Student Body

Nightmare Hall #21

by Diane Hoh

High on a hillside overlooking Salem University, hidden in shadows and shrouded in silence, sits Nightingale Hall. Nightmare Hall, the students call it. Because that's where the terror began.

A bonfire seems like the perfect way for Tory and her friends to celebrate. But when the winds gust and the fire gets out of control, everyone panics. All they think about is how to escape.

It isn't until later that they realize their buddy Hoop isn't with them.

They've left him there to die.

And now someone wants to make sure that Hoop's friends pay for their carelessness. . .with their lives.

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Fiction, Teen

213 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1995

About the author

Diane Hoh is the author of fifty-seven novels for young adults. She grew up in Warren, Pennsylvania but currently resides in Austin, Texas. Reading and writing are her favorite things, alongside gardening and grandchildren.

Reviews

[Courtney Gruenholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Nightmare Hall Book that I purchased a Kindle copy of since some of the Nightmare Hall books are hard to find for reasonable prices to get a paperback copy.

An actual Diane Hoh written entry.

A group of freshman friends at Salem U decide to go celebrate the basketball team making it to the finals. Instead of going dancing or dining at Vinnie's on pizza, main ringleader Bay convinces everyone to go do a weenie roast bonfire in the state park.

Eli points out to him that there is a burn ban going on because even though it is spring, the winter made everything incredibly dry. No one else seems to think it will be a big deal including our main character, Bay's girlfriend Tory or her roommate Nat, basketball player Michael "Hoop" Sinclair or his beauty queen girlfriend, Mindy.

Once there, some stray embers from the fire catch on the trees and set ablaze a forest fire, which they all try in vain to put out with gallon jugs of water. Running away, they soon find that Hoop is not with them in Bay's station wagon. They try to deny that he got left behind but soon, news spreads that Hoop was found in the park by firefighters and the arson detectives.

He is in the hospital, burned up bad enough to be on antibiotics and sedatives, with bandages all about his body. The guilt begins to crack the friendships, and Tory becomes the main target for acts of violence. A person who looks to be wrapped up in gauze and using anything that can cause burns as revenge.

Tory wants to go and admit the truth before any of her friends become the next target yet almost everyone has a chance to be expelled from school. A reason not to go and confess and there are many people on the campus who are angry at the basketball team not having a chance because of what happened to Hoop. A nice guy with a lot of fraternity brothers and teammates who may know the truth that his so called "friends" left him behind.

Playing the fire will leave you burned...

As you get closer to the end, it is easy to figure out who is behind all of the heinous acts. The reasoning for the plot of revenge is probably one of the most selfish ones I have read in these Nightmare Hall books but completely valid when their background is explained.

The end of Student Body is also a very sad one. Not completely without a small silver lining to keep it from being a complete downer yet the tone is not one of joking or quippy lines or freeze frame with a laugh track.

More of an early 1990s NBC Monday movie where you are left speechless, Student Body is one of the better Nightmare Hall books.

[Mehsi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very dark, and finally, one without a happy ending! Sorry, I just get tired of all the sappy, OMG we live happily ever after endings. I just need a bad ending sometimes.

Well let just say I was also shaking my head at the sheer stupidity that these kids had. Oh hey, there is a clear sign that we SHOULDN'T do open fire, eh who cares. I want hot dogs! Let's go! Oh dear, and now the forest is on fire, let's run away and not tell anyone.......... wait... wait, what?? And thus the whole book is mostly about them feeling slightly guilty (well, ok, mostly 3 or so of the group) and them threatening their friends when it seems they might just snap and confess something to the authorities. Oh, and did I mention murder attempts? Lots of them. Sorry, for once I didn't feel sorry for the main character, nor was I worried. They left their best friend behind, didn't care or whatever to go back. What kind of friends are you? To care more about your school career and such than a friend they have known for a while.

The who-done-it was easy. I had two suspects, and well since one couldn't really do much that one fell off and I kept one person. Who indeed turned out to be the one doing all the bad stuff. And why? Well just read and you will shake your head at the pettiness of it all.

