Tormented by dreams of her dead sister, Bobbi, and by a series of gruesome events, Corky knows that it is up to her to learn the century-old secret that is tearing her world apart.
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.
That was awesome! It being the third book I can't say much about it really. I loved how fast paced it was, got to see the girls friendship more and how the ending nearly had me in tears! Is it the best written? No, but it was a fun (and intense) time and I loved every second of it. Once I got going I couldn't stop.
Well hello Ancient Evil that likes to jump around other people. Let's see where you are today.
The third book in the "Fear Street" Cheerleaders series by R.L. Stine is a wild ride. Stine gives us some real horror moments in this one. We also get some of the origin (slightly) of the ancient evil that resided in Sarah Fear and is now tormenting Corky.
"Third Evil" opens with Corky thinking back on things that have happened to her and her friends on the Shadyside cheerleading squad over the past year. Corky's sister Bobbi is dead and so is her boyfriend Chip. There's a new freshman that is on the squad, Hannah, who is bugging the crap out of Corky and Kimmy. Corky still of course misses her sister and starts to have strange dreams about her. Something is going on which leads Corky to believe that she didn't really get rid of the Ancient Evil and that it is back again wrecking havoc on the squad and others.
Corky was great in this one. I honestly felt for her. No spoilers, but what Corky was prepared to do was honestly brave and I liked how it tied into Sarah Fear. I think that the other cheerleaders have their own little niche in this series and it was good to see Kimmy and the others again.
The writing at times does grab you and it's crazy to me that R. L. Stine was graphic at times about the murders that went on in the past and what the Ancient Evil wanted to do to people. There are some gross scenes too with cockroaches and snakes. The flow of the book was great and I got through this one rather quickly.
The setting of Shadyside will continue to amuse me cause that whole town has to be built on a Hellmouth.
There's a fourth book in the series that I already heard is a letdown, so will see about reading it one day. This was a great book to end the series on and will have to say that I don't know why Stine thought it needed one more book.
The evil continues. It’s not dead and there’s people that will have to pay. If you liked the second evil, you’ll like this one. Now I see why everyone makes a big deal over this trilogy. They are so good & fun & nostalgic.
This is the third book in the Cheerleaders saga in which Corky and her friends have to face for one final(?) time the evil spirit. But this time there is no teling who is under its control and when the truth comes out Corky would have to take some very grave decisions in order to get rid of the spirit once and for all.
This book was a great, creepy and fast read. I loved how the first part kept me guessing who the evil spirit was this time. We also get to learn more about the life and death of Sarah Fear the original evil spirit.
It was great to see the girls tryign to stay alive for one more time. Corky fighting to get rid of the spirit and struggling to take control of her life. Even the spirit of Bobbi, her dead sister, showed up to help her.
Now if only I had the next book. It's really hard to find a copy of the fourth book for some reason, but I will. I am dying to find out what the evil spirit is up to next.
This copy was posted half way around the world to me by a wonderful HA Santa just so I can join in on reliving and reminiscing on our ridiculous teen reading choices. I had LOTS of fun with this series, thank you Santa.
The last one in the series, it was o.k. but not my favourite. The reveal happened about half-way through and I would have liked it to happen at the end, but that's just personal taste. I'm not going to go into the pros and cons of Stine's writing, it's a YA from about 1992. Just go with it.
I'm so glad I re-read this series. These books are just a good time. Not too deep or anything but just a fun teen horror series. The books take place one after the other and follow the same characters. I enjoyed all three and would recommend for someone looking for a quick spooky read without much gore.
The final installment of the Cheerleaders trilogy brought some new elements, but fell flat in other areas. The shift in perspective was a welcome one, and it helped The Third Evil distinguish itself from the rest. Although I saw the twist coming, I still liked it. The visions Corky keeps having of Bobbi were a nice creepy touch. The Evil is still really bad at planning. You would think that an ancient evil spirit who liked killing people would be better at carrying out its murders. The backstory on The Evil and Sarah Fear left me with more questions than it answered. The climax and ending also left me a bit disappointed. I’m still curious to see how The New Evil will hold up.
