Don't Stay Up Late: A Fear Street Novel | R. L. Stine | Review
In this re-boot of Stine’s original Fear Street series, which was published from the late 80’s right through the 90’s, we meet Lisa a teen who after a serious car accident suffers with hallucinations.In an attempt to help her progress with her recovery Lisa’s therapist secures her a babysitting job for a family on Fear Street, a supposedly cursed part of town. With her own family in serious need of the money this well-paid position offers, Lisa accepts the role and agrees to look after Harry a few nights each week under the instruction not to let him stay up late. However on her first night babysitting things take a sinister and terrifying turn when Lisa sees a demon-like creature run through the house and jump out of the window. But was it real or just a hallucination?
Although I’m sure a lot of readers may be drawn in by the nostalgia of re-visiting Fear Street and an author they loved growing up, I personally didn’t really read Goosebumps or any of R. L. Stine’s other novels when I was younger and therefore wasn’t familiar with his writing style. As expected I found the book to be a quick and easy read with an entertaining story and I also enjoyed the horror element. Sadly though, for me the conclusion of Lisa’s story was a little too predictable and the novel wasn’t as full of twists as I had hoped it would be.
Although I did enjoy Don’t Stay Up Late as a fun quick read, and would pick up another book from the series in future, I think this novel would perhaps be better suited to Middle Grade readers as opposed to a YA audience.
Oh my gosh, I'm getting serious Goosebumps flashbacks! I loved them at the time but I imagine that if I read them now they wouldn't hold quite the same charm. I remember one of the books I read the most from that series was called 'Say Cheese & Die' or something, and it had a really garish bright yellow front cover. Ahh memories!
ReplyDeleteI feel like I missed out by not reading them when I was younger! x
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