Last Chance

Fear Street Seniors #5

by R.L. Stine

Mary O'Connor is being blackmailed by her Social Studies teacher and finds herself entangled in a nasty web of theft, kidnapping, and murder

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Childrens, Horror Thriller, Thriller, Teen, Mystery

176 pages, Paperback

First published September 21, 1998

About the author

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

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

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

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

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just finished Fear Street Seinors Episode 5 Last Chance and this has to be one of the worst books I've read this year.The story follows Mary who is talking to a guidance counselor about her grades.It turns out that Mary hasn't been doing to much good work in her classes.Top that off with Mary setting caught stealing from a local mall and it's safe to say Mary didn't have the best reputation.She goes to the mall with her friend hoping to not get recognized, to take her mind off things and ends up running into a guy that basically runs away from her.This is also me when it comes to meeting new people.Later the next day she has to stay after school and talks to Mr.Morley a teacher all of the kids seem to like.Mr Morley is always seen drinking coffee from his thermos and writing in a notepad.This guy drinks coffee like Tweeks family from South Park which I'm not even saying is a bad thing.As Mr.Morley is talking he gets up to leave to get more coffee and he accidentally reveals a sheet with all of the answers to a test on it.Mary steals it and think she's free.She takes this test and everyone gets grades but her.I think Morley just asks her to stay after class.I honestly can't remember if he writes on the paper or just tells her.This is where we get to the main stuff..sort of. Mr.Morley reveals he saw Mary steal the paper and he basically wants to blackmail her.And I know what your thinking.Your probably thinking Mr.Morley is going to get Mary to kill someone right? No. Instead of being interesting Morley gets Mary to go steal a jacket from another teacher that borrowed the jacket.Mary gets caught and tells the other teacher that Morley told her to do it.This leads to more blackmail and guilt tripping Mary into breaking into a house and stealing letters that were supposedly written to complain about Morley.We do learn that Morley is suspected of killing two students at a previous school,but this happens on page ninety.So this books is eighty pages of jacket and letter stealing.I also want to point out the last book in this series I suspected it was ghost written.This book was without a doubt ghost written.Fear street is described as being "spooky" and having cracked sidewalks and rundown looking houses.There was no effort into making Fear Street scary like Stine does.There is also a scene where Mary takes a public bus.I don't care what you say Shadyside dosnt have busses.I refuse!There are multiple scenes of writing that just didn't fit Stine at all and that's not necessarily bad if the books good.But this one just wasn't.The book was boring throughout most of it.And the ending was absolutely infuriating.I give Last Chance a one out of five stars.This is also the first of the Seinors books to have the deceased stamp over a character.Thats pretty neat.

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes they have breather episodes of TV series that come after big, heavy-handed episodes...most of the time very comedic to get us out of our shock or despair.

Can't really do that with Fear Street books though. So in Episode Four, we had a character death and a paranormal story. This one is just a good thriller.

This time we focus on Mary O'Connor. She has had a less than stellar year.

Trisha Conrad didn't invite her to her party so she could scam on Mary's now ex-boyfriend, Gary Fresno. That's cold and to top it off, Mary decide to steal some jeans from a store in the mall.

Shoplifting has got her seeing a counselor as part of the probation and exams coming up have her worried about losing her spot on the track team.

Mary finds more solace talking to her best friend, Stacy Malcolm, and her social studies teacher, handsome Donald Morley.

Other teachers treat her differently after being caught stealing but Mr. Morley is so understanding and a favorite among Shadyside students. They talk but when Mr. Morley goes to get more coffee, Mary sees the midterm test answers on his desk.

Mary takes one and thinks she got away with it. When she gets her test back, Mary has no grade but a note on the back for Mr. Morley to see her after class.

Yep he knows she cheated but he's not going to turn her in or fail her or make her lose her spot on the track team...no. Mr. Morley wants Mary to do him a favor and at first, my mind is going to the gutter.

