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akookieforyou's review
3.0
*3.5*
This was so much fun! I love that we get some tidbits of the creepiness of Fear Street and why no one likes to go around there. So far, I like this one better than the others I've read. The characters are enjoyable, and the detective bits are great.
This was so much fun! I love that we get some tidbits of the creepiness of Fear Street and why no one likes to go around there. So far, I like this one better than the others I've read. The characters are enjoyable, and the detective bits are great.
reading_court's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
rach666's review
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
pbraue13's review
4.0
My favorite "Fear Street" book of the first 5! So fun! Like "Rear Window" for teens and through landline phones, a fun mystery/thriller with relatable fun characters and very of little cheesy/corny twists that R.L. Stine is known for (thank goodness). Lots of fun!
thefantaysbookdragon's review
5.0
*4.75*
I wanted a fast read to reach my Goodreads goal today, and what is the best book to do this the next book in the fear street series. and this was a good one, I loved the setting the creepy moments and the plot also for a short book I loved the charters a lot, am obsessed with this series lucky there are many books in the series
I wanted a fast read to reach my Goodreads goal today, and what is the best book to do this the next book in the fear street series. and this was a good one, I loved the setting the creepy moments and the plot also for a short book I loved the charters a lot, am obsessed with this series lucky there are many books in the series
anxiouslyreading33's review
2.0
Loved these as a teen rereading them as an adult though I found myself rolling my eyes with how preposterous some of the story is
bas1007's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
modernzorker's review
3.0
Ah, Fear Street. Pure, unadulterated junk food for the adolescent mind and I ate it up like Pac-Man. These books are firmly entrenched in their time period, and most of them rely either on crazy coincidences or teens doing dumb things to move the story forward, but I'm not going to pretend the charm is lost on me, because it's not. Using the tools of literary criticism it's easy to prove Stine's "Fear Street" series of YA mystery/horror aren't great literature, but that's like having Gordon Ramsay over to prove your frozen dinner isn't haute cuisine. The people consuming either one simply don't care. So while 3 stars is my 'serious adult' rating for "The Wrong Number", my inner tween is totally rating it a 5.
One of the things I love about Stine is his ability to take ordinary things from the time period where he's writing and give them a vaguely sinister twist. "The Wrong Number" is dated by today's standards, but it came at a time when installing more than one phone line in a house started becoming more common in places outside big cities. In a time before pre-programmed numbers and direct dialing, it wasn't uncommon to make a mistake when placing a call. But sometimes you might get a devious streak and either deliberately make a mistake, or purposely call someone you didn't like to cause some mischief. This was, after all, the basic conceit of "Scream", and any number of urban legends about babysitters receiving phone calls urging them to check on the children.
Stine quickly introduces us to our small cast of stock characters for a story like this. There's Deena, the mousy, shy main girl whose father works for the local phone company and installs the new line and telephone in her room to get the whole thing started. There's Jade, her outgoing, beautiful best friend who's trying to get Deena to come out of her shell. And then there's Chuck.
Chuck's Deena's half-brother, the product of her dad's first marriage, who behaves just confusingly enough that nobody can figure him out. He's hot enough that Jade's drooling the minute she lays eyes on him, but he's that stereotypical 90's bad boy: attitude to match his muscles, and a temper guaranteeing he'll show it off to anyone who doesn't respect him. His last high school expelled him for reasons we never learn, but we also find out he's carrying a criminal record for joyriding in a stolen car. Despite this, one of the first things we see Chuck do is risk his life to rescue a dog from a burning car. The next thing, of course, is him being a prick to Deena, then later getting into a fight with the biggest jerk in the school and pulling a knife on the dude. So is he secretly a nice guy underneath all that rebellious armor, or is he a first-class ass trying to pass himself off as an OK guy who wants to be left alone?
Time for the fun to begin: when her own date bails on her, Jade delivers herself to Deena and Chuck's house where they have plans to eat pizza and watch movies until Deena mistakenly introduces Jade to the new phone daddy put in her room. Jade's mesmerized and wants to use it to have a little fun, so she gets out the phone book and starts prank calling kids from school. She goads Deena into making a call of her own, but the game's over when Chuck bursts in, tells them he knows what they're up to, and that he'll tell Deena's parents if they don't let him have some fun too. Stuck between a rock and a nut case, the girls hand over the phone, and Chuck first makes a threatening phone call to the guy he fought with in school earlier, then phones up the local bowling alley to make a bomb threat. Hey, it's raining and the idea of a bunch of soaking wet saps stuck outside in their bowling shoes is hilarious to him. He ends each call declaring himself "The Phantom of Fear Street", and because Caller ID has yet to propagate to this part of the country, nobody has any clue where the calls are coming from.
