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Fear Street #9

The Stepsister

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Emily wants to like her stepsister, but it hasn't been easy. As soon as Jessie moves in, she takes over Emily's room, steals Emily's clothes, and lies to everyone. Then Emily picks up Jessie's diary and learns a horrifying secret. Is Jessie really capable of murder?

Emily tries to tell her parents, but no one believes her.

So it's up to Emily to expose the real Jessie -- if she can stay alive.

176 pages, Library Binding

First published November 1, 1990

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4290 people want to read

About the author

R.L. Stine

1,679 books18.6k followers
Robert Lawrence Stine known as R. L. Stine and Jovial Bob Stine, is an American novelist and writer, well known for targeting younger audiences. Stine, who is often called the Stephen King of children's literature, is the author of dozens of popular horror fiction novellas, including the books in the Goosebumps, Rotten School, Mostly Ghostly, The Nightmare Room and Fear Street series.

R. L. Stine began his writing career when he was nine years old, and today he has achieved the position of the bestselling children's author in history. In the early 1990s, Stine was catapulted to fame when he wrote the unprecedented, bestselling Goosebumps® series, which sold more than 250 million copies and became a worldwide multimedia phenomenon. His other major series, Fear Street, has over 80 million copies sold.

Stine has received numerous awards of recognition, including several Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards and Disney Adventures Kids' Choice Awards, and he has been selected by kids as one of their favorite authors in the NEA's Read Across America program. He lives in New York, NY.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

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5 stars
1,475 (28%)
4 stars
1,631 (31%)
3 stars
1,586 (30%)
2 stars
423 (8%)
1 star
84 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 292 reviews
Profile Image for Briar's Reviews.
2,295 reviews578 followers
January 23, 2021
The Stepsister by R.L. Stine is a cruel horror novel for those seeking some insanity and mean family members.

Emily has a new step father, step brother and step sister. It's been tough since her Dad died, but her Mom, her sister Nancy and her have been getting by. When the new family joins though, her step sister is wickedly evil and has a rough past. Dark and scary things start happening and it feels like Emily's life is purposely being ruined. But things aren't always as they seem...

TRIGGER WARNING ALERT: There is animal abuse in this book and holy moly I wish I knew beforehand because I wouldn't have picked it up. That one hurt my soul so much! I understand that animal abuse is horrifying and all that jazz, but my soul... my poor heart... It seemed heartless and cruel. Yeah, it's horror and it's supposed to be cruel but I didn't expect THAT.

This book is definitely a 1990s book but it holds up. Maybe not the computer exactly, but it still works. I think horror fans will enjoy this throwback and be able to sneak into it as long as they can get past my issue above.

Three out of five stars. It would have been five if there wasn't animal abuse but the animal abuse deserves a one.
Profile Image for Strawberri Mystery.
36 reviews
April 2, 2016
Out of all R.L. Stine books this one is my ALL time favorite.
When I was 12 I walked into a store and saw this book on a shelf. I bought it and couldn't put it down! I read it in one day.
After reading this over and over I started to become a fan of Fear Street and made it my mission to read all of the series.
I have read this book so many times I know it by heart! LOL
This book is about a girl named Emily who's father died, so her mother decides remarry. Emily, her mother and her sister Nancy live in the same house. Her stepfather, her step sister Jessie and her step brother moves in. Emily has to share her room with Jessie, at first Jessie is kind of mean to Emily, when Jessie gets to Emily's room she takes Emily's Teddy Bear and rips the head off of it after that bad things start happening to Emily. Someone puts peroxide in Emily's shampoo and her hair gets dyed green, someone stabs Emily's dog with a knife and leaves him in the middle of the kitchen floor, someone erases Emily's whole book report that she worked on for weeks, someone sets the school bathroom on fire and locks Emily inside, Emily is scared that it might be Jessie who is trying to kill her when she finds Jessie's diary one night and reads that Jessie might have commited a murder....this book has a surprise twist and a sad ending to it. This is the best Fear Street book R.L. Stine has written. I like this book because you don't suspect what happens in the end.
Profile Image for Roxie Voorhees.
Author 20 books127 followers
March 14, 2020
So in this one, RL Stine has turned up the misdirection and I loved it. I was so busy looking left, I didn't even see the tormentor right there. It was a great trip down nostalgia lane.
Profile Image for Latasha.
1,358 reviews435 followers
November 14, 2018
The story was ok, the misdirection was good. The parents are just characters in the background that aren't concerned about anything, well no- how much Stephen King the son is reading lol. the get a way at the end was something! It felt like a slap in the face from step papa. he seriously suggest that? yes, he really does. Like most of the others, it's great fun reliving these but not much to them.
Profile Image for Just A Ginger.
568 reviews27 followers
June 13, 2017
Wow, I did not see that coming!

