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A Midsummer Night's Scream
Oh, what fools these actors be!
it was a horror movie that turned into real horror: Three young actors lost their lives while the cameras rolled. Production stopped, and people proclaimed the movie was cursed.
Now, sixty years later, new actors are venturing onto the haunted set. In a desperate attempt to revive their failing studio, Claire's dad has green-lit a remake of Mayhem Manor, and Claire and her friends are dying to be involved.
At first, Claire laughs at Jake's talk of ghosts and curses. He's been too busy crushing on her best friend, Delia, or making out with that slut, Annalee, to notice that she's practically been throwing herself at him. What does he know anyway? This is her big chance to be a star!
But then, Claire runs into a creepy little man named Benny Puckerman, and gets her hands on a real love potion! Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth...
Get ready for laughter to turn into screams as the Grandmaster of Horror, R.L. Stine, takes on the Master of Theater in this modern reimagining of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
it was a horror movie that turned into real horror: Three young actors lost their lives while the cameras rolled. Production stopped, and people proclaimed the movie was cursed.
Now, sixty years later, new actors are venturing onto the haunted set. In a desperate attempt to revive their failing studio, Claire's dad has green-lit a remake of Mayhem Manor, and Claire and her friends are dying to be involved.
At first, Claire laughs at Jake's talk of ghosts and curses. He's been too busy crushing on her best friend, Delia, or making out with that slut, Annalee, to notice that she's practically been throwing herself at him. What does he know anyway? This is her big chance to be a star!
But then, Claire runs into a creepy little man named Benny Puckerman, and gets her hands on a real love potion! Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth...
Get ready for laughter to turn into screams as the Grandmaster of Horror, R.L. Stine, takes on the Master of Theater in this modern reimagining of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream.
250 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
72 people are currently reading
2579 people want to read
About the author
R.L. Stine
1,739 books18.8k followersRobert 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...
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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Displaying 1 - 30 of 531 reviews
October 16, 2015
“I’m a scary kitty…….” NAWT!!
Growing up as an adolescent in the 90’s I had a few choices for teen (or pre-teen) directed literature. You could be a BSC lover or a Goosebumps lover? A SVH lover or a Fear Street lover? I was a little bit of all four, I dabbled in all of them…. Because I was, and am, a bookaholic! My personal favourite was Christopher Pike – which, incidentally, is why you will NEVER catch me reading his new stuff. Some things need to remain nostalgia!!
Where do I even begin???
I had seen that this book had pretty low star reviews, so my expectations were set VERY low…. But not, in fact, low enough.
Firstly, let’s talk and walk for a minute about using classic literature as the back bone and selling feature for your cheesy 90’s-style slasher novel...
Balls: 100, Execution: What-the-actual-fuck?!
(If you are going there AT VERY LEAST, I don’t know... ACTUALLY GO THERE!!! I mean, maybe re-read it, because Shakespeare was a convoluted and sly bloke, beforehand... So you can do the elements you incorporate justice. Just a THOUGHT!)
Secondly, have interesting characters... mkay?! NOT one-dimensional characters that no one can possibly give a rat’s ass about! Teens today want characters with DEPTH…. Not just “the average girl”, “the hot-with-a-capital-Tee girl”, “the skanky girl”, “the good-looking-boy-next-door”, “the idiotic surfer” and “the Casanova”. This just won’t cut it, Stine!! I didn’t even LIKE any of the characters, and I know: I am not the target audience here, BUT I am probably more forgiving than most of today’s teens would be.
Ie: “Claire” (our MC) is having a HUGE birthday party with a A Midsummer Night’s Dream theme because her class read it last year. Yet, when she meets a super odd small, hairy dude named “Ben Puckerman, but call me Puck” who has a creepy trailer only she can find AND potions does she register this... *crickets* OF COURSE NOT! Did I spoiler?! NO, because ANYONE who has read (or heard) ANYTHING about the play knows, already!!
The plot was bogus, the characters annoyed me... (even the cheesy murder scenes on a haunted house movie set couldn’t save this thrasher loving girl’s read, man)
November 4, 2015
Shallow characters I wanna push down the stairs (almost all of them), not-really-scary scenes and WTF moments are in this book. I'm not going to waste much time telling you not to read this book. Just look at the ratings. They speak the truth.
July 12, 2013
Originally Reviewed At: Mother/Gamer/Writer
Rating: DNF
Review Source: ARC From Publisher
Reviewer: Me
Well, I am completely at a loss for words…
Growing up as an avid horror fanatic, I fell in love with the genuine writing of R.L. Stine and how he seemed to scare me senseless with his Goosebumps and Fear Street novels. I loved diving into those books in the middle of the night and living in the crazy worlds he created. My all time favorite being Night of the Living Dummy. If Chucky had an evil brother, this would be him. There was something special about Stine and his ability to capture the fear in children and teens. Sadly, and it pains me to my soul to say this, A Midsummer Night’s Scream did NOT live up to my expectations of the classic R.L. Stine.
Now, I am not familiar with the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So I cannot compare any similarities between Stine’s novel and Shakespeare. All I can do is talk about Stine’s latest body of work which to me, is…how can I put this nicely…god awful !!!
I am truly going to have to re-read some of my favorite Stine books because I honestly don’t remember his characters being so one dimensional! I could not relate to a single character, much less care about what was happening to them in the story. Halfway through, I was even rooting for someone to get chopped up and die – especially the main character. UGH. I absolutely HATED Claire and Delia! Every time one of them opened their mouths to talk I wanted to scream or vomit. Who in the world names everything they own by the name brand? Girls, we know you’re rich, so why shove it in our faces? To me, they didn’t talk or act like real teenagers –or teenagers with common sense for that matter. I don’t know how many times I wanted to throw the book across the room because of something stupid they said. They were naïve airheads or maybe even one of those little bobblehead dolls.
I think Claire was supposed to have some sort of paranormal ability. WTF does that have to do with anything? She spends the majority of her time drooling over some boy instead of being scared of a “haunted studio”, which is what the story is about. Right? I have no clue actually. Her reactions to situations were so unrealistic. If you are terrified and seeing people being murdered, would you really have time to be drooling over a guy or trying to use a love potion? Yes, there were some potions involved. *side eye*
Overall, I DNF’ed this book midway through. First off, it wasn’t scary! Secondly, it wasn’t the Stine I remembered. Third, it was just really, really, really, REALLY bad!!! And I hate…HATE writing this review. But I can’t in good conscience tell anyone to read it because there is some serious WTFery going on in A Midsummer Night’s Scream. If you have a clear picture in your mind about R.L. Stine and all his work from back in his Goosebumps or Fear Street days, then don’t read this because your image will be forever tainted!!! This is a tremendous let down and the novel has left me both angry and severely heartbroken. *head desk*
Rating: DNF
Review Source: ARC From Publisher
Reviewer: Me
Well, I am completely at a loss for words…
Growing up as an avid horror fanatic, I fell in love with the genuine writing of R.L. Stine and how he seemed to scare me senseless with his Goosebumps and Fear Street novels. I loved diving into those books in the middle of the night and living in the crazy worlds he created. My all time favorite being Night of the Living Dummy. If Chucky had an evil brother, this would be him. There was something special about Stine and his ability to capture the fear in children and teens. Sadly, and it pains me to my soul to say this, A Midsummer Night’s Scream did NOT live up to my expectations of the classic R.L. Stine.
Now, I am not familiar with the play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. So I cannot compare any similarities between Stine’s novel and Shakespeare. All I can do is talk about Stine’s latest body of work which to me, is…how can I put this nicely…god awful !!!
I am truly going to have to re-read some of my favorite Stine books because I honestly don’t remember his characters being so one dimensional! I could not relate to a single character, much less care about what was happening to them in the story. Halfway through, I was even rooting for someone to get chopped up and die – especially the main character. UGH. I absolutely HATED Claire and Delia! Every time one of them opened their mouths to talk I wanted to scream or vomit. Who in the world names everything they own by the name brand? Girls, we know you’re rich, so why shove it in our faces? To me, they didn’t talk or act like real teenagers –or teenagers with common sense for that matter. I don’t know how many times I wanted to throw the book across the room because of something stupid they said. They were naïve airheads or maybe even one of those little bobblehead dolls.
I think Claire was supposed to have some sort of paranormal ability. WTF does that have to do with anything? She spends the majority of her time drooling over some boy instead of being scared of a “haunted studio”, which is what the story is about. Right? I have no clue actually. Her reactions to situations were so unrealistic. If you are terrified and seeing people being murdered, would you really have time to be drooling over a guy or trying to use a love potion? Yes, there were some potions involved. *side eye*
Overall, I DNF’ed this book midway through. First off, it wasn’t scary! Secondly, it wasn’t the Stine I remembered. Third, it was just really, really, really, REALLY bad!!! And I hate…HATE writing this review. But I can’t in good conscience tell anyone to read it because there is some serious WTFery going on in A Midsummer Night’s Scream. If you have a clear picture in your mind about R.L. Stine and all his work from back in his Goosebumps or Fear Street days, then don’t read this because your image will be forever tainted!!! This is a tremendous let down and the novel has left me both angry and severely heartbroken. *head desk*
October 24, 2021
I give this book a 2 1/2 stars but rounded down for the insult to my memory of R. L. Stine’s teen scary books. This felt more like a Goosebumps book (don’t get me wrong, I loved those as a kid, but they are middle grade and this was targeted for teen). I loved the idea of the book. In the 60’s a horror movie is shelved after three of the actors are killed for real during filming and in present day they decide to remake the movie. So much potential there! To start all of the characters were shallow and rather awful so the reader didn’t want to root for any of them. Claire, the narrator, is probably the worst. None of the story was scary although the deaths were teen level gruesome. The ending was awful and probably why I rounded down. I think I’ll leave my childhood favorite authors alone for a little bit after this one.
