The Mall

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

He's Everywhere...Waiting Just For Her!

Trish smiles into the dressing-room mirror, admiring herself in the gorgeous white dress. Unknown to her, someone else is watching. He knows she is smiling just for him. His soft, strange voice whispers her name from the crowd. His hooded eyes follow her every move...

At first she thinks he's just a creepy customer, hanging around Muffin-Mania where she works at the mall. But suddenly he's everywhere, the man with a thousand faces tormenting her day and night. He knows her secrets. There's no safe place to hide. There's no one she can tell, no one she can trust. How can she escape a madman willing to kill to make her his---forevermore.

Genres: Horror, Young Adult, Thriller, Mystery, Fiction, Teen, Suspense

212 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1992

About the author

Richie Tankersley Cusick is the bestselling young adult author of over 25 titles, including two adult horror titles, Scarecrow and Blood Roots. Her popularity grew at the height of the horror/YA boom in the late '80s/early '90s, particularly with books like Lifeguard , Trick or Treat and Teacher's Pet, just to name a few, allowing her to keep company on the bestseller paperback lists with the likes of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike. Her fan base expanded about the time she changed publishers to Archway/Pocket Books with titles like Vampire and Someone at the Door.

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trish Somerfield works at Muffin-Mania in the mall food court. One day a strange looking guy appears and buys a muffin. He is gaunt, has dark glasses, long ash gray hair and beard, and talks in a strange whisper. Trish finds him unsettling and different and she’s glad when he leaves. Later she meets up with her friends on her break, sisters Nita and Imogene, who also work in the mall. When she goes back to Muffin-Mania there is a message for her saying her car has been hit. She goes outside to the employee parking lot (which is far away in the back of the lot) and sees nothing wrong with her car, but to her surprise, the pay phone near her car rings. Curious, she answers the phone. The voice of the strange whispering guy is on the line, creepily telling her he’s eating her muffin, etc... This freaks her out and she runs back to the mall, telling the security guard about it, but he thinks it’s another teenage prank and doesn’t take her seriously. Trish tells her friends and they try to reassure her it was probably a one-time scare, someone getting their thrills. But as time goes by Trish discovers this guy means business. Once, after Trish has an accident at the mall, she is hospitalized and “he” (who calls himself Athan) mysteriously appears in her hospital room. He tells her he is her protector, her guardian, that they are meant to be together. And if she tells anyone about him he will kill her friends. Is this guy for real, a phantom, or a product of Trish’s imagination?

This book sure was different. I had a hard time putting it down. I really liked the mall setting and the strange storyline. Trish always felt like she was being watched, especially in the mall because she kept seeing him there, sometimes disguised, feeling his presence in dressing rooms, halls, etc…. Athan was positively creepy. Sometimes you had to wonder if he was for real. I liked Trish. She felt like she was losing her mind and couldn’t confide in her friends because Athan threatened to kill them if she said anything, so she had to go through all of this alone. The mall had many secret passageways and basement catacombs which made it easy for Athan to move around. (It reminded me a little of “Phantom of the Opera”). I also liked Storm, a guy that worked in the pizza place next to Muffin-Mania. He was cute. The girls were all crazy about him.

This was a weird but highly enjoyable young-adult suspense/horror/stalker story.

[Kitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh man, oh man. I found this book for a quarter at a local thrift shop and told myself I'd save it for some rainy day when all I wanted to do was stay inside in bed and have some fun and I got exactly what I wanted. Well, minus the rainy day at least.

I have such a weak spot for late 80s/early 90s horror cheese so this book was right up my alley. The plot could kind of be described as Phantom of the Mall. Trish and her friends all work at the local mall that is so populated by teenagers in high positions at the stores that one wonders if the town hadn't rewritten child labor laws just to keep the place in business. Things go down hill for her when she suddenly becomes the target for a stalker that I lovingly referred to as The Muffin Man in my head until he was given a name for him 3/4ths through the book. Hijinks ensue.