Had he left it at that, everything would have been fine, but no, Chuck has to prove to his sister and her best friend what a badass he is. He's going to take on Fear Street itself to show Deena and Jade there's nothing to be afraid of, and that, dear readers, is something one should never do. Chuck's final call is to a random number on Fear Street, only instead of getting a clueless high school student or hapless shoe rental jockey, he hears a woman screaming for help, the sounds of a scuffle, and then a sinister voice telling him he's dialed the wrong number. Well, shoot...now we're in a dilemma: if they call the police, the cops will want to know why they were ringing up people at random, and possibly connect them to the phony bomb threat at the bowling alley from earlier. On the other hand, if they don't do something, they'll have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives knowing they did nothing to help a woman in trouble. The only thing to do, Chuck decides, is visit the address he called and make sure everything is OK. It's not long before they're way in over their heads, and Chuck's looking at serious prison time, leaving Jade and Deena on the hook to convince the police they've caught the wrong guy despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary.
It's all a lot of (mostly) good, clean fun although the antagonist is rather obvious despite Stine's efforts to throw in a few red herrings. Again, that's a feature, not a bug: the story's about how the girls will exonerate Chuck, not really a question of who did it, since we know Chuck's the innocent man in all this. It wraps up quickly because Stine's got a page limit to preserve, but we're also talking about something meant for teens to pick up and finish in a few days, so dragging things out just for the sake of padding the word count isn't in Stine's best interest.
I was in 7th grade when I read "The Wrong Number" originally. Twenty-seven years later, it's enjoyable in a nostalgic sense because I was a tween/teen when Stine was writing books meant for that age range, but my assumption is most teens today would be put off by how rooted the story is in the technology of the late 80's. Nevertheless, I'm in a "read a bunch of stuff I read when younger" phase, and this probably won't be the last Fear Street book I finish (or review, for that matter).
One of the things I love about Stine is his ability to take ordinary things from the time period where he's writing and give them a vaguely sinister twist. "The Wrong Number" is dated by today's standards, but it came at a time when installing more than one phone line in a house started becoming more common in places outside big cities. In a time before pre-programmed numbers and direct dialing, it wasn't uncommon to make a mistake when placing a call. But sometimes you might get a devious streak and either deliberately make a mistake, or purposely call someone you didn't like to cause some mischief. This was, after all, the basic conceit of "Scream", and any number of urban legends about babysitters receiving phone calls urging them to check on the children.
Stine quickly introduces us to our small cast of stock characters for a story like this. There's Deena, the mousy, shy main girl whose father works for the local phone company and installs the new line and telephone in her room to get the whole thing started. There's Jade, her outgoing, beautiful best friend who's trying to get Deena to come out of her shell. And then there's Chuck.
Chuck's Deena's half-brother, the product of her dad's first marriage, who behaves just confusingly enough that nobody can figure him out. He's hot enough that Jade's drooling the minute she lays eyes on him, but he's that stereotypical 90's bad boy: attitude to match his muscles, and a temper guaranteeing he'll show it off to anyone who doesn't respect him. His last high school expelled him for reasons we never learn, but we also find out he's carrying a criminal record for joyriding in a stolen car. Despite this, one of the first things we see Chuck do is risk his life to rescue a dog from a burning car. The next thing, of course, is him being a prick to Deena, then later getting into a fight with the biggest jerk in the school and pulling a knife on the dude. So is he secretly a nice guy underneath all that rebellious armor, or is he a first-class ass trying to pass himself off as an OK guy who wants to be left alone?
Time for the fun to begin: when her own date bails on her, Jade delivers herself to Deena and Chuck's house where they have plans to eat pizza and watch movies until Deena mistakenly introduces Jade to the new phone daddy put in her room. Jade's mesmerized and wants to use it to have a little fun, so she gets out the phone book and starts prank calling kids from school. She goads Deena into making a call of her own, but the game's over when Chuck bursts in, tells them he knows what they're up to, and that he'll tell Deena's parents if they don't let him have some fun too. Stuck between a rock and a nut case, the girls hand over the phone, and Chuck first makes a threatening phone call to the guy he fought with in school earlier, then phones up the local bowling alley to make a bomb threat. Hey, it's raining and the idea of a bunch of soaking wet saps stuck outside in their bowling shoes is hilarious to him. He ends each call declaring himself "The Phantom of Fear Street", and because Caller ID has yet to propagate to this part of the country, nobody has any clue where the calls are coming from.