February 7, 2017
This book would have been given three stars if it didn't have a stupid romantic subplot. I'm not expecting something super intellectual and amazing when I read YA books especially if it's horror and by RL Stine - his work is fun and among some of my favorite - but please for the love of god, why do authors have to include a gross romance between a really awful man and a judgy, whiney, "i'm not like the other girls" woman? come onnnnn. Jake had absolutely no redeemable qualities and NO interest in the main character whatsoever. That she spent the whole book trying to get him to like her pissed me the fuck off. The premise of horror movie actors are actually being killed off while filming could have been a fun and interesting premise but instead is ruined by fucking love potions and most of the book was shit like: "Jake put his arm around Annaleigh, what a SLUT! She's such a SLUT, why doesn't Jake like me? Jake, oh Jake! Stop hanging out with the SLUTS! I'm not like them! Let me pour some magic potion on him... even though the last time I did, he tried to punch me! Oh Jake, please like me!"
Yes the love interest really did try to punch the main character, and yes she still really did try to win his affections for the rest of the book.
Yes the love interest really did try to punch the main character, and yes she still really did try to win his affections for the rest of the book.
October 15, 2018
This book is pretty bad. The writing is not at the level I remember R.L. Stine's books having and the story is pretty weak.
If I look at it as a reflection of the vanity and pride of Hollywood, it's ok. It's over the top but it's interesting if you look at it that way. But really, there's nothing that can save this book from being a whole lot of weird mess.
I listened to the audiobook and honestly, the narrator was terrible. Her voice for Puckerman was high pitched and weird. She could have made him scary but she just made him creepy in a different way that didn't work.
Where the hell did these potions come from? He says the potions kept him young which implys that he either made them or brought them from somewhere but no one questions this.
All the teenage characters are horrible, conceited little dickheads.
Claire is probably the worst because she still goes ahead and uses that love potion on Jake and she tries this like...three times before she gets it right. It's sick, really. After everything they went through she couldn't just see what happens, she had to force him to become as infatuated with her as she is with him. What happens when she goes out of that and doesn't feel that way anymore? It's so wrong.
Not as wrong as CONTINUING TO RELEASE THE MOVIE. Although, how they got anything filmed I shall never know because the director was constatnly sending them home after barely any filming and then half the cast died. I assume that, even though it's mentioned they are being sued, they just used the real accident/death footage. That's gross.
Basically, everyone is horrible, the plot is horrible and I can't believe I wasted so much time listening to this book through to the end.
If I look at it as a reflection of the vanity and pride of Hollywood, it's ok. It's over the top but it's interesting if you look at it that way. But really, there's nothing that can save this book from being a whole lot of weird mess.
I listened to the audiobook and honestly, the narrator was terrible. Her voice for Puckerman was high pitched and weird. She could have made him scary but she just made him creepy in a different way that didn't work.
Where the hell did these potions come from? He says the potions kept him young which implys that he either made them or brought them from somewhere but no one questions this.
All the teenage characters are horrible, conceited little dickheads.
Claire is probably the worst because she still goes ahead and uses that love potion on Jake and she tries this like...three times before she gets it right. It's sick, really. After everything they went through she couldn't just see what happens, she had to force him to become as infatuated with her as she is with him. What happens when she goes out of that and doesn't feel that way anymore? It's so wrong.
Not as wrong as CONTINUING TO RELEASE THE MOVIE. Although, how they got anything filmed I shall never know because the director was constatnly sending them home after barely any filming and then half the cast died. I assume that, even though it's mentioned they are being sued, they just used the real accident/death footage. That's gross.
Basically, everyone is horrible, the plot is horrible and I can't believe I wasted so much time listening to this book through to the end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 13, 2020
Wow, this is really bad. It's supposedly a young adult book but is written with in the same middle grade style that the author used on the Goosebumps series. He just throws in some references to dating and drinking to try and age up the characters, but they still read as being about 10 years old.
I've never read the Shakespeare play this is based on, so I have no idea how well or how poorly it retells that story (although I can't imagine it did a great job).
I can at least rate the Goosebumps books higher because of the nostalgia, and the fact that they were creepy for kids at the time. This modern YA novel has nothing creepy about it.
I've never read the Shakespeare play this is based on, so I have no idea how well or how poorly it retells that story (although I can't imagine it did a great job).
I can at least rate the Goosebumps books higher because of the nostalgia, and the fact that they were creepy for kids at the time. This modern YA novel has nothing creepy about it.
December 18, 2018
I wanted some audio fluff and LOVED Fear Street growing up, but this was not good and lacked the charm I remember of my favorite childhood author. Also the characters were despicable. One example? (I'm paraphrasing) the main character criticizes her Cheesecake Factory waitress by telling the reader she's ugly and "thick around the middle". "Guess someone's trying too many cheesecakes!"
Ohhh I get it. Because she's fat! Good one.
Ohhh I get it. Because she's fat! Good one.
September 13, 2014
I bought this book because I love horror. I didn't read that this book was about and I didn't look at any reviews. That was a mistake.
From page one this book just hits you right in the face with how bad it is.
At first, it was kind of funny how stupid everything was and then by page 15 the funny had worn away and I was left with mild rage and desperate sadness because I spent money on a book that was so horrible.
The characters are morons and the plot is like the worst horror movie from the 80s.
So yeah. This books sucks and I'm really disappointed.
From page one this book just hits you right in the face with how bad it is.
At first, it was kind of funny how stupid everything was and then by page 15 the funny had worn away and I was left with mild rage and desperate sadness because I spent money on a book that was so horrible.
The characters are morons and the plot is like the worst horror movie from the 80s.
So yeah. This books sucks and I'm really disappointed.
April 18, 2014
Cover Blurb: Yes or No? I love the cover! It's spooky and intriguing and it incorporates one of my favorite things: a mask! Seriously; how can you pass up a pale bloody hand and a creepy silver mask speckled with blood? Unfortunately, the cover art is the only good thing about this book. And quite honestly - I have no idea what the cover even has to do with the book.
Characters: What characters? If Claire and Jake and Delia and the others were supposed to be "characters," I'm going to laugh. Seriously; a piece of balsa wood would make for a better cast than this lot. The daring needle in Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale was much more of a protagonist than Claire ever was. Talk about the dullest, most cliche group of Beverly Hills teens on Earth! The clicheness was so glaring that it was painful. And it wasn't even a cliche that I could like. Claire went around accusing other girls of being "desperate sluts," and yet she's the one who resorts to a love potion to make Jake notice her. If that's not desperate, what is? Her accusation of so-and-so being a bitch was the pot calling the kettle black, because that's all Claire ever did was behave like an over-pampered little princess. Delia was no better, and Jake and Sean were two twin surf boards with the world's blandest personalities. Oh, and let's not forget the villain - Mr. Puckerman. Okay, the name itself is awful. And his appearance was so overly creepy that he wasn't intimidating at all. And let's not even get into his horrible tendency to monologue.
The Romance: I've read a lot of two-dimensional love triangles, but this one didn't even have a second dimension. I had no idea emotions could be so 1D - I didn't even know 1D existed up until now! It was flatter than flat. I wasn't emotionally invested, I didn't care about anyone, and it was just silly. A poor attempt to make the book resemble A Midsummer Night's Dream, because without the love triangle and potion, it wouldn't have resembled Shakespeare's play at all.
Plot: Claire has always wanted to be in a movie, and when her parents' studio decides to redo an old horror film from the 1960s, Claire and her friend Delia signed up. The movie - Mayhem Manor - was never finished in the '60s because the original cast suffered terrible deaths on set. It was deemed cursed and no one has dared even venture into the manor since. But Claire's parents' studio needs publicity, otherwise it'll go under, and so they're willing to risk the supposed curse. However, potentially being sawed in half isn't Claire's only worries. She has a major crush on her childhood friend Jake, but Jake is too busy oodling her best friend Delia to notice. Meanwhile, Delia desperately wants to date Jake's friend Sean, but Sean is only interested in Claire. When Claire meets a creepy, hairy little man in a trailer onset, he offers her a love potion. Common sense tells Claire she shouldn't take it, but she isn't a very sensible girl. However, Mr. Puckerman isn't about to just give it to her, and Claire finds herself with the wrong potion several times. Added to these romantic complications is the fact that the curse of Mayhem Manor may in fact be real after all . . . . This is supposed to be a retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, the only resemblance to the play is 1) the love potion and the whole love triangle mix-up, and 2) Puckerman's name that is supposed to echo Puck, but I think we can all agree that Puckerman is nothing like Puck. That is where the "retelling" part ends, because everything else about this atrocious book is entirely different. I don't know if the Author was trying to make this story so unbelievably "bad horror flick" cliche, and if it was supposed to be funny. If it was supposed to be funny, it fell totally flat. If it was supposed to be genuinely scary . . . . Um, I'm embarrassed for the Author. Because I don't think this would have scared me even at the age of five. The "horrifying deaths" were absolutely comical, the suspenseful cliffhangers were utterly predictable, and moments of romantic comedy were annoying and ridiculous. I honestly had no idea a horror story could be this bad. In terms of the plot pacing, it's not a long book, but there's a remarkable amount of sitting around. Something bad happens on set, and the Reader is treated to several chapters of Claire and Delia recouping from the shock by treating themselves to cheesecake or hamburgers, while they talk about how much in shock they are. And by the way, their devastation is never convincing.
