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A review by modernzorker
The Wrong Number by R.L. Stine
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).