Score: 2
A full review with spoilers, memes, and more extensive analysis than is warranted for a teen horror novel from the 90s, can be found in my blog:
The evil is baaaaaaack!!! The girls are now at a Cheerleading Camp when things start going awry, which leads to Corky needing to devise a plan to defeat the evil once and for all…again!
Random notes: - A fun outing, although TBH I did enjoy the first 2 better. - I did like delving more into the life of Sarah Fear though! - There were a few unintentionally hilarious scenes of dialogue, such as this exchange, condensed here: “I know how to drown you.” “Fool, I can not be drowned!” “Yes you can. You can be drowned.” “I can not be drowned.” “You can be drowned.”
No spoilers as to whether or not they are indeed drowned 🤣🤣🤣🤣
- Also I’ve noticed in every Fear Street I’ve read, a few words do repeat themselves often. Our characters always say “huh?” and scream “shrilly”. Once you notice, you can’t un-notice 🤣🤣
I started this series again last month because I got nostalgic. I read all the fear street books and I can honestly say I still love them after rereading this series.
There are major spoilers ahead for The First Evil and The Second Evil, so proceed with caution if you’re not familiar. After Corky defeated the spirit that killed her sister for the second time and chased it out of Kimmy’s body, the Shadyside cheerleaders are back just in time for cheer camp. Yet Corky fears the evil hasn’t left them. She’s tormented by dreams of Bobbi’s ghost trying to tell her something, and cheerleader camp is soon disrupted by a series of accidents or pranks turned violent. Can Corky defeat the spirit a third time, or will she be its next victim? Trigger warnings: death, suicide attempt, drowning, injury, blood, bullying, threats, grief.
After somewhat of a sophomore slump, the Fear Street Cheerleaders comes back stronger in the third book. We’re familiar with the evil’s old tricks, but it has some new ones up its sleeve for this book. In fact, the book is much less about discovering who the spirit is hiding in than the previous one, since we know almost right away who’s being possessed. Instead, it offers an inside look at one of the characters struggling firsthand with the evil over-taking their consciousness. That combined with ghostly visits from past characters (which surely would have frightened me as a kid), and the novel provides plenty more creeps.
It also continues to expand on the history of the evil, and we’re finally given answers on how Sarah Fear originally defeated it. It’s a cool bit of Shadyside lore, and it brings a little more depth to the series. Corky is easily the strongest character in this or any Cheerleaders book, and there’s the sense that she’s come a long way throughout the series. The ending is well-plotted, and given Stine’s willingness to kill off major characters in past books, there’s no way to tell whether anyone will be left standing by the end. (All in all, a low body count though, all past books considered.) While there are two more books to the series, it’s not clear whether he meant to continue with it after this. It has a strong sense of thematic closure, all plot threads neatly wrapped up.
I review regularly at brightbeautifulthings.tumblr.com.
I like these Cheerleader books just as much as I did as a preteen/teen. Sure, there are some elements I find annoying as an adult, but while wearing nostalgic glasses, I can forgive/overlook some of them. I was for sure annoyed by all the girl hate and jealousy.
This is a fast paced installment you The Cheerleaders books... and we get to watch once more as Corky and her friends/family are being tormented by the evil spirit. Who is it this time? How does it all connect with Sarah Fear? Can it truly be stopped?? Find out! Fun fun fun!
This series swung around and became great again, very strong ending to the original trilogy. Like the back story, and the cheesiness. But also loved the intensity of the last couple of chapters, very kill kill kill, lol.
So, I completely forgot who got possessed by the evil spirit in this installment - so it was a bit of a shocker (really the only one in the book)! Pretty predictable, the same stuff as the first two books. I'm kind of interested now to read the fourth one, the "end" of the series (at least the last book with the original characters). Also, this digs even deeper into not only how Sarah Fear was possessed, but how she managed to get the evil buried with her (and what it might take to actually kill the thing). Obviously it's not gone, as there are more books. But at least it's almost done terrorizing these poor girls.