Believability: Not applicable.
Writing Style: First person, past tense. Claire is a very annoying narrator; I hated being locked inside her head. Setting that aside, lets just talk about the writing style itself. I can't believe this was a Young Adult book, because the style was kiddish at best. Content-wise, it was teen, but it read like a beginning readers' book. There was no real attempt at creepy imagery or disturbing violence. And while I'm not a fan of disturbing violence, it is something that is expected in a horror story, and in many ways essential. The Author didn't even try. And the dialogue - oh my gosh, the dialogue was horrendous!
Content: Drinking, yucky kissing, violence - but violence that is so B-movie that it was comical.
Conclusion: The final showdown between Puckerman and Claire was ridiculous. And his defeat was downright embarrassing. And I don't believe for one minute that the studio would have been allowed to release the film of everyone dying. I have read some R. L. Stine's Goosebumps books before, and they were actually very creepy. So when I found out that he wrote a YA horror book - and one based off of A Midsummer Night's Dream - I figured that it would be good. This book did not do R. L. Stine justice; I can't even believe that he wrote it, quite honestly. It was just so bad! The characters, the plot, the writing - it was just awful. So please, Readers; don't judge his writing based on this book, because he usually is a much better writer.
Recommended Audience: Girl-read, sixteen-and-up. Quite honestly, I don't know what kind of Readers this would appeal to. Horror Readers would find it ridiculous and R. L. Stine fans will be disappointed.
Characters: What characters? If Claire and Jake and Delia and the others were supposed to be "characters," I'm going to laugh. Seriously; a piece of balsa wood would make for a better cast than this lot. The daring needle in Hans Christian Anderson's fairytale was much more of a protagonist than Claire ever was. Talk about the dullest, most cliche group of Beverly Hills teens on Earth! The clicheness was so glaring that it was painful. And it wasn't even a cliche that I could like. Claire went around accusing other girls of being "desperate sluts," and yet she's the one who resorts to a love potion to make Jake notice her. If that's not desperate, what is? Her accusation of so-and-so being a bitch was the pot calling the kettle black, because that's all Claire ever did was behave like an over-pampered little princess. Delia was no better, and Jake and Sean were two twin surf boards with the world's blandest personalities. Oh, and let's not forget the villain - Mr. Puckerman. Okay, the name itself is awful. And his appearance was so overly creepy that he wasn't intimidating at all. And let's not even get into his horrible tendency to monologue.
The Romance: I've read a lot of two-dimensional love triangles, but this one didn't even have a second dimension. I had no idea emotions could be so 1D - I didn't even know 1D existed up until now! It was flatter than flat. I wasn't emotionally invested, I didn't care about anyone, and it was just silly. A poor attempt to make the book resemble A Midsummer Night's Dream, because without the love triangle and potion, it wouldn't have resembled Shakespeare's play at all.
Plot: Claire has always wanted to be in a movie, and when her parents' studio decides to redo an old horror film from the 1960s, Claire and her friend Delia signed up. The movie - Mayhem Manor - was never finished in the '60s because the original cast suffered terrible deaths on set. It was deemed cursed and no one has dared even venture into the manor since. But Claire's parents' studio needs publicity, otherwise it'll go under, and so they're willing to risk the supposed curse. However, potentially being sawed in half isn't Claire's only worries. She has a major crush on her childhood friend Jake, but Jake is too busy oodling her best friend Delia to notice. Meanwhile, Delia desperately wants to date Jake's friend Sean, but Sean is only interested in Claire. When Claire meets a creepy, hairy little man in a trailer onset, he offers her a love potion. Common sense tells Claire she shouldn't take it, but she isn't a very sensible girl. However, Mr. Puckerman isn't about to just give it to her, and Claire finds herself with the wrong potion several times. Added to these romantic complications is the fact that the curse of Mayhem Manor may in fact be real after all . . . . This is supposed to be a retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream. However, the only resemblance to the play is 1) the love potion and the whole love triangle mix-up, and 2) Puckerman's name that is supposed to echo Puck, but I think we can all agree that Puckerman is nothing like Puck. That is where the "retelling" part ends, because everything else about this atrocious book is entirely different. I don't know if the Author was trying to make this story so unbelievably "bad horror flick" cliche, and if it was supposed to be funny. If it was supposed to be funny, it fell totally flat. If it was supposed to be genuinely scary . . . . Um, I'm embarrassed for the Author. Because I don't think this would have scared me even at the age of five. The "horrifying deaths" were absolutely comical, the suspenseful cliffhangers were utterly predictable, and moments of romantic comedy were annoying and ridiculous. I honestly had no idea a horror story could be this bad. In terms of the plot pacing, it's not a long book, but there's a remarkable amount of sitting around. Something bad happens on set, and the Reader is treated to several chapters of Claire and Delia recouping from the shock by treating themselves to cheesecake or hamburgers, while they talk about how much in shock they are. And by the way, their devastation is never convincing.
Believability: Not applicable.
Writing Style: First person, past tense. Claire is a very annoying narrator; I hated being locked inside her head. Setting that aside, lets just talk about the writing style itself. I can't believe this was a Young Adult book, because the style was kiddish at best. Content-wise, it was teen, but it read like a beginning readers' book. There was no real attempt at creepy imagery or disturbing violence. And while I'm not a fan of disturbing violence, it is something that is expected in a horror story, and in many ways essential. The Author didn't even try. And the dialogue - oh my gosh, the dialogue was horrendous!
Content: Drinking, yucky kissing, violence - but violence that is so B-movie that it was comical.
Conclusion: The final showdown between Puckerman and Claire was ridiculous. And his defeat was downright embarrassing. And I don't believe for one minute that the studio would have been allowed to release the film of everyone dying. I have read some R. L. Stine's Goosebumps books before, and they were actually very creepy. So when I found out that he wrote a YA horror book - and one based off of A Midsummer Night's Dream - I figured that it would be good. This book did not do R. L. Stine justice; I can't even believe that he wrote it, quite honestly. It was just so bad! The characters, the plot, the writing - it was just awful. So please, Readers; don't judge his writing based on this book, because he usually is a much better writer.
Recommended Audience: Girl-read, sixteen-and-up. Quite honestly, I don't know what kind of Readers this would appeal to. Horror Readers would find it ridiculous and R. L. Stine fans will be disappointed.
June 25, 2013
Oh boy. Where to start with this one? When I heard that RL Stine was returning to YA, I was really excited. I loved "Goosebumps" as a kid growing up in the 90s (which 90s kid didn't?) so I was hoping for the same quality with this horror/retelling of "Midsummer's Night Dream". Alas, it was not to be had. Where did everything go so hideously wrong? I just...I can't even really see where it's a retelling with the horror element so heavy within it. Maybe if it'd been written differently, or had Stine chosen to tell his story with different words, or different characters, or anything like that, I might have been able to see the retelling of Shakespeare's classic tale. All I can say is that I was looking forward to this one, and Stine let me down. I wish I could say that I recommend "A Midsummer Night's Scream", but I just can't.
What bothered me the most: the slut-shaming. It starts on ARC page 29, and just goes on from there. It felt as if Stine was trying to embody the "Hollywood" dynamic with mean girls and sluts everywhere as antagonists, and I just don't see that working. I mean, of course there are mean girls and those that sleep around a little too often in Hollywood, but they're not the vast majority Stine makes them out to be. Not that I'd know - I'm not in the business, but friends who do work in the lower tiers of the business confirm that yes, there are nice and awesome people and no, they're not all sluts. I'll chalk this up to Stine wanting for teenage girls to relate and his lack of research/reliance on an old stereotype.
There's also the general poor quality of cross-gender narration. While I'll give Stine the benefit of the doubt that cross-gender narration is hard to nail, this was...well, to be frank, one of the worst examples I've seen of it so far. It felt like an older guy trying to narrate a typical, hopefully popular YA book through a dated version of a teenage girl, not to mention a general stereotype of what typical teenage girls are made of: obsessions with clothes, slang, and clique-y friends. While there's always a tiny grain of truth within stereotypes, Stine really took it to the next level with exaggeration. At times I was infuriated and then wanted to laugh because I was so incensed.
The world: while there is a good feeling of the Hollywood world through the wild pool parties (that part hasn't changed since the 1920s, always good to know), the rest of it feels barely there. I'm talking 1D, paper-thin, and is constantly being propped up by characters that are also of the same quality. However, I will say that the creepy atmosphere the opening chapters had with the teenagers in the house in the woods was really good (stick to what you know - "Goosebumps" worthy horror), it got a little cheesy after awhile to the point of me saying to myself "saw that coming". The action and tension are good, but the stakes are just not high enough for the MC and main cast we're supposed to care about, and thus, I just had to DNF it after a third of the way in.