This isn't very well written, but its one of those rare gems where its so badly done that it makes you first want laugh out loud and then want to keep reading. The emphasis is always on the wrong word in the sentence, the ellipses abuse gets out of hand, the plot twists and character motivations make no sense, things/people/props pop in and out of scenes without meaning or explanation and to top it off its just plain silly. And yet I enjoyed it and do plan to tuck into another one of her novels asap.

I'd recommend this book to anyone else who had a love for the spooky and suspenseful in teen pulp from this time period who is looking for some inoffensive brain mush.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit, I’m really biased with my rating here—I LOVED this thing when I was a kid. Not quite as big a fan of it as an adult, but it had its moments—the main character, for instance, works at Muffin-Mania, and the hunk who works at the pizza place is named Storm. Freakin Storm, I shit you not. It’s also got a fair amount of genuine suspense, and a couple of pretty creepy ice-pick-to-the-throat deaths as well. So, if you’re interested in a sometimes cheesy, sometimes serious slasher-type read that takes place at the mall in the 90s, well, this is definitely one of them.

Damn did I love the mall in the 90s, fun times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUNJn...

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably one of the better 90's horror novels I have come across since I started revisiting nostalgia inducing authors.

I've been exploring different formats of literary horror and suspense, and I love how Cusick so easily glides through the standard teenage novel plot to provide a mystery that I did not figure out. I really did not see the twist at the end, and I thought it was a good close to the story.

Cusick's characters are well developed for the pace of the story and provide entertaining dialogue as we explore the adventures of a young girl being stalked at her job at the local mall (with a funky past). I love a good mall mystery.

Good stuff, worth reading, especially with Audible.

[Heather ~*dread mushrooms*~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, loved it! So fun and entertaining. This is why I read so many bad 90s YA, because I KNOW there are good ones out there. This has everything you could want from a book that goes hard with The Phantom of the Opera vibes straight out the gate. But in a mall! With no singing! And a few dumb teens! Almost no parent sightings! The creepy obsession in this book was on POINT. There were some ridiculous parts that required a hefty dose of suspension of disbelief, but I really enjoyed this one. I think it's my favorite Cusick book to date! 4.5 stars.

[scar · Rating 1 out of 5]

i'm speechless, truly. i don't know if writing a diss review for a ya horror book from 1992 even makes sense, but i'm gonna do it anyway. this was one of the most nonsensical things i've ever read. the very beginning actually had me feeling hopeful as it was slightly creepy and the setting was cool (malls are always great), but once the plot really got going, it was just beyond stupid. the main character was terrible, just running around, panicking and acting ridiculous. the rest of the cast wasn't any better; i liked the girl friends, but every man in this book was cartoonishly "creepy", but actually just goofy as fuck. and then, when things were explained at the end, (i'm marking this as a spoiler, as it reveals a final twist, but please read this) it turned out that two of the guys were actually undercover cops and GROWN MEN who were trying to get romantically involved with the teenage female characters?? hello???

like, SURELY you're joking. this can't be real.

but even that aside: the plot... wasn't good either. the idea for a creepy mall with secrets was pretty cool, but it didn't deliver on any front. the red herrings weren't good. the stalker main plot was utterly bad. some of the "action" scenes were so confusing and weirdly described, and i just couldn't imagine what was actually happening. like, the elevator scene(s??)? also i hated the ending and the pay-off was terrible.

i love these goofy old paperbacks but i deserved better than this

[Sati Marie Frost · Rating 4 out of 5]

One-Line Review: If you can’t report creepers to the authorities because the creepers ARE the authorities, feel free to slap them. And shop local.