Rating : 4,5/5 Membaca seri Fear Street Cheerleaders seperti mebaca buku/film serial yg menarik,buku ini saya kira lebih baik dari buku kedua dari segi kreativitas cerita,masih dengan cerita perjuangan Corky berkutat dengan "roh jahat" yg mengganggu & menguasai Corky dan teman2 Cheerleadersnya.(spoiler dikit..) disini lebih seru karna ada masa lalu Sarah Fear dan alasan2 bahasan di buku pertama,menurut saya buku ini sangat bagus dan seperti biasa, gaya penulisan RL Stine selalu enak dibaca dan membuat sy terus ingin mebuka halaman2 selanjutnya dengan penasaran.
A lot better than the other two surprisingly. This one didn't jump around as much because they were kind of all together in a camp and then home. There were also no annoying cliffhanger chapters and toned down on the !!! dialogue a bit. Since it was wrapping it up with a backstory the plot was a bit more solid/interesting as well
Poor Corky. Both her sister Bobbi and boyfriend Chip are dead—killed by the evil spirit. But it’s not over yet! The evil spirit is back once again! This time around, the evil spirit possess someone I never would have guessed! I was so surprised to find out who it was in this time. But it was very interesting see it in this perspective and see the internal struggle between host and evil spirit. However, there was one different thing that happened in this book that I didn’t really understand: this time the evil spirit actually let the host remember the things they did while being possessed. It was very strange because in the previous book, Kimmy did not remember at all being possessed, but maybe the spirit is growing weaker as time goes on...?
As always, I absolutely love the descriptions! They’re incredibly violent and kinda gorey... okay, it’s not that bad. But this is horror, so I love it! I also loved that shocking twist with who the evil spirit was possessing.
Another thing I loved about this is that we finally find out what happened to Sarah Fear and the evil spirit on the fateful day in which she died. We actually flash back and get to witness things first hand, which I absolutely loved seeing! It was very cool getting to see Sarah struggle to beat the evil spirit, but then ultimately die. I read the Fear Street Saga trilogy a very long time ago, but I remember absolutely loving it! I love getting these little tidbits about the Fear family from back in the day, and how the myths and legends of the Fear family and Fear Street were shaped! I just love it!
A couple of mentions: Suki and Gary from The Overnight! And apparently they’re not together anymore. Gary is now going out with one of the cheerleaders, Hannah, apparently. Speaking of Hannah, not a fan of her, to be honest. She was just very annoying and kind of selfish.
I don’t believe [Hannah’s] nerve, Corky thought angrily. She really thinks she’s a princess or something.
Same, Corky, same.
Also mentioned: Dalby’s department store, owned by Reva Dalby’s father from the Silent Night series!
Overall, I really liked this book! It was super creepy with super shocking twists, and had insanely awesome and horrifying descriptions!
The Fear Street connection: Yup. Corky still lives on Fear Street. That’s probably why the evil spirit keeps coming back, honestly. Lol.
A solid conclusion (for now) to the Cheerleaders saga. Plenty of thrills and frights. Corky really shines in that one. I know she was a main character in the previous one as well, but this one really gave her the spotlight in a proper way. I love how it was her turn to be possessed by the evil spirit. I just wish someone had died in this book lol :D The first book was Bobbi and Jennifer, second was Chip (if I remember correctly). As this was the third book in the series, I expected Kimmy, Debra, or Ronnie to die. Maybe even Hannah! But sadly no victims.
That's really the only thing I didn't like about this book, hence a 4-star rating. I really felt like someone should have died. I thought the evil spirit talking to Corky at the end was a bit odd but I quickly got used to it.
ALSO PEA SOUP - ICONIC :D
Ronnie wasn't in this one that much but I'm not all that surprised - Stine's focus always seemed to be first on Corky, then on Kimmy, and last, on Debra. I'm really looking forward to reading the last instalment in the series. Fingers crossed for some major deaths :D <3
So I'm not sure if Stine meant for this to be JUST a trilogy. The next book, THE NEW EVIL, came out 2 years later (in 1994) and was a Super Chiller. For anyone not up on their teen pulp series like Sweet Valley High, Fear Street and Nancy Drew - special editions periodically came out that were (for the most part) longer and sometimes either geared towards a 'holiday' or 'mystery' theme. In the case of Fear Street specials, they tended to be extensions of Stine's multi-book stories (like Cheerleaders or Silent Night) or the genesis of the prequel "Sagas" books depicting the history of the Fear Family, Shadyside's formation and the various supernatural things that happened.