And I know my Shakespeare well enough to say - where was the retelling? I seriously for the life of me could not find it. And if I couldn't find it a third of the way in, that spells trouble for the book in general. I should be able to figure it out within a few chapters. I wasn't able to. And that was aggravating. The concept was fantastic, but the execution in pretty much all technical areas was exceedingly poor.
Final verdict? Stine, stick to what you're best at - "Goosebumps". I'm completely serious - I'd love it if more of the series came out. I'd definitely read them. But "A Midsummer's Night Scream"? Nope. Can't recommend it. If you're looking for a better retelling, definitely search elsewhere. But that's just how I feel about it. "A Midsummer's Night Scream" is out July 2, 2013 in North America from Macmillan, so be sure to check it out then and come to your own conclusion about this book.
(posted to goodreads, shelfari, and birthofanewwitch.wordpress.com)
What bothered me the most: the slut-shaming. It starts on ARC page 29, and just goes on from there. It felt as if Stine was trying to embody the "Hollywood" dynamic with mean girls and sluts everywhere as antagonists, and I just don't see that working. I mean, of course there are mean girls and those that sleep around a little too often in Hollywood, but they're not the vast majority Stine makes them out to be. Not that I'd know - I'm not in the business, but friends who do work in the lower tiers of the business confirm that yes, there are nice and awesome people and no, they're not all sluts. I'll chalk this up to Stine wanting for teenage girls to relate and his lack of research/reliance on an old stereotype.
There's also the general poor quality of cross-gender narration. While I'll give Stine the benefit of the doubt that cross-gender narration is hard to nail, this was...well, to be frank, one of the worst examples I've seen of it so far. It felt like an older guy trying to narrate a typical, hopefully popular YA book through a dated version of a teenage girl, not to mention a general stereotype of what typical teenage girls are made of: obsessions with clothes, slang, and clique-y friends. While there's always a tiny grain of truth within stereotypes, Stine really took it to the next level with exaggeration. At times I was infuriated and then wanted to laugh because I was so incensed.
The world: while there is a good feeling of the Hollywood world through the wild pool parties (that part hasn't changed since the 1920s, always good to know), the rest of it feels barely there. I'm talking 1D, paper-thin, and is constantly being propped up by characters that are also of the same quality. However, I will say that the creepy atmosphere the opening chapters had with the teenagers in the house in the woods was really good (stick to what you know - "Goosebumps" worthy horror), it got a little cheesy after awhile to the point of me saying to myself "saw that coming". The action and tension are good, but the stakes are just not high enough for the MC and main cast we're supposed to care about, and thus, I just had to DNF it after a third of the way in.
And I know my Shakespeare well enough to say - where was the retelling? I seriously for the life of me could not find it. And if I couldn't find it a third of the way in, that spells trouble for the book in general. I should be able to figure it out within a few chapters. I wasn't able to. And that was aggravating. The concept was fantastic, but the execution in pretty much all technical areas was exceedingly poor.
Final verdict? Stine, stick to what you're best at - "Goosebumps". I'm completely serious - I'd love it if more of the series came out. I'd definitely read them. But "A Midsummer's Night Scream"? Nope. Can't recommend it. If you're looking for a better retelling, definitely search elsewhere. But that's just how I feel about it. "A Midsummer's Night Scream" is out July 2, 2013 in North America from Macmillan, so be sure to check it out then and come to your own conclusion about this book.
(posted to goodreads, shelfari, and birthofanewwitch.wordpress.com)
November 2, 2018
It’s not a horrible book! Could use another read thru for grammar and punctuation though. Overall good flow. Not my general cup of tea to read! The cover of it is the beat part! Looking at the cover though gives me a false hope of what the book is about. Good thing I got it at the library and didn’t have to pay for it!
July 9, 2013
I outgrew R.L. Stine's books pretty quick. I still kept reading them regularly, at least through seventh grade, because they were fun. Formulaic, yes, but the Fear Street books especially were chock-full of inventive deaths. For a morbid little kid an inventive death goes a long way.
Nowadays, I have a fond nostalgia for Stine. It helps that I met him once in person and he was incredibly nice. (I was super awkward because my friend dropped out on me and I was the only person over eighteen there alone.) Without that nostalgia, I might not have finished A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. But I'm sure the intended audience for the novel will enjoy it. There's one death that's probably going to make my dreams a little freaky for a night or two.
The plot is simple: Claire and her best friend Delia have small roles in Mayhem Manor, the remake of a never-finished horror film. Three members of the original cast died on tape. Pretty soon, bad things start happening to the new cast too. It's made clear that the studio will shut down if the production fails, but it's still hard to believe they don't close down the film for everyone's safety. As for the connection to A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's fairly faint. Each girl has a crush on a guy who has a crush on the other girl. There's also a hairy man, Mr. Puckerman, with potions.
There was one aspect I found disappointing. I remember Stine being delightfully gross, but I don't remember him being gross about gender. There's a third girl, Annalee, who goes after Jake when Claire keeps failing to make a move. She's catty about it, but it still grated on me when Claire and Delia constantly derided her for being a slut. No wonder she didn't care to observe their unspoken hands off.
Don't go into A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM expecting complex characterization and an involved plot. The characters are types, and sometimes hard to keep track of since there's a bunch of them. The plot is only complicated in that it often requires people to act quite stupid. Claire, for instance, keeps using potions she steals from Mr. Puckerman despite always grabbing the wrong one.
But I can't help but find something comforting about Stine's formula. He's keeping cheesy teen (and child friendly) horror alive. Just take a look at the fine work of Bitching, Books, and Baking to see how big the genre used to be.
Nowadays, I have a fond nostalgia for Stine. It helps that I met him once in person and he was incredibly nice. (I was super awkward because my friend dropped out on me and I was the only person over eighteen there alone.) Without that nostalgia, I might not have finished A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S SCREAM. But I'm sure the intended audience for the novel will enjoy it. There's one death that's probably going to make my dreams a little freaky for a night or two.
The plot is simple: Claire and her best friend Delia have small roles in Mayhem Manor, the remake of a never-finished horror film. Three members of the original cast died on tape. Pretty soon, bad things start happening to the new cast too. It's made clear that the studio will shut down if the production fails, but it's still hard to believe they don't close down the film for everyone's safety. As for the connection to A Midsummer Night's Dream, it's fairly faint. Each girl has a crush on a guy who has a crush on the other girl. There's also a hairy man, Mr. Puckerman, with potions.
There was one aspect I found disappointing. I remember Stine being delightfully gross, but I don't remember him being gross about gender. There's a third girl, Annalee, who goes after Jake when Claire keeps failing to make a move. She's catty about it, but it still grated on me when Claire and Delia constantly derided her for being a slut. No wonder she didn't care to observe their unspoken hands off.
Don't go into A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM expecting complex characterization and an involved plot. The characters are types, and sometimes hard to keep track of since there's a bunch of them. The plot is only complicated in that it often requires people to act quite stupid. Claire, for instance, keeps using potions she steals from Mr. Puckerman despite always grabbing the wrong one.
But I can't help but find something comforting about Stine's formula. He's keeping cheesy teen (and child friendly) horror alive. Just take a look at the fine work of Bitching, Books, and Baking to see how big the genre used to be.
September 13, 2013
Typically when I read a book that is awful in every way, I'm not inclined to read another book by that author. But in this case, I immediately want to read a slew of older R.L. Stine books, simply so that I can possibly begin to comprehend how a beloved author of my preteen years managed to plunge so hard and violently from his nostalgic pedastal of my youth to the disastrous depths clumsily explored in this waste of ink and pages.
I ADORED the Fear Street series back then, and would look forward to each new book with delicious anticipation. My younger siblings loved the Goosebumps series, and even though it was a bit too "young" for me, I could still appreciate how fun that series was as well. I still have all the Fear Street books, in fact. But now I need to know--were my preteen standards really just that low, was I that naive? Or has R.L. Stine totally lost his ability to craft a good story? (Or is R.L. Stine really just a brand rather than an individual author, like Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley stories, and if so, was this just a bad author-apple in the bunch?) Or is it just that the incredibly skilled YA authors of today (J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan, and the like) set the bar so high that the popular YA authors of yesterday now seem subpar?
Either way, this book broke my heart in its awfulness, as the pedastal is gone and my preteen author idol has fallen--I'll always love Fear Streeet but I can't help to find it's become a tainted love. The R.L. Stine name/brand is surely the only reason the manuscript could have possibly gotten a green light by publishers. And this book should be stripped of all references to and excerpts of A Midsummer Night's Dream, as its shameless use of Shakespeare "product placement" as an advertising hook is a ridiculous stretch, and the book is nowhere near worthy of carrying Shakespeare's name on its pages.
I ADORED the Fear Street series back then, and would look forward to each new book with delicious anticipation. My younger siblings loved the Goosebumps series, and even though it was a bit too "young" for me, I could still appreciate how fun that series was as well. I still have all the Fear Street books, in fact. But now I need to know--were my preteen standards really just that low, was I that naive? Or has R.L. Stine totally lost his ability to craft a good story? (Or is R.L. Stine really just a brand rather than an individual author, like Francine Pascal's Sweet Valley stories, and if so, was this just a bad author-apple in the bunch?) Or is it just that the incredibly skilled YA authors of today (J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Rick Riordan, and the like) set the bar so high that the popular YA authors of yesterday now seem subpar?
