow now, which would be irritating, and the fact that his sister is living with them, always hovering over them. One night, Chip accosts the three of them, drunk, telling Sara Liam is too old for her, and he knows the REAL reason Liam had to leave Chicago.

Liam finally explains to Sara that he had to leave Chicago because a woman he had an affair became obsessed with him and had to be hospitalized. There are a lot of obsessive stalkers in this book. Sara suspects this woman of threatening her about Liam.

Milton has a dinner for them at the local pub. Liam breaks a superstition by taking soap from another person and starts to turn into a monster, but he gets a hand on it. Chip, meanwhile is lurking outside the pub, drunk once again, trying to get up the courage to go in there and tell Sara Liam’s secret. That is, until he is attacked and slashed apart.

Garrett is upset that his police force is being replaced by the Feds, but thinks it’s probably justified. He thinks something different killed Chip because he was slashed apart with a weapon, not ripped apart by something with inhuman fingerprints. He’s going house to house questioning people. He speaks to Liam, and discovers that Liam knew all four victims. Coincidence? Garrett doesn’t think so, but doesn’t know how the sensitive professor could rip people apart with super strength. Liam becomes the number one suspect.

Sara gets a call from a woman named Kristen, who claims that she used to be with Liam, and she had to warn Sara. Sara thinks she’s just jealous that she ended up with her hunk of a man.
Garrett questions Milton about Liam, who of course thinks the allegations are ridiculous of course, but just in case he checks with the dean of Liam’s former school in Chicago. Apparently, there were gruesome murders there too, and Liam knew all three victims. Milton freaks out, because knowing seven of the seven victims was just too much of a coincidence. He goes out to warn Sara.

Sara meanwhile has done some “accidental” snooping and discovers a pictures of a sexy woman in Liam’s desk. On the back is written “Love Kristen”. She confronts Liam with this, but he charms her as always, telling her it was Margaret’s picture. He then gives her a present of a human hand, and they make love in candlelight next to the hand. Okay, what the fuck? How delightful, I’ve always wanted my own disembodied human hand? Honey, you shouldn’t have, take me now. I can’t see this actually ever happening.

Garrett is still doing house to house work. He is attacked by a creature that bites his ear off. Garrett punches into the creatures mouth and rips out its throat. Okay, Garrett is bad ass.
Sara inspects her new human hand, which supposedly belonged to a mannequin. But she finds in fact it used to belong to Chip. Okay, honey, time to get out of this relationship.

Part 6

Sara goes to MB, freaking out, and tells her about Kristen. MB tells her that Kristen is the name of a woman who had just been found butchered. Sara irrationally wants to talk this one out with Liam. Surely her friend will convince her that going to discuss her husband’s murdering ways with said husband is a bad idea. Unfortunately, MB has a flight to catch, so she LEAVES Sara. Like, what kind of friend is that. Who does that? Sorry, you’ll have to deal with your impending murder on your own. And Sara is just plain stupid.

Sara goes home to find Liam in bed with Margaret, his sister. Things just keep getting bad to worse. An incestuous murderous husband is such an inconvenient thing to have around. She breaks the mirror in the bedroom (seven years bad luck …) and runs into the cold. She realizes soon enough that she’ll have to go back for her wallet, etc. So she goes back, to find the house empty. Well, almost empty. She does find Margaret’s corpse, still naked, impaled on the shower nozzle. Ugh, what a way to go.

Sara runs, goes to Milton’s house because she still has his inappropriate house key. Liam is already there, unfortunately, and Milton did not make it, is torn open. Liam attacks her, then holds her down to “explain” everything.

Margaret was always his wife, not a sister but the neighbour girl from Ireland. They ran away to America to escape Liam’s curse. They needed to have a child, but he didn’t want to do that to Margaret, because he loved her. Apparently, Liam is cursed by all the demons of superstition, that are released when superstitions are broken around him. The demons would be passed on to a child of his if the child was born in wedlock, so he had to get another wife preggers. Apparently bigamy is allowed. Liam had actually tried to warn Sara away, he was the one who made the threatening calls. Of course, he didn’t actually stop himself from marrying her and trying to impregnate her, so I'm still not seeing him as a stand-up guy in this one.

When others started to ruin the plan, Margaret stepped in. She was the one who killed Chip and Kristen, which is why they were slashed and not ripped apart. Liam believes that Margaret and Milton were killed by demons released when Sara broke the mirror, so this really was her fault. Sara breaks all the mirrors around them to prove him wrong.

