Point Horror Collection 6 - The Caroline B. Cooney Collection: The Cheerleader / Return of the Vampire / Vampire's Promise

by Caroline B. Cooney

Are you...Hooked on horror? Thrilled by fear? Prepared to be scared? Then read on...inside you'll find three terrifying tales by the queen of horror, Caroline B. Cooney!

Enter the horrifying world of the Vampire, in Caroline B. Cooney's thrilling Vampire Trilogy.

Meet Althea. Until she meets the Vampire she's a nobody, but he makes her the most popular girl in the school. Now Althea wants more, and she'll do anything to get it.

Shiver with fear as Devnee begs the Vampire to give her beauty. But is the price she must pay too high?

Find out what happens when Lacey and her friends break into the Vampire's Tower. It starts as a game, but soon one of them will be his...

But reader BEWARE...for your dreams could turn into NIGHTMARES...

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Supernatural, Vampires, Teen

518 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Caroline Cooney knew in sixth grade that she wanted to be a writer when "the best teacher I ever had in my life" made writing her main focus. "He used to rip off covers from The New Yorker and pass them around and make us write a short story on whichever cover we got. I started writing then and never stopped!"
When her children were young, Caroline started writing books for young people -- with remarkable results. She began to sell stories to Seventeen magazine and soon after began writing books. Suspense novels are her favorites to read and write. "In a suspense novel, you can count on action."
To keep her stories realistic, Caroline visits many schools outside of her area, learning more about teenagers all the time. She often organizes what she calls a "plotting game," in which students work together to create plots for stories. Caroline lives in Westbrook, Connecticut and when she's not writing she volunteers at a hospital, plays piano for the school musicals and daydreams!
- Scholastic.com

Reviews

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved these books and wished that I was the main character - to have a vampire court you adn give you want you want would have been great when I was a teenager.

[Terese · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not about satisfying endings, but about moral lessons, at least in book 1 and 2. Moral lesson learned, book over, questions remain unanswered (and uninteresting because the point of it all has been reached... which becomes problematic by book 3...)

The Cheerleader - great, real spooky vampire, uncomfortable, a protagonist you understood and felt for even if you didn't agree with her, bit of a rushed end but all in all a solid, entertaining, creepy read.

The Return of the Vampire - repetitive, kind of dull, and THE most annoying protagonist. Devnee you are no friend of mine. Though there were a few tweaks, essentially, this was just like reading The Cheerleader.

The Vampire's Promise - this time with a group scene! So to shake things up Cooney gives us a group of stereotypes, a vampire, a promise and a choice... no wait, actually two vampires! One is of the shutters, Althea's I pressume? And it's really... like a drawn out, never ending scene with unsympathetic, under developed characters that I'm supposed to care about? I don't know, it just felt like a waste of time to me, also...

ALSO ... spoilers ahead!
Is Cooney kidding me with this final page of the last book - "Memory faded. (...) The hard-learned lessons, the heroism, and the sacrifices were gone as if they had never been" -

A) that makes this book a futile endeavor indeed, I mean, the whole third installment is about these vapid kids making the right - better - choice in the end and they all forget it once they are away from the vampire? Then WHAT WAS THE POINT!?

B) The whole book by consequence is entirely inconsequential. I mean are you telling me that Althea and Devnee RUINED lives, then decided to make the right choice, but then NEVER REMEMBERED IT AT ALL? While the victims are clearly still in the hell zone of the vampires' powers as laid out in this third book... what the hell? The victimizers get off scott free, not even having to remember the lessons learned, while the victims suffer forever... like whaaat? The first two books were like a piece of "don't be swayed to evil/the easy way out" "accept yourself" "work hard" "don't envy" moral cake, but if none of those memories are retained, then the girls didn't learn anything at all, did they? So I repeat WHAT WAS THE POINT?

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably terrible now, but a big nostalgic read as a young teen. 😊

[Emma Mackay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah those were thd days, his I loved Point Horror 🙈🙈🙈

[Kylie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is two stars simply because I didn't care much for the third book, for reasons that will be discussed below.

I remembered this set of books as being some of the weirdest of the Point Horror series I read (though I loved the second one to bits). This is mainly because the vampire in question is a strange mix of the culturally popular image - the cape, the courtly manners etc, and older myths that come out through his ability to be non-corporeal, and association with putrefaction and strong odour - particularly in the second book. The vampire's Modus Operandi is the most peculiar bit, for while he does drain a victim it is more a draining of spirit, personality and energy than blood. The vampire himself cannot pick or pursue a victim, but requires them to be chosen for him. In the first two books, this is done in exchange some quality that the victim possessed (for example popularity, beauty, intelligence...), which will be given to the heroine who inhabits the house in which the vampire resides. The reason for this is never really explained, though it does serve to illustrate the moral of the books which I take to be showing the results of selfish behaviour.

The third book breaks a lot of the conventions of the trilogy - even of the Point Horror series itself, since it's told from the point of view of a group of characters rather than just one protagonist (usually female). The first issue is that the vampire does away with the bargaining of victims for qualities (though I suppose you could say he bargained one life for the rest), the second being that there turn out to be two vampires; one in the shutters and one under the floor. This makes little sense if you're trying to fit it in with the series; the floor vampire could have been absent previously, but when the shutter vampire comes out he isn't bound by the need to have victims provided - which makes the reason why it may have done so before more important. Maybe it has a desire to please teenage girls? Also I found that the point of view switching made what small amount of plot there was drag considerably.

[Steen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the concept of these "Vampires" to be somewhat interesting and for the life of me I cannot get the line ,"oh they'll just be a little bit tired." out of my head.

But other then that they were pretty slow and boring. We don't ever get to find out what happened to the victims just that the main character screwed them over making them 'just a little bit tired' to get all that she ever wanted only to come to the conclusion that that wasn't worth it, learn to be happy with what she has and then lead a happy life. What about them? It's not like they just go back to being normal. So very nice of them.

The other two books in the series are basically a rehash of the same storyline but with different people. I'm not even sure why I continued to read them since after I got part way through the second I realized that nothing new was going to happen.

A twist in the third had me a bit confused but it wasn't as surprising as it might have been if I hadn't read about it before hand.

I do wish that we got to learn more about the vampire and how it came to be in the house.

meh.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this trilogy. I read it when I was in my teens and I have a feeling if I were to reread the whole thing, I would still love it the same. The trilogy kind of follows one evil vampire through three "time periods" (okay, really it may be the same decade) but the vampire comes in contact with three different girls who all wish in some way that they were each popular. The first girl wants to be a cheerleader (The Cheerleader), the second girl, Lacey, wants to be noticed but almost ends up sacrificed to the vampire (Return of the Vampire), and the third girl wants to be pretty, smart, athletic, and popular (The Vampire's Promise). They are teen books, so expect that "teen/ junior young adult" level if you try them out. (Read: they may not appeal to older teens or adults). I may just love them because I read and liked them as a teen.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

didn't read trilogy. didn't even know it was a trilogy. I only have "the return of the vampire"

[Sati Marie Frost · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 stars for The Cheerleader. 3 stars for Return of the Vampire and The Vampire's Promise.