Either way, this book broke my heart in its awfulness, as the pedastal is gone and my preteen author idol has fallen--I'll always love Fear Streeet but I can't help to find it's become a tainted love. The R.L. Stine name/brand is surely the only reason the manuscript could have possibly gotten a green light by publishers. And this book should be stripped of all references to and excerpts of A Midsummer Night's Dream, as its shameless use of Shakespeare "product placement" as an advertising hook is a ridiculous stretch, and the book is nowhere near worthy of carrying Shakespeare's name on its pages.
January 22, 2019
I grew up reading R. L. Stine's books. My brothers read the Goosebumps series while I read all of his others. I know R. L. Stine writes for the younger crowd but a little character development could've happened. All of the characters were one-dimensional. And I hate books where the main character talks to you, the reader. I don't want to be IN the story so don't ask me questions! It was pretty cheesy and very predictable. But I do have a soft spot for R. L. Stine books.
June 25, 2013
There's only one other book I've been required to read that is as surprisingly bad as this one: William Sleator's The Phantom Limb. If you have an hour or two to kill, play Jewel Mania or Candy Crush Saga or some other mindless game -- you'll get more out of it.
December 6, 2019
This was such a creepy, cool modern spin on the original classic. Not the best writing ever and kinda on the short side, but overall a decent read.
August 18, 2016
Did not finish. This might be the worst book I have ever read. No wonder is had such a low average rating.
March 8, 2019
Oh my god. Where do I start? First of all, spoilers abound. I loved R.L. Stine so much when I was a kid. Fear Street was my favorite escapism series. Has he always been this terrible?
Basically, the book starts out as if it's the real story. Six teens - three girls (Darlene, Sue, and Cindy) and three boys (Tony, Randy, and Brian) break down and find themselves at a classic haunted house, then three of them die horrible, grisly deaths. It's so painfully bad that I almost stopped reading. Luckily (maybe?), the next chapter was the start of the actual plot.
It turns out that these deaths were all part of a movie, except the actors actually died. The film shows their actual deaths. I could not stop thinking about how it happened - I mean, did the script actually call for each of these deaths and then the practical stunts went horribly wrong? Or were they accidents that weren't actually part of the script? I mean, it should seem so obvious, but it wasn't. Anyway, the production got shut down and the film was never made.
So then we meet our main character, Claire. Claire is an idiot. She is supposedly obsessed with her upcoming "Sweet Seventeen" party, which will be A Midsummer Night's Dream theme, since they all read it in school last year. I mean, she's always saying "it's all I think about," only she never does. Claire has always wanted to be an actress, and when her filmmaker parents decide to remake the movie, she AND her best friend Delia AND this other girl Annalee (whom they know and consider a slut) all get cast with "minor" roles. Yeah. Turns out they got cast as the three girls. How are these "minor" roles? Anyway, this is the first role either Claire or her BFFN (best friend for now, because maybe Delia is moving away, even though this is never again mentioned, also Claire says Delia basically lives at her house, although when she says that it is literally the first of two times Delia's in her house at all) have ever had.
Also, a former Disney star named Lana gets the lead role, who is the first girl to be murdered. Are you keeping count? That's right: we now have FOUR girls and THREE female roles.
Moving on.
Claire's love interest is Jake, who's got an internship with the editor. What does an editor do? I guess just mention the word "software" over and over. (I'm going to point out here that I'm a professional video editor.)
So they apparently did weeks of rehearsals, and now we're dropped into the story just as filming is about to begin.
Because Claire is such a forking idiot, she doesn't know her way around her parents' studio. While looking for the makeup trailer, she stumbles upon a trailer where a little guy named Puck has all kinds of potions, including a love potion. "Hmm," thinks Claire, "just like in that play! That's literally the only reference to A Midsummer Night's Dream here!" She steals a love potion because the boy she likes doesn't like her.
BTW - they never do find the makeup trailer, and there is no mention again of ever putting on makeup, so I can only assume that these girls are wearing zero makeup in this film. They also never get their hair styled.
They get onto set. Claire trips over cables, because apparently they don't use gaffer's tape on this set. A light falls. Filming is shut down for the day. The next day, filming resumes. A character from the previous day disappears and is never seen again. Lana's about to film her first scene as Cindy. Claire trips on yet another cable and Lana's hand gets cut off. Lana doesn't die. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
After this accident, the set gets shut down again. It turns out that Claire's folks are about to lose the company to bankruptcy and so this film MUST be a blockbuster, so of course they decide that the smartest thing to do is recast Delia as Cindy. You know, the complete unknown who's never been in a film before (and really seems to value her modeling career more.)
Somewhere in all of this, Claire uses the love potion. Except it's NOT love potion, because Claire's so stupid that she grabs HATE potion instead. Luckily, it's super temporary, and the two boys that they use it on don't remember.
She also gets lured to the house at night by a phone call she thinks is her dad. But after she trips in the house, a cop comes and has her call her dad and oh, didn't you remember he's in Chicago? Speaking of which, why don't any of these minors have a parent on-set?
So then they're finally ready to shoot again. Today's shoot is with Jeremy, another hunky ex-Disney Channel star who is really a complete asshole. In fact, he invited Delia to meet him beforehand and then stole some of her food.
Hang on, I'm gonna get sidetracked for a minute.
The males in this book are constantly eating the girls' food without permission. Shawn eats Delia's burger on two separate occasions without her permission: the second time he literally takes it out of her hands. (And both times he "tilts it toward his face.") Then some other dude who's a waste of print shows up at The Cheesecake Factory and starts eating the girls' cheesecake without permission. And of course, Jeremy takes their biscotti and makes them pay for it.
So back to the biscotti bro. He gets all snarky with the director and says he can only film for five days, so the director says they'll get all his shots done today. Then Claire tells someone this is Jeremy's last scene. WHEN WAS HIS FIRST? We literally have not rolled any film so far. Not one frame.
Anyway, Jeremy dies. The set gets shut down again. At some point Claire goes back to Puck's trailer and steals the right love potion. Except, of course, Claire is DUMB so she steals a super-duper aging potion and makes her love interest shrivel into a little old man. Temporarily, of course, and once again, Jake doesn't remember what happened.
The production finally starts up again. They have rehearsal in the morning, then the director says he has meetings all afternoon and sends everyone home. Claire frets about tomorrow being the scene where her character dies.
Tomorrow rolls around and Claire and Delia put on their costumes. They are very sure that their wardrobe looks good because they have to exactly match how they looked for yesterday's shoot. WHAT. SHOOT. JFC.
So now it's going to possibly be Claire's turn to die. Claire, the two boys (I don't think we ever meet them) and Annalee (you know, the slut) and Delia all take their places at the bottom of the stairs ... wait a minute. Did I say Delia? Doesn't her new character, Cindy, die first? Why yes, yes she does. CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY DELIA IS THERE.
Annalee gets exasperated with Claire not wanting to run up the stairs, so she does it and falls through and dies. This makes Claire and Delia haz a sad so they go to The Cheesecake Factory to get their cheesecake stolen by Random Douche #1 and snark that the waitress samples too much cheesecake. Claire's father plans her birthday party and says something about the character Puck and OMG Claire and Delia realize that Puck is from Midsummer Night's Dream! The weird dude with the potions is ALSO named Puck!
I'd like to point out that so far, the only actual film shot is about 20 seconds of Claire being too scared to run up the stairs.
The "Sweet Seventeen" party is held at the studio. I mean, when my business is failing and I'm one movie away from declaring bankruptcy, all I can think to do is throw my daughter an insanely expensive and elaborate party that sprawls over the entire studio. In the course of the evening, Puck enchants Claire to go into the haunted house, but then she somehow has enough willpower to run out of the house and go get the REAL love potion this time. Maybe? Fingers crossed. (Don't worry, she goes back to the house!)
Puck shows up and is going to murder them all because there are still four murders to go. See, he directed the first movie and had planned on killing all six actors, so he has to murder all six actors now. And Annalee doesn't count because her death was supposed to be Claire's.
Um.
Lana didn't die. (Remember, I said this would be important!) So yes, he still needs four murders, but Annalee's totally counts. Did we mention that Annalee's a slut?
They beat the Big Bad when Claire tried to dump the love potion on him BUT SHOCKER it was the aging potion! And then OMG YOU GUYS, Puck had filmed all of that evening with hidden cameras or something and they are able to edit it (into what I can't imagine) and the movie is a smash hit. The studio is saved!!! Ok. I'm a videographer. I cannot imagine that any of that footage would be even halfway decent, let alone useable.
So then Jake realizes he likes Claire, and yet she still uses her "love potion" on him. Does it work? We don't know. The book ends there. I'd like to imagine that it's really a truth serum and he remembers that there is a reason he didn't like Claire until now.
If R.L. Stine needs a good editor, I don't know any, but I freelance with (book) editing and am halfway decent. Well, I also freelance with video editing, but I hope to god this film never makes it to the screen.
Basically, the book starts out as if it's the real story. Six teens - three girls (Darlene, Sue, and Cindy) and three boys (Tony, Randy, and Brian) break down and find themselves at a classic haunted house, then three of them die horrible, grisly deaths. It's so painfully bad that I almost stopped reading. Luckily (maybe?), the next chapter was the start of the actual plot.