Bad news. A demon that looks like runny eggs with two tongues crawls out of Liam’s mouth and attacks her. Liam pulls the demon off her and the demon breaks his back, killing him. All the demons pour out of his mouth and chase her. Sara runs outside, falls and hits her head, proving she is entirely useless as a heroine.

Sara wakes up in the hospital. She survived the demon attack for no apparent reason! A smiling nurse tells her not to worry, because not only was she alright, but so was the baby! Sara screams.

Good start, but poor finish, R. L. I mean why did Sara survive? The having people go unconscious is the oldest trick in the book, and it is just plain lazy. And this whole monster crawling out of mouth thing was a bit lame. I wanted to know more about Garrett, who was by far the coolest person in the whole book. What happened to him after he punched out the monster's throat. Superstition might have been marginally better than your average Fear Street, but loses points for being so effing long, meaning I couldn’t read the whole damn thing in an hour. 30 runny egg monsters out of 43.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Superstition, or “Don’t Have Sex with Superstition-Addled Professors”


Okay, Fear Street fans, it's been, ahem, awhile since I've posted. Oops! To make it up to you, I have reviewed the longest R. L. book, like, ever. This is his very adult novel, Superstitious. I had to break this blog up because it is the longest blog ever, and I don't want you guys to get bored, or read this so long that your boss discovers what you're up to and you get in trouble at work. This would be not good. So here is Superstitious, part one:

Charlotte wakes up in bed next to a repulsive one-night stand again, trying not to feel disgusted with herself. It’s hard to not feel disgusted for her when her charming gent clearly has a wedding band mark and asks for a blowjob on her way out. Delightful. Charlotte gives herself a pep talk as she walks home. She just got a new job as secretary for the mysteriously handsome Irish professor Liam O’Connor, connoisseur of Old World legends and superstitions. Charlotte starts to cheer up, until something grabs her in the dark, rips her scalp off, rips her eyes out and breaks her spine in two.
And just like that does Superstition start. This book, Stine fans, is a holy hell of an adult novel, if that intro has anything to say for it. Blowjobs? I feel a little dirty reading this, and totally cannot wait for the rest of it. Superstitious is supposed to be the most scariest of all R. L. works, so lets see what he has in store for us, shall we?

Part 1

Sara is enjoying herself at a bar with her friend Mary Beth. Sara and MB were old college chums, and now are back together again at Moore State college (in the fictional town of Freewood, Pennsylvania) – this time MB is working there as media director, and Sara is working on her graduate degree in psychology.

The girls are just catching up when Sara is sprayed by salt, thrown over the shoulder of the man behind her. He is immediately all apologies, charm and flirt as he introduces himself as Liam O’Connor. MB already knows him, as it is a very small college. Liam is eating with his sister Margaret, and Milton, the Dean of Students. Milton immediately offers Sara a part-time job, which was only partly fortuitous because it is clear that Milton is a big fat pervert, deliberately pawing all over Sara and staring at her tits. (tee hee, R. L. said tits!) The only question on Sara’s mind was whether Liam is single and straight?

Garrett is getting ready for the late-night shift as cop in the campus town of Freewood, where not very much ever happens. He’s a loving husband and doting father to his one-year-old son, but he can’t quite stop thinking that he should be making more of himself for his wife, Angel. He leaves his home just as two students running home to their dorm find the gruesome mangled corpse of Charlotte.

Margaret is in their house, watching two girls running by their window, thinking that they’re not late enough to miss their curfew and aren’t curfews in modern college dorms ridiculous anyways. Liam is ranting about a superstition, something that never seems to get tiresome for him, when they get a knock on the door. It’s Andrea, the slutty single landlady, who stopped by to see if she could fuck Liam, but obstensibly to see how they were settling in. Margaret sends her on her way as Liam admits to being attracted to her cougarly ways, but nothing will happen because he’s in love with Sara. Hmm, that happened fast. They agree that she will “do nicely”, and both knock on wood three times.

Part 2

The rather incompetent campus police, lead by Garrett, try to deal with Charlotte’s murder, which mainly involves asking each other what they should be doing, and vomiting. Ooh, apparently she was disemboweled too. The quiet town of Freewood is all abuzz over the horrific murder, which three days later STILL hadn’t been solved.

Sara and MB are sitting around gossiping, when Sara decides to reveal happened to her since she last left the college. Up to this point, we’ve only heard that she was living in New York City, and MB saved her life.

While in NY, she was dating spoiled rich beautiful all-American boy Chip, while barely scraping by as an editorial assistant in a publishing company. He takes her to the Hamptons for the weekend, where she realizes she doesn’t love him, largely because he’s such a spoiled little rich boy. They do make love next to the ocean, with the waves euphemistically spraying nearby. Chip proposes and she says no, so of course he tries to drown her.