Full Review:

Gosh, this was a weird book. My love for Cusick is well-documented (in these reviews) but this is such a bizarre book, quite different from her usual, I don't know how I feel about it. I got it in the mail on Halloween, having only read it once as a teenager (and not really remembering it; it was the same week I first read Caroline B. Cooney's The Stranger, which kind of eclipsed everything for a few weeks) and I lay on my bed upstairs for several hours, forgetting about trick-or-treaters or pumpkin carving, and getting seriously creeped out.

I was planning to say something about how the setting is unusual for RTC, since she usually likes to set her books around decaying gothic mansions - and then I realised, that's not really true. Of the RTC books that I've either just read or am just about to read, only Trick or Treat and Help Wanted are set in big old houses. The Lifeguard is set in a beach cottage on an island - atmospheric yes, gothic no. Teacher's Pet (currently reading) is based around a woodland retreat with log cabins; Fatal Secrets and April Fools are, as far as I remember, set in basically normal suburban neighborhoods, albeit rich ones. Huh. Funny how I think of Cusick books as gothic horror.

Anyway. Having a book set in a mall makes for an interesting experience. Of course, this isn't a normal mall. This is a Richie Tankersley Cusick mall, a mall of dark passages and intrigue and silent stalkers. This is the mall from my nightmares, and maybe from yours.

The plot is a little hard to follow for a first-time reader, or at least it was for me. I'm giving you a longer recap than usual because of the twists in the plot.

Trish is working at the muffin shop in the mall, and one day a very strange customer comes in and makes suggestive comments about her hands. Weird, but not worrying - YET. Later she's called out to her car, after receiving a message that someone hit it - yet the car is fine. However, when she's in the parking lot, a pay phone starts to ring, and when she answers it (don't answer a ringing payphone! This happens all the time in movies, and nothing good ever comes of it!) it's Muffin Man. "I'm eating the muffin," he says. "It tastes just like you."

Okay, it's only page 22 and I'm officially creeped out.

So Trish seems to have acquired a stalker. And I have to say, this stalker is considerably more spooky than others I've read about lately.

Trish has also captured the attention of handsome, mysterious, flirtatious Storm Reynolds, who works at the pizza counter and has all the girls swooning and yearning for his pepperoni. Ahem. Storm runs into her right after she gets the phone call and reports it to a cynical security guard who doesn't believe a word she says, so she's understandably freaked out. He walks her back to work and lets slip that he's been watching her closely, and knows her schedule. Hmm, suspicious.

Trish and her boy-crazy friend Nita leave work only to find Wyatt - general odd-job guy at the mall - trying to break into Trish's car. Except he says he's not, he thought it was his car, which seems to have disappeared. Although this sounds highly suspicious to me, kind-hearted Trish and flirty Nita decide to drive Wyatt home, and stop to get food. Nita flirts. Wyatt does not. After dinner, Wyatt tells Trish she can drop him at the mall and he'll walk to a friend's house, since she has to drop Nita there at her car anyway. Trish drops Wyatt and Nita off and they go on their merry ways - and then Trish's car breaks down. So she goes and bangs on the mall door in the hopes that a security guard will let her in to use the phone, or something. It gets a bit unclear here, but I think Trish gets chased by someone, or maybe she's just jumping at shadows. Anyway, she falls and cuts her leg, and a young security guard lets her in. He bandages her up and they have a nice little chat about how Trish loves her job but hates her bitchy boss. Unfortunately, she knocks over a crate of bottles and breaks them, and when she goes to put them in the dumpster - well, there's a body who's been stabbed with an ice pick.

The guard is horrified, and radios for help. Then he tells Trish that she needs to get out of there, so she doesn't get involved and he doesn't lose his job for letting her into the mall at night. She gives him her address, and he calls her a cab.

Next day, there's nothing in the paper about the murder. Trish is surprised, but figures that the police are keeping it quiet. She decides to look for the guard to thank him for his help, and after giving a description of him to one of the guards on duty, she gets directed to a security guard named Roger.

Unfortunately, Roger's not the right guy. The general description fits, but his eyes and voice are wrong, and he doesn't have a scar. More sinisterly, Roger tells Trish that the mall doesn't have any night guards.