It turns out that these deaths were all part of a movie, except the actors actually died. The film shows their actual deaths. I could not stop thinking about how it happened - I mean, did the script actually call for each of these deaths and then the practical stunts went horribly wrong? Or were they accidents that weren't actually part of the script? I mean, it should seem so obvious, but it wasn't. Anyway, the production got shut down and the film was never made.
So then we meet our main character, Claire. Claire is an idiot. She is supposedly obsessed with her upcoming "Sweet Seventeen" party, which will be A Midsummer Night's Dream theme, since they all read it in school last year. I mean, she's always saying "it's all I think about," only she never does. Claire has always wanted to be an actress, and when her filmmaker parents decide to remake the movie, she AND her best friend Delia AND this other girl Annalee (whom they know and consider a slut) all get cast with "minor" roles. Yeah. Turns out they got cast as the three girls. How are these "minor" roles? Anyway, this is the first role either Claire or her BFFN (best friend for now, because maybe Delia is moving away, even though this is never again mentioned, also Claire says Delia basically lives at her house, although when she says that it is literally the first of two times Delia's in her house at all) have ever had.
Also, a former Disney star named Lana gets the lead role, who is the first girl to be murdered. Are you keeping count? That's right: we now have FOUR girls and THREE female roles.
Moving on.
Claire's love interest is Jake, who's got an internship with the editor. What does an editor do? I guess just mention the word "software" over and over. (I'm going to point out here that I'm a professional video editor.)
So they apparently did weeks of rehearsals, and now we're dropped into the story just as filming is about to begin.
Because Claire is such a forking idiot, she doesn't know her way around her parents' studio. While looking for the makeup trailer, she stumbles upon a trailer where a little guy named Puck has all kinds of potions, including a love potion. "Hmm," thinks Claire, "just like in that play! That's literally the only reference to A Midsummer Night's Dream here!" She steals a love potion because the boy she likes doesn't like her.
BTW - they never do find the makeup trailer, and there is no mention again of ever putting on makeup, so I can only assume that these girls are wearing zero makeup in this film. They also never get their hair styled.
They get onto set. Claire trips over cables, because apparently they don't use gaffer's tape on this set. A light falls. Filming is shut down for the day. The next day, filming resumes. A character from the previous day disappears and is never seen again. Lana's about to film her first scene as Cindy. Claire trips on yet another cable and Lana's hand gets cut off. Lana doesn't die. THIS IS IMPORTANT.
After this accident, the set gets shut down again. It turns out that Claire's folks are about to lose the company to bankruptcy and so this film MUST be a blockbuster, so of course they decide that the smartest thing to do is recast Delia as Cindy. You know, the complete unknown who's never been in a film before (and really seems to value her modeling career more.)
Somewhere in all of this, Claire uses the love potion. Except it's NOT love potion, because Claire's so stupid that she grabs HATE potion instead. Luckily, it's super temporary, and the two boys that they use it on don't remember.
She also gets lured to the house at night by a phone call she thinks is her dad. But after she trips in the house, a cop comes and has her call her dad and oh, didn't you remember he's in Chicago? Speaking of which, why don't any of these minors have a parent on-set?
So then they're finally ready to shoot again. Today's shoot is with Jeremy, another hunky ex-Disney Channel star who is really a complete asshole. In fact, he invited Delia to meet him beforehand and then stole some of her food.
Hang on, I'm gonna get sidetracked for a minute.
The males in this book are constantly eating the girls' food without permission. Shawn eats Delia's burger on two separate occasions without her permission: the second time he literally takes it out of her hands. (And both times he "tilts it toward his face.") Then some other dude who's a waste of print shows up at The Cheesecake Factory and starts eating the girls' cheesecake without permission. And of course, Jeremy takes their biscotti and makes them pay for it.
So back to the biscotti bro. He gets all snarky with the director and says he can only film for five days, so the director says they'll get all his shots done today. Then Claire tells someone this is Jeremy's last scene. WHEN WAS HIS FIRST? We literally have not rolled any film so far. Not one frame.
Anyway, Jeremy dies. The set gets shut down again. At some point Claire goes back to Puck's trailer and steals the right love potion. Except, of course, Claire is DUMB so she steals a super-duper aging potion and makes her love interest shrivel into a little old man. Temporarily, of course, and once again, Jake doesn't remember what happened.
The production finally starts up again. They have rehearsal in the morning, then the director says he has meetings all afternoon and sends everyone home. Claire frets about tomorrow being the scene where her character dies.
Tomorrow rolls around and Claire and Delia put on their costumes. They are very sure that their wardrobe looks good because they have to exactly match how they looked for yesterday's shoot. WHAT. SHOOT. JFC.
So now it's going to possibly be Claire's turn to die. Claire, the two boys (I don't think we ever meet them) and Annalee (you know, the slut) and Delia all take their places at the bottom of the stairs ... wait a minute. Did I say Delia? Doesn't her new character, Cindy, die first? Why yes, yes she does. CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN WHY DELIA IS THERE.
Annalee gets exasperated with Claire not wanting to run up the stairs, so she does it and falls through and dies. This makes Claire and Delia haz a sad so they go to The Cheesecake Factory to get their cheesecake stolen by Random Douche #1 and snark that the waitress samples too much cheesecake. Claire's father plans her birthday party and says something about the character Puck and OMG Claire and Delia realize that Puck is from Midsummer Night's Dream! The weird dude with the potions is ALSO named Puck!
I'd like to point out that so far, the only actual film shot is about 20 seconds of Claire being too scared to run up the stairs.
The "Sweet Seventeen" party is held at the studio. I mean, when my business is failing and I'm one movie away from declaring bankruptcy, all I can think to do is throw my daughter an insanely expensive and elaborate party that sprawls over the entire studio. In the course of the evening, Puck enchants Claire to go into the haunted house, but then she somehow has enough willpower to run out of the house and go get the REAL love potion this time. Maybe? Fingers crossed. (Don't worry, she goes back to the house!)
Puck shows up and is going to murder them all because there are still four murders to go. See, he directed the first movie and had planned on killing all six actors, so he has to murder all six actors now. And Annalee doesn't count because her death was supposed to be Claire's.
Um.
Lana didn't die. (Remember, I said this would be important!) So yes, he still needs four murders, but Annalee's totally counts. Did we mention that Annalee's a slut?
They beat the Big Bad when Claire tried to dump the love potion on him BUT SHOCKER it was the aging potion! And then OMG YOU GUYS, Puck had filmed all of that evening with hidden cameras or something and they are able to edit it (into what I can't imagine) and the movie is a smash hit. The studio is saved!!! Ok. I'm a videographer. I cannot imagine that any of that footage would be even halfway decent, let alone useable.
So then Jake realizes he likes Claire, and yet she still uses her "love potion" on him. Does it work? We don't know. The book ends there. I'd like to imagine that it's really a truth serum and he remembers that there is a reason he didn't like Claire until now.
If R.L. Stine needs a good editor, I don't know any, but I freelance with (book) editing and am halfway decent. Well, I also freelance with video editing, but I hope to god this film never makes it to the screen.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 26, 2021
I found this book at a thrift store. Goosebumps and Fear Street are by the same author (they are now really popular horror movie). I love horror books so is thought it would be a fun short read, it also had some Shakespeare twist so I found it intriguing. But it’s disappointing. Once I got home I saw the rating I started the book with low expectations, but they weren’t low enough. First of all there wasn’t even a single scary scene like at all. The plot could have been good but it kinda just be lacked, honestly kinda predictable. The characters where annoying and there was some sort of romance that was going on and it was just really bad. I felt like pushing each and everyone one of them down the stairs lmao They were just your typical high school stereotypes, no depth or character development at all. The ending was terrible, the author I guess tried to put a plot twist but it failed miserably. Honestly the only good part about this book was the dog lol
February 11, 2022
I've never read shakespeare's a midsummer night's dream before. I skimmed it on wikipedia, and looks like the love potion, Puck, and a themed birthday party were the only references to the play. You'll be disappointed if you're hoping for something tied closer with the play.
I've only read RL Stine's kids books so far, primarily goosebumps and ghost of fear street. A lot of the elements are similar, like the short cliffhanger chapters and the not-so-bright stereotypical characters. The romance and deaths are new to me since they aren't prevalent in the younger series. I never really grasped the idea of using a love potion on someone else. I always thought it would be so cool to use a love potion on yourself. Claire is excited to use a stolen love potion on someone else, but she keeps grabbing the wrong potions with hilarious results. I like the results when she finally uses the right potion!
Companies pushing forward despite employees dying hits close to home these days.
I listened to the audiobook and I always like Brittany Pressley's narration.
One thing I didn't like is how claire force-kisses jake.
I've only read RL Stine's kids books so far, primarily goosebumps and ghost of fear street. A lot of the elements are similar, like the short cliffhanger chapters and the not-so-bright stereotypical characters. The romance and deaths are new to me since they aren't prevalent in the younger series. I never really grasped the idea of using a love potion on someone else. I always thought it would be so cool to use a love potion on yourself. Claire is excited to use a stolen love potion on someone else, but she keeps grabbing the wrong potions with hilarious results. I like the results when she finally uses the right potion!
Companies pushing forward despite employees dying hits close to home these days.
I listened to the audiobook and I always like Brittany Pressley's narration.
One thing I didn't like is how claire force-kisses jake.