Had he left it at that, everything would have been fine, but no, Chuck has to prove to his sister and her best friend what a badass he is. He's going to take on Fear Street itself to show Deena and Jade there's nothing to be afraid of, and that, dear readers, is something one should never do. Chuck's final call is to a random number on Fear Street, only instead of getting a clueless high school student or hapless shoe rental jockey, he hears a woman screaming for help, the sounds of a scuffle, and then a sinister voice telling him he's dialed the wrong number. Well, shoot...now we're in a dilemma: if they call the police, the cops will want to know why they were ringing up people at random, and possibly connect them to the phony bomb threat at the bowling alley from earlier. On the other hand, if they don't do something, they'll have to live with themselves for the rest of their lives knowing they did nothing to help a woman in trouble. The only thing to do, Chuck decides, is visit the address he called and make sure everything is OK. It's not long before they're way in over their heads, and Chuck's looking at serious prison time, leaving Jade and Deena on the hook to convince the police they've caught the wrong guy despite all the evidence pointing to the contrary.
It's all a lot of (mostly) good, clean fun although the antagonist is rather obvious despite Stine's efforts to throw in a few red herrings. Again, that's a feature, not a bug: the story's about how the girls will exonerate Chuck, not really a question of who did it, since we know Chuck's the innocent man in all this. It wraps up quickly because Stine's got a page limit to preserve, but we're also talking about something meant for teens to pick up and finish in a few days, so dragging things out just for the sake of padding the word count isn't in Stine's best interest.
I was in 7th grade when I read "The Wrong Number" originally. Twenty-seven years later, it's enjoyable in a nostalgic sense because I was a tween/teen when Stine was writing books meant for that age range, but my assumption is most teens today would be put off by how rooted the story is in the technology of the late 80's. Nevertheless, I'm in a "read a bunch of stuff I read when younger" phase, and this probably won't be the last Fear Street book I finish (or review, for that matter).
duderun's review against another edition
1.5
Overall, it was quick, easy read. The punctuation in this book is over the top. I have never seen so many explanation points in my life. Also, so much “___ said” or “said ___.” Use other language when describing dialogue, I beg of you R.L. Stine. I came back to add that while I am not a huge fan of cops so my opinion my be a little biased but this book had so many lines and themes that the police will really figure everything out and that they would help the characters. I felt it was a very overdone theme, regardless of the fact that it was published in 1990, I believe.
the_epi_reader's review against another edition
3.0
With nothing to do on a Saturday night, Deena and her friend Jade decide to make some harmless prank phone calls to a few boys in their school. On the following Saturday, Deena’s step-brother, Chuck, who has a history with the police, decides to join in but his phone calls aren’t too harmless. When Chuck decides to pick a house at random on Fear Street to prank call, he overhears something he wasn’t supposed to. Why call the cops, when the three of them could go to this address to investigate instead?
I grew up reading the Goosebumps series and absolutely loved them. I hadn’t dipped too much into the Fear Street series but I remember picking up The Wrong Number 2 when I was 10, thinking it was super scary. Now reading the first book as an adult, it’s nostalgic but man did it not age well, and has a lot of cliches. At times I found the book to be highly predictable with the three main characters actions to be frustrating and just not believable, but I have to remember 1) they’re teens and 2) this book is meant for teens. The Wrong Number is a great simple read to kick off the new school year season, leading into September and October… but I definitely need to read something more substantial after finishing this. Will I read the rest of the Fear Street series over time? Yes. Will I still have the same frustrated thoughts? Probably, but R.L. Stine will always have a place in my bookworm heart.
I grew up reading the Goosebumps series and absolutely loved them. I hadn’t dipped too much into the Fear Street series but I remember picking up The Wrong Number 2 when I was 10, thinking it was super scary. Now reading the first book as an adult, it’s nostalgic but man did it not age well, and has a lot of cliches. At times I found the book to be highly predictable with the three main characters actions to be frustrating and just not believable, but I have to remember 1) they’re teens and 2) this book is meant for teens. The Wrong Number is a great simple read to kick off the new school year season, leading into September and October… but I definitely need to read something more substantial after finishing this. Will I read the rest of the Fear Street series over time? Yes. Will I still have the same frustrated thoughts? Probably, but R.L. Stine will always have a place in my bookworm heart.