Trish is freaked out by this, and slowly realises that the guy who patched up her knee was only pretending to be a guard, and probably murdered the girl Trish found. And worse, since he called her a cab, he has her address.

Whoops.

Things get a bit disjointed from here on, perhaps reflecting Trish's panicked state. Muffin Man reappears at work, although he does nothing but look sinister, and Trish gets reamed by her supervisor for some imagined infraction of the rules. She and her friend Imogene - Nita's sister - walk down to the loading docks to pick up some stock, and Trish thinks she sees the security guard again - except this time he has a mustache and different hair, and he's dressed like a delivery man. On the way back upstairs, they find a long grey wig and beard - identical to Muffin Man's - in a bin.

Creepy.

Trish spends much of the rest of the book panicking in horror. She gets spooked by a workman and flees down an out-of-order escalator, which starts up while she's on it, throwing her to the bottom and injuring her quite badly. While she's in hospital that night, a shadowy sinister figure named Athan visits her, claiming that he is the one who's been stalking her, as he loves her and has decided that she belongs to him. He tells her that he knows where she lives, and that while he wouldn't hurt her, he'd hurt Nita and Imogene if Trish quits her job, which she's been planning to do.

Trish moves in with Nita and Imogene and their family for the foreseeable future, as her mother's in Europe. When Nita and Imogene are at work, and their parents have gone out to dinner, Athan calls and scares Trish so she leaves the house (even with her injuries) and goes to the library, where she runs into Storm. He convinces her to come and see something interesting, which turns out to be a deserted, falling-down house in a meadow that looks pretty when bathed in moonlight. She gets scared and runs from him, he wrestles her to the ground, she cries and asks him not to hurt her, he's horrified that he's scared her and begs her to tell him what's wrong. Then things seem to be going well, but he scares her again with some stupid ghost story. This guy takes social awkwardness to the max - first he basically kidnaps her, then wrestles with her even though she just got out of hospital, then the story thing. THEN he kisses her, and she seems to like it at first, until she slaps him and tells him to take her home. Which he does. A bit little and late, but oh well.

Next morning, she finds a tape from Athan in her car, spewing more of the same BS - she's a bad girl for going off and kissing Storm and talking to him about her problems, she belongs only to Athan, etc. Ah yes, the women-as-property trope that is so popular with stalkers. I bet most of them support the Tea Party. Trish immediately drives to the block of apartments where Storm said he lives - since she's now feeling bad for not trusting him, but surprise! His name ain't on any of the apartments. She doesn't feel safe at home or at the girls' house, and can't face school, so she goes to the mall. Which is probably the most unsafe place of all, but oh well. After a short chat with Wyatt, and her discovery that Bethany the Bitchy Boss didn't show up for her shift, she puts on her apron and starts working.

A message is left for Trish that implies that Imogene has been taken by Athan. Trish sets off for the delivery docks (located in the deepest basement of the building - is the mall built on a really steep hill?) to find her, and instead finds a shadow holding an ice pick and then the body of Bethany. She gets stuck in an elevator that the killer keeps playing with, moving it up and down without letting her out, and eventually - somehow - making it fall crashing to the bottom of the shaft, which knocks Trish unconscious. I have no idea how he does this; I didn't think elevators were built in such a way that it's possible to slow them or speed them up, but then I'm so untechnical that I have to call my ex-boyfriend for help every time I want to run a new program on my computer or take a photo using the flash on my camera. When she wakes up, Trish makes her way upstairs and finds that the mall is closed - except for one door. Nita's sweater is in the open doorway, so Trish infers that Nita is in trouble and runs up to Nita's store instead of out the open door to call for help.