Charming! This is just like a Fear Street man, of course he would try to drown her. Also, he has dry lips. And, just like any awesome boy from a Fear Street book, he starts to stalk Sara. Sara is laid off from her job when her old college chum MB calls her, just at the right time. MB pulls some strings and gets her into the graduate program and “saves her life.”

Now Sara is getting into college life. She gets her job with Milton, and is kinda grossed out by him. He’s huge, but it’s actually not fat, but muscle. He’s like a big wrestler dean of students. He also obsessively works out in his office. Note: there is nothing sexier than hearing some guy grunting in his office. He also is the proud owner of an extensive knife collection. On the up side, Liam asks her out, so Sara finally feels things are going her way.

Andrea, cougar extraordinaire, heads over to Liam’s one night, done up like a harlot and high on coke, hoping to get lucky. Instead, Liam reads her a fairy tale about money. This guy sure knows how to have a good time, let me tell you. The two of them are interrupted by Margaret just as Andrea jumps him. Andrea goes home frustrated, with a headache and a blue box. (Is there such thing as blue box – like the female version of blue balls? Whatever it is, Andrea has it.)

Milton has a party at his estate. He creepily lives out in the middle of the woods, where he can polish his weapons in private. We see all this from Milton’s perspective, and learn just what a pervert he actually is. He graphically imagines what he would like to do with each woman he sees, and reflects on his masturbation habits. Polishing his weapon – get it? Liam and Sara are at the party, and he asks her to go to dinner. Then he absolutely freaks out because someone has left his hat on the bed. Sara thinks it’s cute how into superstitions he is. I think it would get old, like, real fast.

Flash to Andrea, cougar slash landlady, who is walking home bitter after showing a home to a potential buyer, when a large creature grabs her in the dark, and peels off all her skin while she’s still alive. She is also gutted. These are some pretty graphic murders.

Part 3

Sara gets a threatening call, telling her to stay away from Liam. She figures it must be a female admirer of Liam, and chooses to ignore the warning. Sara thinks the dinner with Liam went well, but she is starting to get unsettled by his obsession with superstitions. Thank god for that. One superstition was that they had to pour their tea together, his hand over hers. Hardly harmful, but I would get irritated by that all the time.

As Sara is getting ready for bed, Milton shows up late at her door, saying he was out jogging in the middle of the night. This guy has got to stop working out! He’s bleeding from a cut on his hand, apparently he didn’t notice getting cut in the first place. He gives her some office keys because he’s leaving unexpectedly for Atlanta. He also gives her his house key, in case, you know, she wants to come by and “surprise” him sometime. Sara can’t imagine anything she’d rather do less.
Awake after that little interlude, Sara looks up some superstitions. She discovers the pouring the tea together custom was for that a child would be born between the couple. Liam wants to knock her up? Sara is actually pretty stoked about this – I mean, he MUST like me if he wants me to be his baby mama, right?

Liam and Margaret are talking at their house. Liam is in a foul mood and Margaret reminds him he needs to focus on the Sara project. Ooh, nothing is sexier than being referred to as a project. They see a news clip about Andrea and Liam gets inappropriately upset. Margaret keeps on repeating “what’s done is done.” What an odd sibling pair.

Liam shows up at Sara’s door with flowers for their dinner date. They have a great time, and he charms the pants off of her, literally. They make sweet sweet love together. Thankfully, R. L. is never TOO graphic about these scenes, but it still makes me giggle to think about him writing about Liam moving inside Sara, and releasing suddenly. Hah. There should be way more sex in Fear Street novels. Once he’s done, Liam leaves, which makes Sara harrumph a bit, because she could have used more cuddling. She then gets another threatening phone call to stay away from Liam if she didn’t want to die.

Flashback to Liam growing up in Ireland. Life was hard when he was ten, as he and Margaret ran across the countryside. He had just lost his mother, and the soil in their farm had run out of luck. His father was a stern man, but a wonderful story-teller, and knew all the superstitions, ever. There is a horrific murder in town. His father grimly brings Liam to the scene of the crime and tells him it was his fault.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Darkest Dawn or "Seriously Jamie? Put On Your Logic Hat. COMMON"


Finally, the conclusion to what I believe is the LAST R.L. trilogy we had to review! Craziness, I know. Darkest Dawn was filled with some completely insane plot twists…and some plot twists that were incredibly easy to figure out. I wasn’t sure if the murderer was supposed to be a surprise or not. I wasn’t surprised. Maybe young children would have been? Pssshhh my university education completely prepared me for reading between the lines of R.L. books.