Honestly I thought anybody could have been up to something. Sure it looks like Jessie is committing all the cruel acts, but everyone else looked pretty suspicious.

Maybe after what happened to their father, Nancy OR Emily had snapped?

Maybe Rich, the quiet stepbrother was to blame?

Maybe Jessie was doing everything after all.

I couldn't tell until the big reveal who was actually up to no good! And when the truth was revealed

The A-Hole guy of this book is definitely Emilys boyfriend Josh. He

I love books/movies like this! Where you have to figure out who's committing all the crimes! Reminded me a lot of a movie I seen one time, The Uninvited. A great movie!
Profile Image for Horror Sickness .
883 reviews363 followers
April 7, 2023
3,5

When you sit down to read a Fearsteet book, you know what you are going to get and there is something very comforting about it.

This story follows Emily as she adapts to her new reality. Her mom has remarried and now she has to share her room with her new sister Jessie. They are the same age so Emily hopes to win a new friend and for things not to be too awkward.

However as soon as she is alone with Jessie, she seems rude, scary and even dangerous. Emily fears that Jessie wants to steal her life and make her existence as miserable as possible. But nothing is really as it seems, or is it?

I had a lot of fun with this story even though there are a lot of comments about looks and how the girl’s bodies look which could have been avoided since they are not really relevant for the story.

However I did enjoy that this one really was able to misdirect me and when we get to the end we realize that we all have really dark secrets.
13 reviews
December 20, 2016
This book was about Emily, a girl who's stepsister moves in. Emily tries to like her but every time Jessie's around bad things happen to Emily and everything points to Jessie. Emily doesn't know what to do, should she trust Jessie? It made me feel surprised because I didn't expect nothing that happened in the book to happen. I learned that everybody lies and has secrets. I would recommend this book to everybody because this is an interesting book.
Profile Image for Elina.
89 reviews18 followers
April 11, 2023
استاین اگه بفهمه من در حالی که هزار تا کتاب نخونده دارم کتاباشو برای بار دوم و سوم می‌خونم می‌تونه ادعا کنه "بازگشت همه به سوی من است"
۰۲.۰۱.۲۲
5 reviews
July 10, 2009
The stepsister is a good book. It is about a girl named Emily who has a new stepsister named Jessie. She also has a sister named Nancy. At first Emily is very excited about having a new sister until she meets her. Jessie is very wierd with a bit of double personality. Then wierd stuff begin to happen. Such as finding her dog dead, dying her hair by "accident". Emily thinks this is the work of Jessie. Obviosly because of her shady atittude. But in shock it turns out that Nancy was the one behind the drama. Apparently, she thought Emily had killed their dad. Thankfully Jessie comes and helps. This book is a great twister. The Stepsister
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Profile Image for Yarely.
13 reviews11 followers
November 11, 2011
Stepsister is better than gorgous.I'm lovin' it.
Profile Image for BetweenThePages.
19 reviews22 followers
July 9, 2017
I actually really enjoyed this one and it definitely made up for the mess that was the last Fear Street book I read. Because if you remember my review for Haunted you know it left me like:



Thankfully, The Stepsister doesn't revolve around a girl falling for her attempted rapist and that already gives it a big leg up. Instead, this story is about 16-year-old Emily and her new step-family. After her father died in a freak drowning accident, Emily's mother remarried and Emily has to share her room with her new step-sister Jessie.

She starts out really excited about this until Jessie moves in and bad stuff starts happening at an alarming rate. Like, "OMG The bunny is in the pot!" Fatal Attraction kind of bad things.


And since this is a Fear Street novel of course the parents don't seem evenly remotely concerned that someone is trying to murder one of their children and are useless. It's a time honored tradition in these books I will forever appreciate.



The ending was also a nice twist that was foreshadowed but not super obvious.