The rest goes quite fast and frantically - in the store Trish is surprised by one of our suspects, and bashes him over the head. Bad choice, Trish - this is a Cusick book, and the first person you think is the bad guy never actually is. A piece of the mirror is missing, so she runs behind the mirror and down a long cobwebby passage that eventually takes her into a creepy underground - my autocorrect changed that to "unsettling" and that works too - room where lots of mannequins are stored, as well as a shrine to Trish with a four-poster bed and a wedding dress. Athan is unmasked, Trish is terrorised some more, and the suspects who didn't turn out to be freaky killers show up - late, but better than never - to save the day. One of them's been stabbed with Athan's ice pick, but he'll be okay. Probably. And Nita and Imogene are assumed to be safe at home, and the phone call and sweater were just misdirection.

The book ends with Athan's body being not quite visible anymore, and Trish thinking one of the mannequins moved, so we're left with some ambiguity about whether Athan was really dead or not. Uck. I usually like RTC's little unknowns (like who the heroine is going to end up with) - but having the murderer dead or alive isn't a little unknown, it's a honking great one and I felt the book would have had a much nicer ending without it.

Jeebus, that was a long recap. Usually I stick to a paragraph or two, but this was such a damn twisty book, with just about everything that happened being integral to the plot.

Did I like it? Yes. No. Maybe. I haven't a clue.

It was very unsettling, and totally unrelenting, pace-wise. One thing I enjoy about Point Horrors in general and Cusick in particular is that they're not just horror, they're horror against a backdrop of American teenage life. Our characters get some scares, alternated with some peaceful periods where they talk or eat or make out. Even in books like Trick or Treat or Teacher's Pet, where the gothic atmosphere is pervasive and oppressive and casts a dark shadow on everything, there are still those periods of safety where our heroines get to sit down and take a breather. The Mall didn't allow that; even during the times when Trish was away from the mall there was still the feeling that she could be attacked at any moment, and I didn't like that. I need periods of peace in my books, not only because they give the characters - and by extension, the reader - a chance to recharge their batteries for the fight ahead, but because I think it's nice to see characters in more normal situations - it allows them to seem more like people and less like featureless blobs of fear and panic. So I missed that about this book.

The guys...I was hoping for someone to rival Conor from
Trick or Treat or Neale from The Lifeguard. I didn't get that. The guys in this were - well, they acted pretty dickish at times. Storm, and to a lesser extent Wyatt, had the whole sexy douchebag thing going on. I can't decide if I liked them or found them really distasteful. I'm leaning towards like, but several of the scenes, and the whole scene with Storm and the car and the abandoned house, made me quite uncomfortable.

So, character-wise, I don't think this is Ms Cusick's best book. And plot-wise, the pace was too unrelenting for me personally, and I can also see how it would have too many twists and turns for a lot of people to keep up. I actually had to re-skim a lot of the book to write this review, and I only read it on Halloween five or six days ago.

So why the four-star rating?

Well, because it really, really scared me.

And that's exactly why I bought it to start with.

Verdict: Great book? Eh, passable. Great horror? Absolutely.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it's impossible for Richie Tankersly Cusack to write a bad book.The Mall begins with friends Trish and Nita talking about the mall that they work at. Nita works at the clothing part called Trends or something and Trish works at a place called Muffin Mania, with her boss that's super mean named Bethany.We learn this mall has some weird stuff going on like things missing and people missing.Turns out a worker left the job one night and never returned.When the two split up Trish is working when this old man comes up and acts very weird getting his muffin.He says some weird stuff and leaves.Trish is a little unnerved and she should be.Trish ends up getting a call about somebody hitting her car and when she goes to investigate, she sees nothing, but the pay phone rings.The guy that answers calls Trish by name and announces that he loved the taste of her on the muffin.And just like that this book had me hooked.One part of this book that makes me and only me laugh is when Trish says she has to go pick up Imogene and I honestly thought this was some type of medicine at first, but no it's a character and I'm uncultured. Imogene is probably my favorite character in the book though.We also get introduced to two workers at a pizza place named Storm and Wyatt.Wyatt gets hit on by Nita but he basically ignores her.Things pick up one night in one of the best scenes where Trisha's car breaks down and she has to go find help only to run into a very weird guy that's working in the shipping department.She ends up finding something inside one of the dumpsters But the guy pays for a taxi and sends her on her way.Trish continues to get harassed by this mystery man with a tape recording and a super creepy visit from him while she's in the hospital ,after she gets hurt.This book is good I really enjoyed It Richie Tankersly Cusack did a good job with the creepy atmosphere and a genuine scary villain.The only complaint I had with this book was the twist at the end.Ive seen Fear Street, I know do this twist a few times it feels like but for some reason it didn't feel right in this book. I give the Mall a four out of five stars.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Shopping Mall is a perfect setting for a horror story; super busy during the day that people’s faces just blur into one and eerily vacant at night.
Cusick takes that simple idea and turns into a tense stalker story.