The book cover again, is nothing special, just has that annoying shiny factor. But the girls on the front are totally drinking RyePops! Ooooh, scandalous!

The intro of the book starts with “someone” creepily peering at Dana Fear and Jamie while they get ready for the Valentine’s Day dance. They talk about how geeky going to the dance is (Were high school dances geeky? At my school, they were the opportunity to get drunk, and slobber all over the cute boy from Math class. They usually got cancelled after the Christmas dance because of all the puke in the halls. Classy.) The creepster who’s watching the girls decides to sprinkle a little magic on their evening – in the form of maggots in their hair. We “discover” that the person watching them isn’t a person at all. It’s the one-eyed blackbird who grabbed the pendant at the end of the last book! It gave him a lot of power apparently. And now he plans to kill them one by one for looting his home on Fear Street. Gee. I wonder who it could be inside the bird’s body. (P.S. It’s never a good sign when the main antagonist of the book could be easily killed by a pellet gun.)

Part One
Jamie and her friends (boyfriend Lewis, Shark, Dana, her boyfriend Clark) are hanging out in Lewis’ new house. Jamie catches the reader up on what happened in the last two books: murders most deadly AND the fact she was unknowingly possessed for about a year by Angelica Fear. Jamie also thinks about how there’s been a wall between her and Lewis. He’s been different ever since that night they both fell into the pit with the two skeletons and she got possessed by Angelica but he was fine. :| Riiight.

Jamie is still a little bit paranoid about Angelica Fear though (understandably). She keeps seeing her everywhere she goes! Lewis convinces her that the only way to be SURE that Angelica is gone, is to try a spell out of her spellbook. This seems like a poor plan. But Jamie goes for it, and when nothing happens, she’s convinced that Angelica isn’t really around anymore. I don’t really understand the logic behind this whole situation, but okay, whatever, good for Jamie. Moving on is good. Except that while no one else is looking, the book’s letters spell out “THE EVIL LIVES”. Dun dun dunnnnn!

Part Two
Dana and Jamie are getting excited about a big pep-rally/bon fire for Dana’s boyfriend and the basketball team. Dana is less stoked about Nate, who she kinda dated last year, but things took a sour turn when he thought she murdered his girlfriend. They all go out to Nights that evening, which we all know by now, is the one bar in town. And only teenagers go there. Prrrretty cool!

So all the teens get smashed at the bar, and decided to steal a few bikes and race them down the street. This part is pretty pointless, but Dana’s boyfriend Clark crashes his bike and Jamie thinks he’s dead. He’s not, but someone called the cops so they all skatter. (seriously, that was like 6 chapters)

Jamie is on her way home, by herself, when she sees the one-eyed blackbird. Where is your slingshot when you need it!? She is of course uber afraid, even though it doesn’t attack her. Just kinda watches her. Like what normal birds do.

The next day, Jamie and Dana go to the Flea Market (in the school parking lot? Okay.) to take their minds off the crazy blackbird that Jamie thinks is following her. Jamie finds a bracelet however, that looks exactly like Angelica’s amulet! So not really taking her mind off anything. The bracelet is way out of her price range though, so she can’t get it. Uhhhh, WHY would she want to in the first place? Does this girl have a death wish? “Hey that looks JUST LIKE my old evil amulet! How much!?”

She doesn’t have to worry about the price for too long though, because Lewis steals it for her. Hmm, if my boyfriend stole me a piece of evil jewelry, I would assume it’s because he also wanted me dead. I’d be watching my back.

Dana convinces Jamie that she needs to come watch Clark’s last practice in the gym before the team goes to Finals or State or whatever. Jamie is kinda confused, because she totally busted Dana making out with Nate the night before! Hooch! Jamie goes anyways, and Dana is busy trying to be an awesome girlfriend to make up for the fact that she’s a shitty one.

During the game, Jamie starts to feel all dizzy and lightheaded. She thinks she’s sick, (I think possession!) so she starts to go down to the washrooms. And just in a nick of time because the bleachers everyone is sitting on start to collapse! Mostly everyone jumps off in time…except for Shark’s girlfriend Nikki. Her face got smushed by the metal benches. That is…quite the way to go. At least you know your friends will NEVER FORGET that sight!