January 9, 2026
This was such a fun hate-read. I will never turn down any of this man’s writing because it’s such juvenile horror, and it is so nostalgic for me. I feel like anyone who knows R.L Stine knows that he is NOT the author you want to be reading for any actual depth. Seeing all of the bad reviews is so funny because they’re coming from people who expected something great from this goofy man and they’re mad they didn’t get it.
All of Stine’s writing is meant to be lighthearted, moronically funny horror (if that makes sense at all). Maybe other than the Fear Street Saga/trilogy, most of his writing is so unserious (and mostly for teens/children) and should be taken with a grain of salt.
All of Stine’s writing is meant to be lighthearted, moronically funny horror (if that makes sense at all). Maybe other than the Fear Street Saga/trilogy, most of his writing is so unserious (and mostly for teens/children) and should be taken with a grain of salt.
January 24, 2018
This book was maaaaaybe a 1.5. I don't typically read the horror genre, but I don't think R.L. Stine is a master of the horror genre. Maybe for elementary readers, but definitely not grownups. The plot was a little cliche and the characters were shallow. I didn't care about any of them, and so when they inevitably died, I just sort of rolled my eyes. It referenced the play "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and that made me wonder if I could have gotten a bit more out of it if I knew more about that play. Not a great read, but maybe entertaining in its cheesiness?
August 15, 2021
Cool story! Missed me some Stine from my teen days....
October 26, 2021
An insult to Shakespeare. This book was just not it. My original review got deleted before I could post it, but this is all that you really need to know.
July 20, 2013
(My summary is not included in this version of the review.) That was the worst summary I've ever written. And that was also one of the worst books I've ever read. I've never read a R.L Stine book before. I know he wrote the Goosbumps series and the Fear Street series. I've heard that his books are sometimes truly scary, but this book was a joke. I'm still waiting for a gotcha. It's nothing like Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. There's a few commonalities like the love square thing, and the love potion, but other than that, the book was nothing like A Midsummer Night's Dream. Puckerman, this book's version of Puck, was a psychopath. He was nothing like the playful fairy/sprite from the original books. This Puck was some creepy old dude who had a dream to be the most horrifying murderer. I cannot even believe that R.L Stine came up with that idea.
Time for the character analysis part. So. Now that I've somewhat recollected my thoughts, let me get on with the analysis. Claire is a complete bitch, and so is her friend Delia. They were hardly relatable, especially since they were stuck up, rich barbie dolls. And the fact that their parents owned a studio, a FREAKING STUDIO, didn't help much. They were both slut shaming. One of their "friends" was flirting with Jake, toying with Claire's emotions, which resulted in Claire calling "friend who I can't bother to remember the name of" a desperate slut, only to do the very same thing a couple pages later. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. I just wanted to vomit every time Claire said she had an idea. No, I felt like hurling every time she opened her mouth. The same goes for Delia. They were both insulting, self centered, obnoxious, two dimensional, and conceited bitches who I'm ashamed to say are the same species that I am. Back to Claire, but she said that she was SMART! I really don't see any room for a brain cell inside her tiny head. And honestly, how does she even have friends?
Jake and Shawn were like emotionless automatons. Jake claimed he was "hot" for Delia, all the while making out with the same "friend I can't bother to remember the same of". I bet he had some deep emotions for Delia. Shawn was sort of like the side kick that nobody really bothered with. There was no emotional depth between any of the characters. What about the romance, you ask? There. Was. None. I'm pretty the book could've done without him. I really don't have much to say about them.
Back to Puckerman. What a freak. How is he in any way related to Puck? HOW? I mean Puck from Shakespeare was a happy go lucky sort of guy. He wasn't the type of person I'd pin to stay alive 20 years past a normal death age by consuming potions just to kill off a bunch of actors starring in a shitty horror movie! All Puckerman does is share the namesake with Puck.
The book was filled with pointless details like Delia's consumption for cupcakes and cheesecake, the constant whispers that Claire heard. I think they were supposed to be important, but they didn't have any impact on the book at all. Maybe R.L Stine was going to give Claire a supernatural ability, I don't care. The "details" were repetitive and tiring. The constant bitchiness and whining was a distraction. It was like a constant buzzing in my ear.
The most off putting thing about the book were the death scenes. They were laughable. The ways the characters died were gruesome, but the writing was like one of a seven year old. It was like "the sword fell and cut off her hand. The blood poured out. She died because she lost too much blood." That wasn't an actual quote from the book, but it serves the point. It was emotionless and drab.
Overall, don't read it. It's a book full of twist and turns that will leave you in your chair going WTF. If you're into that, I suggest you go get it and brace yourself for a long ride of WTF-ery.
And just a question I have to put out, but who the hell was Delia supposed to be? Helena, Hermia, or Queen Tatiana?
*SPOILER ALERT* The way Claire gets Jake to fall for her is by giving him a love potion. *cough* desperate slut *cough*
My Rating: 1 Star
Please excuse the mild swearing in the review. I just had to.
Time for the character analysis part. So. Now that I've somewhat recollected my thoughts, let me get on with the analysis. Claire is a complete bitch, and so is her friend Delia. They were hardly relatable, especially since they were stuck up, rich barbie dolls. And the fact that their parents owned a studio, a FREAKING STUDIO, didn't help much. They were both slut shaming. One of their "friends" was flirting with Jake, toying with Claire's emotions, which resulted in Claire calling "friend who I can't bother to remember the name of" a desperate slut, only to do the very same thing a couple pages later. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. I just wanted to vomit every time Claire said she had an idea. No, I felt like hurling every time she opened her mouth. The same goes for Delia. They were both insulting, self centered, obnoxious, two dimensional, and conceited bitches who I'm ashamed to say are the same species that I am. Back to Claire, but she said that she was SMART! I really don't see any room for a brain cell inside her tiny head. And honestly, how does she even have friends?
Jake and Shawn were like emotionless automatons. Jake claimed he was "hot" for Delia, all the while making out with the same "friend I can't bother to remember the same of". I bet he had some deep emotions for Delia. Shawn was sort of like the side kick that nobody really bothered with. There was no emotional depth between any of the characters. What about the romance, you ask? There. Was. None. I'm pretty the book could've done without him. I really don't have much to say about them.
Back to Puckerman. What a freak. How is he in any way related to Puck? HOW? I mean Puck from Shakespeare was a happy go lucky sort of guy. He wasn't the type of person I'd pin to stay alive 20 years past a normal death age by consuming potions just to kill off a bunch of actors starring in a shitty horror movie! All Puckerman does is share the namesake with Puck.
The book was filled with pointless details like Delia's consumption for cupcakes and cheesecake, the constant whispers that Claire heard. I think they were supposed to be important, but they didn't have any impact on the book at all. Maybe R.L Stine was going to give Claire a supernatural ability, I don't care. The "details" were repetitive and tiring. The constant bitchiness and whining was a distraction. It was like a constant buzzing in my ear.
The most off putting thing about the book were the death scenes. They were laughable. The ways the characters died were gruesome, but the writing was like one of a seven year old. It was like "the sword fell and cut off her hand. The blood poured out. She died because she lost too much blood." That wasn't an actual quote from the book, but it serves the point. It was emotionless and drab.
Overall, don't read it. It's a book full of twist and turns that will leave you in your chair going WTF. If you're into that, I suggest you go get it and brace yourself for a long ride of WTF-ery.
And just a question I have to put out, but who the hell was Delia supposed to be? Helena, Hermia, or Queen Tatiana?
*SPOILER ALERT* The way Claire gets Jake to fall for her is by giving him a love potion. *cough* desperate slut *cough*
My Rating: 1 Star
Please excuse the mild swearing in the review. I just had to.
July 2, 2014
Aw. Now come on, Boo from Monsters Inc. is even more scary than this book. If you're looking for a scary horror read that will chase your happiness away from you, then stay away from this book. It was probably meant to be scary, but it wasn't at all! So don't judge a book by its cover or summary because I was wrong the whole time.
I get scared in books, I'm not going to lie. I'm the type who screams if you say a word to me while I'm reading a horror/thriller read. I get so into the world and reality of the book that I feel like I'm not even in Earth anymore. So I specifically chose not to read this book during the nighttime because I was afraid that I'd get crazy nightmares afterwards. But really, what the heck was this supposed to be?
"Do you like that guy Jeremy Dane?" Jake asked. "No way," Delia and I both answered at once. "He likes himself a lot," Delia said. "He likes to toss his blond hair back and forth like this. He thinks it's a turn-on."
I'm not going to lie; R.L. Stine is a good author. He really creates the capability of intriguing readers into the crazy world of his crazy books. But then he loses us eventually and we slip away because of many factors that go missing. This man is a fine author. His writing is well-established, and I can kind of see why the public has gone mad for him over the years, but he doesn't create my type of books. This seemed too childish in a way. The Goosebumps series would probably be a humungous disappointment for me, and therefore that is because of the age group. This is meant to be a YA novel, but I'd really classify it as a middle-age, using the type of horror and scenes added. But some things are too mature-- so it's a mix.
The thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that this was not frightening at all. I wouldn't even classify it as horror. The use of ghosts and paranormalcy was very mild and unfortunate for those looking for a horror read. It's also a very short book that is easy to get by with and alas, it's very fast-paced. The plot was okay. Sometimes it was more "meh" than "yay," but it was bearable to get by with. The storyline was fine. I guess this was more about the story and the mystery than anything else, and I suppose Stine did a good job with keeping his readers entertained that way. It's a nice story and is unique, but too old-fashioned at times for this generation.