Trish enjoys her job working at muffin-mania in the food court, until one day a weird customer comes into her shop.

Soon Trish starts to receive creepy phone calls and constantly feels as if she’s been watched.
There’s plenty of read herring’s that help drive the narrative.

The stalkers actions are serious creepy, the big reveal at the end it very intense.

One of the more adult themed Point Horror’s in the series, an enjoyable thrilling read.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an okay read. Not really much to say about it as it was like watching a B horror movie. I wasn't too impressed. It is about a high school girl that works at the mall and she has a fixtated stalker. I didn't have any "scare tactics" on this one. Three stars.

[Dan Poblocki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was deliciously scary and very campy and quite entertaining. A throwback to a time lost to our ever-changing American culture. The malls in my town are mostly dead or dying. The Mall in this book is *filled with* the dead, literally.

The only thing I didn’t quite appreciate was how the surviving characters rehashed the entire plot over the last 8 pgs or so, as if the audience needed every detail explained to us.

Ms Tankersley Cusick is incredibly talented at this genre, and I’ll definitely be pulling more of her paperbacks out of the big box of YA 90s horror a friend gifted to me. Just as memorable as Christopher Pike and RL Stine.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great! Very suspenseful! though many of Cusick's books are a tad predictable, this one I found was more or less a modern twist on The Phantom of the Opera.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fairly typical scar tale of a girl who gets her first job in the cool store at the mall, and picks up a stalker.

Not truly scary, but not bad.

[Chelley Toy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this with my book club that I run on Instagram where we revisit Point Horror and other books from our childhood - @talespointhorrorbookclub

Take a trip into one of the very first Malls (according to the book)built into the surrounding mountains…like a huge creepy house with secret passage ways, dodgy lighting, creepy elevators and surround by fog. Things are disappearing all over the mall, but no alarm systems are going off! Trish Somerfield has just started working at The Mall at Muffin Mania serving muffins to all manner of people….including a creepy guy who loves muffins a lot! And then the creepy phone calls start, numerous amount of car trouble, mysterious tapes, dead bodies and the feeling that someone is watching Trish every where she goes……

This was basically a Point Horror version of Phantom Of The Opera with an all-too-real modern day serial killer / stalker spin. 

Fave quote - “Look I have to finish with these people otherwise we will have a riot on our hands” (Busy Book Store Owner who knows what is bookish peeps are like 😜)

Other highlights include a a tonne of red herrings, working parents away in Europe, ice pick deaths (hell yeah!), a very busy villain and a character call Storm who out ranks Frank from April Fools as worst PH love interest EVER!

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't care what y'all say. I know this book is trash, but it's MY GUILTY PLEASURE. I love this book, okay? It's got the creepy stalker, nostalgic 90s vibes, horror, and my god, look at that cover! And she works at a place called "Muffin Mania." YES!!! I first read this at a friend's house. I borrowed it and was desperate to find it again every since. Now, we are reunited, and I shall read this in all its two-dimensional-character goodness.