This was also the one book I just didn't like, I had no sympathy whatsoever for the characters and I was just cheering when the ending came.

Review first posted at http://twirlingbookprincess.com/

[Erica Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gives me I Know What You Did Last Summer vibes but with a mummy figure leaving bits of gauze everywhere. Really dark, and you’re not exactly on the protagonist’s side.

Pretty solid entry in Nightmare Hall! It’s hard to believe that these so-called tightly knit friends so easily convince themselves that their group member did NOT just perish in the raging fire they caused.

And someone is all too happy to remind them of what they’ve done.

Not much of a body count, but the threats are actually life-threatening and the punishments fit the crime (all have a central theme, which…I appreciate lol).

Getting panini-pressed in a tanning bed would be a brutal way to go.

I did laugh at the idea of this “mummy-thing” bandaged figure, stiffly and slowly stumbling around and terrorizing everyone.

[Raven J. Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stay out the fire!

This edition was a page turner!! I love how the author took time to give a backstory to the main characters!! This was a face-paced read that kept me in my toes as I imagined every scene!

[Jordan David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book really good. The 90's were the good years for the horror genre. Tory and her friends learn that you need to be responsible for your actions even if it was an accident.

[Sarah Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars
Nightmare hall was in this one, and so were Jess and Ian briefly.
I think this was probably the best in the series, it was so different! For a start, it was in first person, not third like the previous 20 books. I did still have the 'make everyone think the main character is crazy' storyline though.

* Victory (yes, that's really her name) and her friends (Bay, Mindy, Hoop ,Nat, and Eli) head out into the woods to start a campfire and cook some hotdogs, even though there's a ban on starting fires because the woods are so dry. Several of them say they shouldn't, but Bay is insistent so they do what he wants.
* They eat hotdogs, but all doze off and a forest fire starts. They try to put it out, but don't stand a chance, so run instead.
* Once back in Bay's car, they realise that Hoop isn't with them, but Mindy says they probably got separated and he's gone a different way home.
* The fire is a big deal, Hoop never comes home, and a body is found in the woods. It's Hoop and he isn't dead, he's in ICU.
* They decide to say that he was there alone after an argument if asked (but stupidly never decide what the argument was about). They also never come up with a story as to what they did they night instead.
* Anyway, they go to the mall to distract Mindy and go to a tanning salon, but Tory gets stuck in a tanning bed and ends up with bad sunburns. Nobody believes her when she says she couldn't get out. They also don't believe she saw somebody in bandages leaving her booth.
* Tory goes for a drive but her car overheats and burns her more. The mechanic says there's a huge hole in the radiator, and that it looks like it was made by a hammer. Tory is also scared by a person in bandages again.
* Tory and Eli then go for a walk in the woods to find a missing keychain and end up in a hole in the ground with a psycho trying to burn them to death, again dressed in bandages.
* They go to a sorority beauty pageant, but Mindy is electrocuted in the bathroom and taken to hospital.
* At the hospital Tory learns that Hoop has died and Mindy has disappeared. They meet by Bay's car, but Tory sees someone in bandages who is attempting to blow the car up. She's then dragged away by the person in bandages and onto an elevator on a building site.
* Surprise! The bandage wearer is actually Mindy (I actually guess that this time). She's basically a psychopath and thinks that her beauty pageant career is more important than other people's lives 🙄

[Stephanie Duerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

With friends like these who needs enemies😬

[Eeman Zubair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read books but This was my first book ever and I loveeeed it book so much!!!

[N.C. Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot darker than I had expected. It didn't have a happy ending by any means. But was it enjoyable? You bet. It was a slow beginning but in the last quarter of the book I had a hard time putting it down. A few of the elements in the epilogue felt forced and contrived but overall it was a gritty, realistic, read. Diane Hoh is obviously a much more thoughtful and dark writer than Stein.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one summer in my preteens. Such a good creepy summer read, i should have read more of these when I was younger. Now I want to go back and read them all

[Kasey Loftis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have loved Every Nightmare Hall book that I have read. None have disappointed yet.