It's an innocent favor but then it escalates into a misunderstanding and then another tiny favor but then Mr. Morley asks Mary to do some things that are not so innocent. Even worse than what my mind keeps going back to...this guy does not sound on the up and up morally or mentally.

Stealing was the worst thing Mary could have ever done...until now.

When we get to the climax and the reveal and the twist (not necessarily in that order) it is nothing I haven't seen Stine do before but there was some nice fake-outs even if in a mean-spirited vibe. I almost thought it was going to end on a real downer kind of ending but it was a breather episode.

I got to let out a sigh of relief and even chuckle.

We get to focus on this class of students and Mary turned out to be an enjoyable person to learn about this time around. It's too bad we already know how things will end...oh boy.

I'm liking this series so far and I know what that usually means for me...something will come along to disappoint me or make me angry won't it?

Just have to wait for Episode/Book 6 so until then...if you can get your hands on The Fear Street Seniors, I recommend all of the books so far.

[Chelsea · Rating 1 out of 5]

The whole concept of this one is just stupid. That twist was jaw-droppingly dumb....I still can't fathom that this was what the editors and publishers were like, "yupp, go ahead and print it!". Honestly... So Mary wants to continue to get good grades and be this great track star, but she's struggling in social studies of all classes. So she peeks at the midterm that her incredibly hot teacher left on the desk. Of course she's caught which starts this string of "do me a favors" from the teacher including kidnapping children to scare his sister. She also dates this guy that's living with him and he convinces her to poison her teacher to stop his madness. And then the stupidest twist of all, it was all a psychology experiment for a paper the teacher was writing...he wanted to see how far Mary would go, and everyone in the school was in on it! Because psychologically damaging a teen is all good and fun in the name of science. Not to mention the double-twist...Mary knew about it and was so pissed she switched it out for a narcotic so the two would think she was poisoning them and just knocked them out instead. LOL! Great prank, Mary!

I can't with the sheer stupidity of this book.

[Matthew MacIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Spoilers* These Senior books are really making me upset. This book is pure filler. It has nothing to do with the overall plot of the senior books where the class is doomed. It’s pure filler if you don’t read this you won’t miss anything. We follow Mary the one senior who was not at the party in the first book, remember Trisha’s party where she was with Gary, who is now Mary’s ex. That’s really all the continuity from the other books. Mary is still on probation for stealing from the mall the past summer, all the teachers seem to not let her forget it. The only people on her side are her best friend Stacy and her History teacher Mr. Morley. Who according to Mary is a babe who all the girls have the hots for. Soon Mary decides to steal a test paper from him and when she is caught instead of getting her in trouble he has her do a small favor, steal his jacket back from another teacher. When she is inevitably caught he helps her again but then has her do more and more stuff for him starting small by taking a letter from another teacher, to breaking into said teachers house for more letters, to literally kidnapping his sisters kids. Like Mary is so stupid you have a psychopath teacher and he keeps saying if you don’t do these things you’ll be expelled. Oh I forgot she meets a guy named Rob who works for Mr. Morley who he also is blackmailing so he and Mary are working together. This book is really dumb. Eventually Rob is like we have to kill the Mr. Morley with poison. The day comes Mary is going to do it. She finds Mr. Motleys notebook and when she reads it she decides to run home get the poison and kill him. She pours the bottle into his coffee. He drinks it falls behind the desk, Rob comes in doesn’t see the teacher on the ground and drinks too falls on the ground. Mary smiles and walks out. Then we find out the whole thing with Mr. Morley was a big experiment on Mary everyone was in on it and she just put sleeping medicine in his coffee. I call bullshit. There were cops and jail and everything no way for one experiment on one girl would they do all that. And if so Mary’s family should sue. This was a dumb book. Worst senior book so far. Barely three stars.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book and I really cheered/hoped that Mary would survive this one because so much happened to her with Gary Fresno so that likablility factor to her really made me connect more to the novel.

[Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real odd man out in the Seniors series. No supernatural elements, follows one character with no real bearing on the rest of the series and has a Lois Duncan vibe. Definitely skippable if you can’t find a copy easily.