Hells. Yeah.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A GENUINELY SCARY POINT HORROR BOOK

This is good! Actually good! I mean, totally bizarre and the ending is ruined by some sort of comedy cop duo, but this is a great read. There's a reason we all remember it, and it's not just the fantastic cover.

I read this for our podcast Teenage Scream, which dissects the best (and worst) of 90s Teen Horror.

https://soundcloud.com/teenagescream

[Celeste · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have so many thoughts on this book, mostly positive, though 3.5/5! I mean this in the best way possible, but this read (as an audiobook) like if Lizzie McGuire and Phantom of the Opera had a baby as a 90's Halloween special.....I know my brain went there :)

The storyline was enjoyable, I could definitely see myself rereading or re-listening to this. One thing though....a big pet peeve of mine is when endings are explained by the characters...and the final sequence of events unfolded a bit unnaturally for my liking.

[Kylie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Continuing the project, just look at that artwork. One of my favourite pieces of cover art of the series back when I was younger, and still now.

I'll keep this brief. The plot of this reminds me quite a bit of The Phantom of the Opera; a shadowy, mentally disturbed figure lurking in the labyrinthine corridors long forgotten, professing their love for a young worker and kidnapping her. There's even a plot point where a two-way mirror makes an appearance. Storm is a kind of Raoul figure too (which I guess would make Wyatt the Persian? IDK). I wouldn't consider it too far fetched that the author might've been writing it as a homage, if not being very influenced by the story as it exists in pop culture, as while opera and ballet is now no longer as popular an entertainment as it was, shopping is now practically a national pastime for many people (especially teenagers who aren't old enough to do much else). I could ramble on about how Athan's desire to possess Trish as if she were an object could be symptomatic of consumer culture (as well as discussing rape culture) but I'll spare any readers that. On the surface at least, it's using the fear about moving into the workplace as a rite of passage.

One critique would be that we never get to discover who Athan really is or why he's living in the mall. Though if he's being used as a symbol of the generic stranger then I guess it's not really important.

[Jen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book way more than I probably should have! But, thinking back on all the 80’s/90’s YA horror books I’ve read and re-read as an adult, this one is definitely at the top. It was so full of early 90’s fun (Malls! Payphones! Cassette tapes!) that I was immediately engrossed in the story. And, the whole stalker plot was actually pretty well executed. Sure, Trish pulled some dumb cliché horror book moves like not telling a trusted adult anything and venturing off on her own all the time, but for the most part, she was pretty likeable and I could understand her motives.

The one situation that did frustrate me was the one between Trish and Storm beginning at the library and continuing on to the cabin. I mean, seriously, she couldn’t have called attention to the fact that he was forcing her out of a crowded library? She told him “no” about 10 times, but couldn't muster up a scream to alert anyone else as to what was happening? And, then the whole crazy car ride and the scene in the woods at the cabin. What the heck? Just really weird and creepy, especially considering he ended up being an undercover cop. I just felt like that whole thing was glossed over and laughed off at the end like it was a silly thing for him to do, yet totally acceptable. But, I guess the book was written in 1992 and maybe we let guys get away with more back then…???

[Tara Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh. This doesn't hold up at ALL well.
I'm enjoying my little trip down memory lane with the 80s/90s teen horror and thought I'd reread this one for some American kitsch flair. Oh God. It is not good.
WTF is this mall, anyway? That basement! Hidden tunnels! Peeping tom spaces! BURN IT DOWN.
The cops should be fired immediately because they are really, REALLY bad at their jobs.
Wait, y'all let this guy go? There are literally dead bodies all over this mall and missing girls but you thought hey, we will just keep an eye on him and pretend to be high school students then hit on a victim. Nice one.
And seriously love, you really needed to have quit that job within your first few shifts because your boss is psycho.