Anyhow I'm not sure if he meant to wrap it up here or not. Unlike Books 1&2, the ending is happy and there's no "Evil Lives" moments.
Meanwhile for the book itself, it makes sense that the person possessed this time is Corky (that would be a spoiler if Stine didn't make it super obvious). Though I vaguely remember laying odds on it being her little brother Sean when I read this two and half decades ago.
I mentioned this in one if my updates, but all three books take place between October and April of the same school year. That means 3 really awful deaths happen, two on school grounds and one on a school trip, yet Shadyside High doesn't produce trauma counselors? Clearly Shadyside and Sunnydale are kissing cousins.
Interestingly we go to a Cheerleading retreat for spring break and like amateur detective shows, the fun follows our gals. Hannah is an annoying addition to the squad that makes little sense (she's added to replace someone graduating at the end of the school year but they kick the senior girl off the squad mid-year before a big competition? Which brings me to a different point, is it normal to have seniors not be at least co-captain? Far as I could tell there wasn't a "junior varsity" and "varsity" squad at the school? So was Megan the only senior on the squad? Corky says she's 16, so presumably Bobbi was 17 unless they were Irish twins?
We did get confirmation that Corky's house is only a block away from the cemetary.
Anyhow it was a solid tie-up to the trilogy, now onto the next books!
This one while not as fun to me as the first two in the trilogy was still decent there were even some parts that felt like a nightmare on elm street (where th stairs have blades that come out) but while not my favorite of thr three id still recommend
Heads up for potential spoilers of the other books in the series...
For what it's worth, this isn't a bad way to end the trilogy. It seems to have been clear cut as the finale but you can't keep a good thing down so that is probably why The New Evil Super Chiller exists.
Was it as entertaining as the first two with the brutal deaths? No.
Did it have disturbing imagery? Yes.
It is now spring in Shadyside and Corky Corcoran is confident that The Evil is gone. It had taken over poor Kimmy and made her it her new host, leaving the poor girl with no memory of what she had done.
Kimmy didn't remember that she killed Corky's boyfriend, Chip, or Jennifer Daly's brother, Jon.
Corky watched it pour from Kimmy's mouth and snake down the drain of the bath tub in all of the putrid, green ooze. Now, the things can get back to normal.
If only it didn't result in a new problem - a new cheerleader on the squad.
Megan Carman graduates in June so they have already replaced her with freshman, Hannah Miles.
Hannah is a kiss up to Miss Green and Kimmy and Debra since they are the advisor and captains of the squad, respectively, but she is a good cheerleader. Corky can see that she has talent but Hannah is such a show-off that makes the others look bad it gets under everyone's skin.
Except for Debra as she seems to have a soft spot for Hannah to the dismay of Corky, Kimmy and Ronnie. Corky may also be a little jealous that she wasn't named co-captain instead of Debra since she and Bobbi were the hotshots on their team back in Missouri.
Miss Green thinks it would be too much for Corky to handle after losing Bobbi and Chip in such a short time and that seems the thing to do IMHO but Corky is still salty. The squad is about to join other high school cheerleaders for a spring training camp at Madison College over their spring break and that could be a lot of pressure.
So of course it would be the perfect time that it is revealed that the evil spirit is still around...
That is shown clearly with a bowl of boiling split pea soup giving us a gross-out moment for Corky, Kimmy, Debra and Ronnie to witness. The Evil Spirit is among one of them and poor Kimmy believes it is still her and Corky is leaning that way as well.
Bobbi is visiting Corky in her dreams but providing some unclear yet horrible visuals as a warning but Corky already knows the Evil is close by so why is her sister still haunting her?