The characters were fine. There wasn't anyone who was really special or was unique than other characters/protagonists in other books, but everyone was okay to deal with and Stine made them really chill. Claire was easy-going and a little scaredy-cat, but I liked her, as well as Delia, Jake, Shawn et cetera. Everyone was great and made the book better.
I felt that the romance was just added as something extra, but it was cute and it was there. Claire + Jake= Cake, my new ship.
The ending sucked. It was predictable and I knew that the movie would keep on filming, it was a big DUH. I wish that it was something unexpected (like all of the characters die or something haha) and that would make the book probably to a 4 star rating from me. But overall, this was okay, nothing special.
June 16, 2013
Whenever I write a review I try to think of one word that I want to use to describe the book and then I extrapolate from there. Rubbish is the only word that comes to mind when I think about A Midsummer Night’s Scream. This book was terrible. I usually try to be just and fair in my reviews but really there is just nothing good that I have to say about this novel.
The novel kicks off with a group of teenagers getting stranded in the woods when their car breaks down. We watch them set off into the woods in search of help and see them barge into a mansion that is basically a death trap. This stuff was so unbelievable, I mean one girl sits at the dining room table and ends up getting her hand chopped off when a sword fall from the roof, then everyone runs into the kitchen and when they notice the phone doesn’t work they start searching for food. No joke. More of these teens die and then it is revealed that those first few chapters weren’t the real story, they were a movie that the characters in the book were watching. A movie that was made in the 60’s where the teens actually ended up dying so production was stopped. Well guess what, the characters who were watching the movie are rich Beverly Hills kids who are now starring in the remake!
The incredibly fake tone that was set in the beginning is maintained throughout the novel. Everyone in this book does the most stupid things. I mean they remake this movie and, as I’m sure you can guess, people start really dying just as they had in the original. But since the studio is about to go broke they see this movie as their golden ticket and force production through once all the police investigations are over. Now, the people running this production company are the parents of teens who are working on the movie and they keep sending them off to work on this set where people are dying in freak accidents every time they try to shoot a scene. Very believable Mr. Stine.
We are also introduced to a little, hairy, leprechaun looking man very early on in the story. Our MC, Claire, finds him in a trailer and then she keeps stealing his potions. She’s trying to get a love potion to use on a guy that she likes who actually likes her best friend but she keeps stealing the wrong potion. First she steals a hate one and then a Benjamin Button type one but persist she does. I mean wouldn’t you stop when the first potion you stole made the guy you want to love you actually try to punch you? I can’t stress enough how ridiculously stupid every character in this novel was. Her best friend takes the lead in the movie after the original lead dies in a tragic accident. The guys that these girls like must have no brain because they can’t read that these girls like them when the girls are basically hitting them in the face with love sticks. The parent’s are so money hungry that they send their kids off to face probable death multiple times.
I just can’t with this book. The way it was written annoyed the heck out of me. Claire asks the readers questions along the way like she is having a conversation with you instead of you being a reader of a novel. The wrap up of it all is so incredibly far fetched that I found myself laughing when I should have been nervous for the characters. The one thing that I can say that is more on the positive side for this novel is that it did play out in my head like a Goosebumps episode. I think Stine would be better off sticking to MG literature where readers are much more willing to suspend belief to get a fun story. I can’t recommend this novel at all.
An Advanced Reader's Copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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You can read all of my reviews at Alluring Reads.
The novel kicks off with a group of teenagers getting stranded in the woods when their car breaks down. We watch them set off into the woods in search of help and see them barge into a mansion that is basically a death trap. This stuff was so unbelievable, I mean one girl sits at the dining room table and ends up getting her hand chopped off when a sword fall from the roof, then everyone runs into the kitchen and when they notice the phone doesn’t work they start searching for food. No joke. More of these teens die and then it is revealed that those first few chapters weren’t the real story, they were a movie that the characters in the book were watching. A movie that was made in the 60’s where the teens actually ended up dying so production was stopped. Well guess what, the characters who were watching the movie are rich Beverly Hills kids who are now starring in the remake!
The incredibly fake tone that was set in the beginning is maintained throughout the novel. Everyone in this book does the most stupid things. I mean they remake this movie and, as I’m sure you can guess, people start really dying just as they had in the original. But since the studio is about to go broke they see this movie as their golden ticket and force production through once all the police investigations are over. Now, the people running this production company are the parents of teens who are working on the movie and they keep sending them off to work on this set where people are dying in freak accidents every time they try to shoot a scene. Very believable Mr. Stine.
We are also introduced to a little, hairy, leprechaun looking man very early on in the story. Our MC, Claire, finds him in a trailer and then she keeps stealing his potions. She’s trying to get a love potion to use on a guy that she likes who actually likes her best friend but she keeps stealing the wrong potion. First she steals a hate one and then a Benjamin Button type one but persist she does. I mean wouldn’t you stop when the first potion you stole made the guy you want to love you actually try to punch you? I can’t stress enough how ridiculously stupid every character in this novel was. Her best friend takes the lead in the movie after the original lead dies in a tragic accident. The guys that these girls like must have no brain because they can’t read that these girls like them when the girls are basically hitting them in the face with love sticks. The parent’s are so money hungry that they send their kids off to face probable death multiple times.
I just can’t with this book. The way it was written annoyed the heck out of me. Claire asks the readers questions along the way like she is having a conversation with you instead of you being a reader of a novel. The wrap up of it all is so incredibly far fetched that I found myself laughing when I should have been nervous for the characters. The one thing that I can say that is more on the positive side for this novel is that it did play out in my head like a Goosebumps episode. I think Stine would be better off sticking to MG literature where readers are much more willing to suspend belief to get a fun story. I can’t recommend this novel at all.
An Advanced Reader's Copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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You can read all of my reviews at Alluring Reads.
August 1, 2015
Oh, where to begin? This book is without a doubt the worst book I've read all year. Just thinking about it makes me groan inwardly. You know a book is bad when twenty pages in you're considering dnf-ing. But let's talk details:
Characters
All of the characters were one-dimensional cliches. I wanted every last one of them to die.
Claire was a pretentious, annoying, whiny, immature bitch who was too busy drooling over what's-his-name to pay attention to the death around her. We are told she is smart. I don't believe that at all.
Delia was just as flat and annoying as Claire, except she's purrrty. I don't understand her at all-she would go from being super-cynical to pouting over Shawn not liking her back.
Jake was a Gary Stu with no backbone and no personality.
Shawn was presented as nothing more than a rude, food-stealing, surfing-obsessed slob. I don't understand Delia's attraction at all.
Annalee was portrayed as the flirty "slut" in this clusterfuck. Her flirting had no rhyme or reason, and I was not surprised when she died trying to "outdo" Claire.
Puck was too ridiculously far-fetched to be scary. I actually found myself laughing whenever he came around. Not because he was funny, but because he was just so cheesy.
Plot
The plot was nothing like A Midsummer Night's Dream. I could see every single "plot twist" coming from a mile away. I cheered when characters died.
Writing
The writing was a mess. It actually switched from past to present tense at one point. The dialogue was laughable, and our narrator came off as a particularly idiotic 13-year-old instead of an intelligent high school student.
In addition, some of the writing was just weird. Here's one metaphor that Claire used to describe her love interest, Jake.
He was like furniture. I mean, he'd been in my life forever.
Riiiiight. And I've got the hots for every chair in the Ikea catalog.
Romance
The romance was laughable. Jake spent the entire book not giving a rat's ass about Claire. And then there was the ending when .
Enough already. I'm going to read All The Light We Cannot See. I need to regain some faith in the writing industry.
Characters
All of the characters were one-dimensional cliches. I wanted every last one of them to die.
Claire was a pretentious, annoying, whiny, immature bitch who was too busy drooling over what's-his-name to pay attention to the death around her. We are told she is smart. I don't believe that at all.
Delia was just as flat and annoying as Claire, except she's purrrty. I don't understand her at all-she would go from being super-cynical to pouting over Shawn not liking her back.
Jake was a Gary Stu with no backbone and no personality.
Shawn was presented as nothing more than a rude, food-stealing, surfing-obsessed slob. I don't understand Delia's attraction at all.
Annalee was portrayed as the flirty "slut" in this clusterfuck. Her flirting had no rhyme or reason, and I was not surprised when she died trying to "outdo" Claire.
Puck was too ridiculously far-fetched to be scary. I actually found myself laughing whenever he came around. Not because he was funny, but because he was just so cheesy.
Plot
The plot was nothing like A Midsummer Night's Dream. I could see every single "plot twist" coming from a mile away. I cheered when characters died.
Writing
The writing was a mess. It actually switched from past to present tense at one point. The dialogue was laughable, and our narrator came off as a particularly idiotic 13-year-old instead of an intelligent high school student.
In addition, some of the writing was just weird. Here's one metaphor that Claire used to describe her love interest, Jake.
He was like furniture. I mean, he'd been in my life forever.
Riiiiight. And I've got the hots for every chair in the Ikea catalog.
Romance
The romance was laughable. Jake spent the entire book not giving a rat's ass about Claire. And then there was the ending when .
Enough already. I'm going to read All The Light We Cannot See. I need to regain some faith in the writing industry.
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