[aimen🍉 · Rating 3 out of 5]

our run-of-the-mill protagonist Trish Somerfield has just started her new job at what might be the city’s oldest mall . soon enough however, she gets the impression that she’s being followed and watched — if we are to suspend our belief for a moment here — whenever a “cool draft of air” gales past her legs tingling her spine with fear .

without corroborating proof or evidence of the suspicion, she disregards it as a sleight of mind and goes about her usual . eventually however, she discovers a body murdered in cold blood and conveniently discarded in one of the stockrooms . what’s more is that she also begins hearing whispers and receiving calls from a tall, wiry figure whose person much like his hoarse voice is shrouded in shadows and mystery .

as the story plunges on, Trish grapples with her obsessive stalker and his ubiquitous presence while discovering secret routes and channels in a mall that’s been renovated and expanded since it was first built in time immemorial whereby she could possibly escape

a short, fun and entertaining read not to mention funny in spite of the dark, spooky atmosphere

[Sharron Joy Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trish works at Muffin Mania in the Mall, her best friends, twins, Nita and Imogene work in shops there too. But someone is watching her, he changes faces, disguises himself, seems to be everywhere but always close to her. He wants her to himself. Tell me do you know the muffin man?

This is a great spooky read, shopping centres are creepy out of hours, all those hidden hallways, stock rooms, loading bays, the secret ways in and around the main shopping areas. The contrast between the brightness of the main building and the dark passages behind the walls is exploited brilliantly here.

Trish is scared, paranoid, the people around her think she’s imagining things, she is the only one who sees him and he has threatened her friends if she says anything. Is this man real, is he a ghost or is this all in her mind. Thoroughly enjoyed this visit to the mall.

[Shelly Mack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a point horror I'd never read before and as always it struck that nostalgic chord in me.

Trish is being plagued by someone or something at the mall and she has nowhere to turn. If she doesn't do what this mystery person requests, her friends will be in danger. But inevitably, Trish is the one who must give of her life.

This book definitely had tension and I doubt I will look at muffins in the same way! However, I would have loved to have seen more from the other characters as hey kind of disappeared half way through.

There was a good pace from the middle to the end which kept me gripped.

Just as a point of information, I don't think I've ever seen quite so many italics within dialogue before. I also thought the dialogue in the last few pages was quite comical.

Overall, I enjoyed this one!

[Gareth Houghtonio · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was absolutely no reason for me to read this book. I'm not a young adult who it is aimed at, and I didn't read it back when I was a teenager so there was no nostalgia value for me to rely on. But I do like to keep an open mind and I try to read as much varied stuff as I can. A respected Bookstagrammer recommended I read a Point Horror book and said this one was the best, so I did as I was told.

What I'm trying to get at is, if you're an almost 40 year old miserable bastard like me who would never even look at a YA book, never mind read one, I'd say open your mind and revert your eyes back to your 13 year old eyes, and read this book through them. My old, grumpy eyes would have given it a measly star, but my young, bright eyes give it 3.

[Aurora Dimitre · Rating 3 out of 5]

High three, it's a high three.

This was--well, it was interesting. I did like it, and I did enjoy it--I didn't get the twist, on who it was, because I knew who it couldn't be just based on conventions of the genre, but I was also relying on those conventions to be right and I wasn't, so, nice job on the plotting. Overall, a pretty average cheesy 90s teen horror, I dug it.

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story grabs you right away and it’s a fun wild ride through the entire story. It kept me guessing the entire time and I never knew what was going to happen next. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, wanting to keep turning the pages, and sad when you have to put it down. I’d definitely recommend this to others 😁 it did not disappoint.

[Christine Olson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got goosebumps, so creepy

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This review is based upon other point horror books. 3.5 stars. This book seems to go from slow in the first couple of chapters to 100mph! We seem to be running, and hiding, and part of an action movie! There is something creepy around each corner, and the main character absolutely has no luck! It a wacky ride, not one of my favourites, but it is enjoyable.

[Francesca · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up for nostalgia

[Stephanie ((Strazzybooks)) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Early 90s perfection. rtc