[Jack Reacts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Full review at: https://www.jackreacts.com.au/fear-st...

Snippet: This was a fun one! It was a totally different formula to the standard Fear Streets and Point Horrors, which is always refreshing. Mary was a great protagonist, and it was nice to actually get to know her because we only ever saw fleeting glances of her in the previous books. This was a hard one to put down because I wanted to know what Mr. Morley would have Mary do next, and I was dying to know how it would all play out by the end...

Check out my full review linked up top for an in-depth recap :)

[Larissa Blong · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't finished a book this quick in a while! It was just so exciting and I wanted to see what happened at the end. It was a tiny bit predictable at first, but everything in the second half was crazy!

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book is really ridiculous, does not fit in the seniors series at all. please can I erase this book from existence?

[moonlit mystic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun book in the Fear Street Seniors series. I did not see that swerve at the end and thought this book was very entertaining and managed to read it all in one sitting.

[Hope Vollm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mary was just so whiny and woe is me. I couldn’t even feel bad for her because she just kept getting herself into these situations.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve always loved this one!

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

After being pleasantly surprised by the first four books in the Seniors series, I suppose it was inevitable that I be brutally disappointed by one. Last Chance really lives down to my memories of the worst of the Fear Street books. Ridiculously plotted, with bad dialogue, dumb characters, and ludicrous twists, this one introduces yet another "new kid" as the love interest (why bother developing characters we've already met?) and the stakes are nonexistent compared to even the first book in the series. The whole time I read it I kept thinking, "The first few books were about vampires and murderous ghosts and doom spells, why on Earth would I care at this point about a girl being coerced into stealing a jacket?"

The plot hinges on the increasingly criminal demands of a psychopathic teacher who gets Mary under his thumb after catching her cheating on the midterm exam. To make matters worse, Mary is on probation after shoplifting, which means that nobody will ever believe another word she says for the rest of her life, apparently.

Conceptually, the story is beyond repair. I mean, sure, teachers are part of the high school experience, so I suppose if you're writing a series about students, taking an authority figure and making him evil is a valid metaphor for American education, but that's not what I come to these books for. I want teenage angst and relationship drama and supernatural horror! I mean, main character Mary O'Connor was already set up in previous books as the jilted girlfriend of Gary Fresno, who started seeing class psychic Trisha Conrad (originator of the doom prophecy) instead. That's a rich enough history to explore from Mary's point of view. But apart from a couple of scenes, it's really not explored at all. It's like the entire book takes place in a vacuum. Everything is utterly without consequence.

At this point the series (nearly halfway done) ought to be ramping up in intensity as it progresses, but this piece of filler is a giant step backwards.

[Jojo Holm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Last chance is the 5th book in the fear street seniors series and I got to say that is was very underwhelming. I was very excited to read this book and I was loving it up until the ending. This is the 5th book and I feel like compared to book 4 the ending should of been way bloody then it was. It could of set up the rest of the books but it did not so overall this was a 2 star for me.

[C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, that was unexpectedly creepy. I mean, REALLY creepy. Also, it confirmed my theory that the adults in Shadyside are the worst people ever. One creeptastic, inappropriate, manipulative teacher could happen to anyone, but a bunch of other people being in on it with him could only happen in these books. 5/5 vintage-YA-horror stars (it's pointless rating these in comparison to books in general). By the end of the book Mary's embraced her inner psycho as well, and I'm happy for her. It's the only way to survive her town. I hope she DOES survive.

[Mario]

I think this is a good book to reflect on but not literaly. This book tells you the consequences in real life. Stealing might seem like a great thing to do when it gets you what you want. When you get caught, it is when it becomes a problem. But it is even a greater conflict when you get caught and you get blackmailed. This is another great book by R.L.Stine. His books always want me to keep on reading.

[*_Kathleen_* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great part! Poor Mary.. So many stress and tension for her because of 2 idiots there project.. But she gave them a good scare and lesson aswell ;)

[Areeba Arshad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wouldn't Mid reading them all over again.