Spoilers for the twist & ending behind the cut.
Profile Image for Alice.
603 reviews24 followers
November 15, 2018
TW: Fire

There was mild body shaming, but a lot tamer than R L Stine's other books. My pet peeve of his books, characters going on about being fat, comparing one body type to another type of body and acting like curly hair is such a horrible thing. No rape culture stuff, which is in a lot of Stine's books (ugh), so that was a good thing!

Even though I read it as a teen, I could not really remember for sure who the bad guy was and had I never read it at all, I would have been truly stumped until the end. R L Stine is really good at making you believe the bad person could be anyone. I suspected all the siblings, even Emily herself!

Emily could be annoying and whiny, but wouldn't you if someone was trying to kill you and you were sure you knew who it was and nobody believed you?

The parents were useless. Something happened that was a serious, horrible thing and they pretty much blew it off, when instead all four kids should have been taken to see a therapist and the parents should have got to the bottom of who did such a horrible thing. Horrible things were happening to Emily and the parents never seemed to care.

The stepfather was too hard on his son (even a little mean) and acted like reading was boring/stupid/pointless, even bragging that he couldn't remember the last time he read a book, which annoyed me. He also called his wife and three sisters "his harem." What in the world? Maybe he should read so he understands what that means. I guess it can have more than one meaning, but seeing too much anime has made me only think of the fanservice type of harem. Whichever way he meant it, it still felt like a creepy/crappy thing to say.
Profile Image for Jen.
1,581 reviews
May 1, 2025
The story itself was interesting, though I wish the characters had been more likable. Also wasn't a fan of what happened with Tiger. I get that this book is older and that trope was common, but it was tough for me to read due to personal reasons. The misdirection was pretty good, though after the fire I figured it all out. The last 15% was intense.
Profile Image for StephieLovesBooks.
12 reviews1 follower
April 4, 2013
This book(along with the other Fear Street books) are not as great reading them the second time around as an adult, obviously. But I loved them when I was younger, so they will always hold a special place with me. This one was really predictable though, but it's still a fun and quick read. If you're 12 to 15, you'll love reading these.
Profile Image for Angela.
87 reviews10 followers
October 1, 2015
Terrible but I loved it. I'm really enjoying the little breaks of a point horror books between the campaign which is Jonathan strange & mr Norell
Profile Image for Erin *Proud Book Hoarder*.
2,959 reviews1,192 followers
December 1, 2024
Wanting to revisit memory lane and enjoy those teen horror tales all over again, I was ecstatic to nab some of these babies on E-bay recently. I remember reading this one because of the cover, but every single aspect of the story alluded me. As I age, I seem to forget more and more. It was great fun to re-read stuff that meant so much to me then, and is a quickie that even an adult wanting a leisurely read can enjoy. I'm itching for my son to grow up a bit more and enjoy these as much as I did.

Character wise, we have nothing too complex as it's a fear street young adult, and it is cursed with the usual melodrama teenage angst. Still, the characterization is strong enough for this type of book, I really grew to love the little boy and get pissed at the mother as I should. Surprisingly the mystery is a relatively good one. Ok, Ok, I DID guess the culprit halfway through, but only because that person was the least likely suspect.

From beginning to end the story moves fast, with scene after scene was "horror" (Dare I say that?) Nothing too suspenseful or creepy, great for the young adult reader to cuddle up with for good times. It's not as good as some of his other stories, though, so this one earned the partner of three stars. Just didn't stand out enough, the motive and culprit wasn't surprising, and some of the drama DID begin to wear on my nerves (although I kept telling myself patience was needed because of the age level.)

Stine's a great writer and it's hard to believe he can come up with some many different stories. You would think after awhile the man would start repeating himself, but he doesn't. I would empty my meager savings for that sort of imagination.
Profile Image for Aurora Dimitre.
Author 39 books154 followers
November 8, 2018
|3.5 Stars|

+that .5 cause I guessed the bad guy

The thing with this kind of horror paperback is that they're gonna throw the real killer outta nowhere, so you've really got to read a lot of them to stop trying to follow the leads. I think I guessed the bad guy about forty pages before they were revealed, so that was fun.

