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mehsi's review against another edition
3.0
Well this was just boring for a big part. I think the book would have been better if it had been a novella. Maybe 100 pages. Now it just dragged on and on and instead of me becoming more interested in the characters and the story, I just got bored and I felt it was just all too silly.
The police was just hilariously silly and bad. Oh, let's just not believe those silly girls at all, and let's just arrest that boy. After all he isn't quite the model citizen, so he must be the murderer! *rolls eyes* Oh hey, these girls just keep coming, let's dismiss them and tell them they are being silly and they are telling tall tales and lies. Seriously? This is how you treat people? Sjeesh, I am amazed that they even (really) solve stuff with that kind of attitude. And with that ending, I will stand by my statement. Dear Lord, the police are idiots. Could anyone have told Chuck about the plan? The whole idea? The poor guy will probably never forget something like this.
And sure, Chuck sucked, but no one deserves being thrown in jail like that. Especially with the ending of this book considered.
I didn't like Chuck that much. He seemed to have a kind side, but it was mostly his dangerous side that popped up. He was quite mean to a lot of people, thinking prank calls are all fun and play.
Deena was an interesting character, but I wish she would have thought before she did things. A lot of these events could have been prevented had she just said no in the beginning.
I also didn't like how she thought about her friend at times.
Still I could see they were good friends and they really matched together. I like how regardless of what happened they stayed together. I know many stories were friends break up thanks to stuff like this.
The story was silly and a bit too far-fetched. It was at times creepy, but I had hoped for a bit more supernatural. Especially since this took place on Fear Street for quite a bit. Oh well, guess that not everything on Fear Street is supernatural.
The ending was good, and I am happy to see it got this ending. Unlike some of the goosebumps or other books I read by R.L. Stine where he throws in some random new twist.
Would I recommend this book? I am not sure. If you don't mind that the story is at times boring and the characters are a bit weird, then I guess you could try this one out.
Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/
The police was just hilariously silly and bad. Oh, let's just not believe those silly girls at all, and let's just arrest that boy. After all he isn't quite the model citizen, so he must be the murderer! *rolls eyes* Oh hey, these girls just keep coming, let's dismiss them and tell them they are being silly and they are telling tall tales and lies. Seriously? This is how you treat people? Sjeesh, I am amazed that they even (really) solve stuff with that kind of attitude. And with that ending, I will stand by my statement. Dear Lord, the police are idiots. Could anyone have told Chuck about the plan? The whole idea? The poor guy will probably never forget something like this.
And sure, Chuck sucked, but no one deserves being thrown in jail like that. Especially with the ending of this book considered.
I didn't like Chuck that much. He seemed to have a kind side, but it was mostly his dangerous side that popped up. He was quite mean to a lot of people, thinking prank calls are all fun and play.
Deena was an interesting character, but I wish she would have thought before she did things. A lot of these events could have been prevented had she just said no in the beginning.
I also didn't like how she thought about her friend at times.
Still I could see they were good friends and they really matched together. I like how regardless of what happened they stayed together. I know many stories were friends break up thanks to stuff like this.
The story was silly and a bit too far-fetched. It was at times creepy, but I had hoped for a bit more supernatural. Especially since this took place on Fear Street for quite a bit. Oh well, guess that not everything on Fear Street is supernatural.
The ending was good, and I am happy to see it got this ending. Unlike some of the goosebumps or other books I read by R.L. Stine where he throws in some random new twist.
Would I recommend this book? I am not sure. If you don't mind that the story is at times boring and the characters are a bit weird, then I guess you could try this one out.
Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/
akookieforyou's review against another edition
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 against another edition
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 against another edition
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 against another edition
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 against another edition
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 against another edition
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 against another edition
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
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.