At camp, Hannah ends up trading with Debra so she can room with Kimmy and Corky in their much larger room and the first thing she does is ask Corky to run her a bath. I don't think it is a coincidence that Hannah had to trade with Debra...Ronnie and other cheerleader Heather probably ran her out on purpose.
Hannah isn't the only bratty cheerleader at this gathering because the captain of the Redwood Bulldogs' cheerleaders, Blair O'Connell, thinks she is something special and that everyone else is hilariously bad. Her amusement and disdain are clearly aimed at the Shadyside cheerleaders but again...Corky admits to herself that Blair is really good.
So when a bad fall takes Blair and her squad out of the way for competition and Hannah gets an unwanted make-over in the middle of the night, it is clear that the evil spirit is just biding time for the real terror to begin...
Halfway through and we get the reveal of just where the evil went!
It wasn't hard to figure out but it just took some of the mystery and suspense away and left us with nothing but a campy kind of horror movie plot. It becomes redeemed when we get a trilogy trope of going back to the beginning and learning something new to add to the plot.
Sarah Fear's memories which hold the key to finally getting rid of the evil that stayed buried with her for almost a hundred years are added to what we learned in the second book from convient Sarah Beth Plummer.
The story presented here and what comes in The Awakening Evil don't match up with certain points but it won't ruin anything for you if you read one before the other...it just fleshed it out better.
Also The Awakening Evil was clearly like a promotion for The Evil Lives! but we'll be getting there soon...don't worry.
Anyway...
The final act and the climax are actual pretty good to kind of make up for the lackluster of the second act. It is both heartwarming and tear-jerking but we get enough of Stine's snark to leave on a triumphant yet hilarious note to keep from sobbing our eyes out.
Which would have been fine but then the fourth book came out and well...I already talked about that one...so expect more tea to be spilled when I tackle the last book about the cheerleaders from the original Fear Street run.
So here we are. The evil is now in Corky. She doesn’t realize it for about the first 75-100 pages. But once she does the book gets hilarious (in a good way). She talks about wanting to kill Kimmy and Debra and new cheerleader Hannah. It’s a lot of fun to watch her be evil. She doesn’t succeed though. No one dies in this one, that I recall. Unless you count Kimmy bringing Corky back to life. So, yes, it can be drowned if the person with the evil in them dies first. Corky learns this when she sinks into the evil’s memories. We get the story of Sarah Fear being inhabited by the evil (which is chronicled in The Awakening Evil). The evil tries to fight her to keep her from killing herself, causing the water on the lake to boil. But Sarah manages to throw herself overboard and suck in enough water to kill herself so the evil can’t inhabit the children on the boat with her. And then, as we know, the evil lies dormant until it goes into Jennifer in The First Evil.
Corky takes Kimmy to a cliff to kill her. She pushes her off but finds her old self that knows she must jump over the cliff too in order to kill the evil. So she does. Kimmy finds Corky’s bloated body that is technically “dead” enough to expel the evil. Surprisingly not back into Kimmy, though. Kimmy performs CPR on Corky and Corky finally gets all the water out of her lungs and wakes up. She sees Bobbi’s face smiling at her in the water, pleased that she finally got rid of the evil for good. Or did she?! Dun dun dun...
Reading this third instalment does suggest that this was the closing story in a trilogy. However, with more “Evil” books to come then it expands into a series.
Another new Cheerleader, Hannah, joins the team. The story has a great twist in who becomes possessed with The Evil Spirit and the readers get to follow this possessed character’s thoughts and actions. The story takes us back in time to show how Sarah Fear dealt with The Evil Spirit and what exactly happened on that fateful day.
A great end to the story that wraps up the Evil trilogy….no …wait! The trilogy expands and The New Evil is next.
Mate this was one of the greatest horror series of my early childhood. I remember very little except for one scene (it may have been from one of the others in the series but I suspect it was this one?) where it just created such a disturbing picture in my head that even after all these years I STILL can't get it out of my head. I mean, what a way to go.
I think it wasn't the delivery so much as the creativity of the horror that made R.L. Stine so successful. What kind of messed up dude comes up with this solid gold crap?