Overall, this isn't one of the most thrilling or gory Fear Street books, but it's a fun time, it's not bad, I didn't hate myself while I was reading it, and to be fair, he tried really hard with his red herrings.
Profile Image for Mobina.
163 reviews5 followers
August 28, 2024
اگه تو سن پایین تر میخوندم بیشتر خوشم میومد
3.5 stars
Profile Image for Grace Chan.
208 reviews57 followers
April 22, 2024
You know it's gonna be a fun visit to Fear Street when right off the bat our protag is reading Sassy magazine and her stepbrother lumbers in carrying a copy of Pet Sematary. And the fact that he is reading Pet Sematary is mentioned all. the. time. Oh and he writes letters to Stephen King, too! 🤣

Emily and her sister Nancy's mom has remarried some grumbling bald guy with 2 kids, Jessie and Rich (the "Stephen King weirdo"). This is after the death of their beloved dad in a boating accident several years prior. The problem arrives when Jessie "accidentally" rips the head off of Emily's beloved childhood teddy bear, and the horrible accidents just keep on rolling in. From acid being poured into her shampoo to

The twist was easy to spot halfway in, but I still had fun. Please note the following very important details:

- Our protag Emily has VERY LARGE HANDS...sounds familiar? Honey from Best Friend had the same issue too 🤣👋
- Emily has a Trapper Keeper. Emily is cool.
- There are 3 pages....THREE PAGES!!! of a whipped cream fight. Hahahaha!!
-At the prom, Emily and her boyfriend dance to a fast paced rap song. "'PUMP IT UP! PUMP IT UP!', the song insisted." 🤣🤣🤣🤣

3 stars for this super messed up family. Rolling right into Stepsister 2!
Profile Image for Obsidian.
3,230 reviews1,146 followers
July 2, 2021
Fear Street Warning: Animal death.

Well though the new Netflix "Fear Street" movie was disappointing, I am still enjoying my re-reads of the series. "The Stepsister" has some really solid Fear Street themes going on. We hear about the death of a parent and how the surviving parent (the mom) has remarried to a man who just frankly sucks. He comes with some baggage though and has a daughter and son from his first marriage. The teen we follow in this one, Emily, I liked, but I have to kind of side-eye for some things (no spoilers) because I said at one point that if that was my sister I would have kicked her butt. The reveal about who was doing things I thought was well done. But I do love how at the end of the Fear Street books usually the evil doer is arrested or just gets sent off to get some help at a psychiatric center or asylum.

Emily is excited about her new stepsister Jessie moving in. She's finally going to have someone close to her age. Her older sister Nancy is getting ready to move on to college and Emily feels better about having Jessie moving in. Though when Jessie drops her sweet act Emily starts to worry what does she really know about her stepsister. When things start to go wrong and Emily gets increasingly hurt, she starts to worry her stepsister is out to harm her.

Emily ehhh, not my favorite of the Fear Street heroines, but not the worst.

I did think this one didn't focus much on Fear Street itself though we do hear about how Emily's father died and of course it revolves around Fear Island. It also made me think of the Cheerleader series a bit too.

The ending was a great reveal I thought.
Profile Image for Daniel Stalter.
Author 6 books22 followers
January 26, 2021
The Stepsister was a twisted one. I figured out the big plot twist about a third of the way in, but I still enjoyed seeing it unravel. I think part of that is just me getting better at Stine’s particular use of misdirection in these books. Regardless, this was a solid psychological horror story. Emily was made to feel like she was losing her mind piece by piece. Looking back after finishing the book, this was probably the most unsettling bit of the whole book. There’s also a lot of high school drama and some believable (but also frustrating) clueless parenting. Even when I didn’t like the characters, they were all (mostly) very believable. I had a few issues with how the actual ending unfolded, but overall this was one of the better Fear Street books. I’m very curious to see how this will be brought back as a sequel.

Score: 4

My full review with spoilers, snark, and memes can be found on my blog:
https://www.danstalter.com/the-stepsi...
Profile Image for Sassy Sarah Reads.
2,334 reviews305 followers
April 27, 2022
3.5 stars upon reread (originally 1 star). Funnily enough, this was my most hated Fear Street read as a kid, but this was a lot of fun to reread. I subconsciously remembered the twist which I remember hating, but thought was well done.
Profile Image for andthesix.
509 reviews8 followers
September 16, 2019
fear street books aren’t really perfect mystery novels or anything... but they are the books that got me into reading and there’s so much nostalgia connected to them. that being said,, i really enjoyed this book as i got the exact feelings been missing from some of the most recent fear street books i’ve read.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 292 reviews

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