Part Three
After Nikki’s funeral, Jamie and Dana sit down to put all the pieces together. Even though Nikki didn’t go to Shadyside High, she was still killed. “OMG!” gasps Dana! She just remembered that Angelica TOLD HER WHY SHE WAS KILLING PEOPLE. Seriously? Dana FORGOT that kind of info? Angelica is killing the people who stole shiz from the Fear Mansion. They realize that they are all (except Dana, lucky bitch) in grave danger.

Jamie needs something to take her mind off of Angelica that night, so she sneaks out in the middle of the night to find Lewis. As she makes her way to Nights, on Fear Street, she gets a little confused. She’s ON Fear Street… but the mall isn’t there anymore. Instead, the Fear Street Mansion is BACK.

What? Yeah, I don’t know either. Jamie gets magically pulled into it and stumbles around in the dark. After endless chapters of her being freaked out and not knowing whats going on, she runs into: SIMON FEAR. But what is he doing there? Only Angelica escaped their grave, right? :|

Jamie somehow just runs out of the house at that moment. Lame spell, Simon. She goes to get Lewis and bring him back to the Fear Street Mansion. Of course, by the time they get there, everything is back to normal. Did Jamie not realize it was a spell? Simon Fear didn’t really tear down a mall, and rebuild his house in an evening. She knows that, …right?

Part Four

Jamie, Lewis, Shark, Dana, Nate, Aaron and Galen all go to this fantastic pep rally/bonfire extravaganza that Dana has been so pumped about it. Field + Fire + Teenagers + Booze? Sounds like every party I went to in high school. We just didn’t cheer. Apparently the bon fire, which hasn’t been lit yet, is made of 30 feet of hay. This seems like a bad idea. And it is!

As soon as the hay lights on fire, the whole bonfire collapses. Right onto a bunch of cheerleaders. Jamie and Dana get separated from the rest of their friends, and can’t find Lewis or Clark. (Haha! Historical reference!) They find Lewis first, who said he was helping the burning cheerleaders. Shark and Clark come running up, so they just need to find Nate, Aaron and Galen. They only find Aaron and Galen though…they’re shoved onto huge poles and stuff with straw like scarecrows. Again, you’re friends will never forget you! No matter how hard they try…

BTW: these were really secondary characters. Like, I guess they were mentioned when all the friends would get together, and Galen was the kid that lost his lips in the first book, but I don’t understand why Clark or Nate wouldn’t have been killed. It’s not like R.L. to shy away from killing main characters. Weird.

Jamie decides that since she is the only one who knows everything about these murders, then she is the only one who can stop them. She grabs her bracelet amulet and heads down to Fear Street at 4 am, chanting “Return, return”. She is apparently talking to the house.

The house is there when she arrives… as is Lewis. She’s all “What are you doing here, lover?” REALLY? You don’t get it yet, Jamie? Maybe it was a good thing you were held back a year. Lewis brings her to a back room where Dana, Shark and Nate are already gathered. He keeps on saying cryptic things like “Jamie will show you the way… OUT” and she’s still not getting it. She FINALLY understand when she sees that Lewis’ eyes are pale and silvery, instead of normal eyes. “YOU’RE SIMON FEAR!” Well no shit, Jamie. Common now!

Simon/Lewis tell Jamie she’s going to kill them all because they stole from him. Dana argues (don’t draw attention to yourself) that she wasn’t even there! Simon counters with a YEAH but you killed Angelica last year. Touche!

Jamie tries out the plan she had all along. She grabs her bracelet amulet and tries to recite a spell she learned from the book. Of course, since she’s not magic, nothing happens except Simon laughs in her face. Ooo, awkward. Simon then gives her the original amulet and tells her to kill her friends!

Of course, now that she has the real amulet, she actually is magic. Simon starts to leave Lewis’ body through a green gas… but that gas is pouring into the blackbird! Quickly Jamie recites the only other spell she knows and POOF! The blackbird explodes.

Seriously. Pellet gun. Probably could have ended this a lot sooner.

After the blackbird/Simon Fear has exploded, the Fear Mansion disappeared, and everyone but Jamie loses their memory. But they’re cool with not remembering, because they’re at the door of Nights! Hooray for teen alcoholism!

The End

Not the best trilogy (How could you top the 99 Fear Street series when it has ZOMBIES) but still pretty rad. Also, there was teen drinking, and sexual innuendos galore! And while I often wanted to shake Jamie so she would FRIGGEN UNDERSTAND, she wasn’t the worst heroine. I give Darkest Dawn 16 easily-killed one-eyed blackbirds out of 23.


P.S. I have good news for Shadyside lovers… after a THREE month hiatus (shame!) L.K. Stine has promised me she’s going to blog this week. So make sure to shame her into this, okay? GREAT!