I wanted to do another casual Fear Street read as a transition before I hop into other stuff. On my wheel to pick these, I have "Sagas" on there, referring to the general Fear Street sagas series. As I said before, this was a series that made us of the popularity of the Saga trilogy. The first book from what I recall continues from the trilogy while the rest go in all sorts of directions.
It's just a series of random stories from all across the Fier timeline, some seeming to connect more than others. Given the series is ghostwritten, this makes sense. It does make things complicated with all the Fiers but ah well. Since it's not a super important series and I have enough on my plate for review, I'm not too into reviewing these on the blog until way later, although I may do the first one.
So for now I'll do any past that as Goodreads reviews if I feel like it. I used the randomizer and I got this one, which was the 3rd to last and seems to be rare but archive has it. It's vampire themed so I was hyped and it actually didn't let me down!
Eleanor and her father have been moving around for a while. See, her mother was killed before she was born and daddy claims it was due to a vampire. He thinks the vampires keep finding them and they have to keep moving around. He's gotten pretty revenge sick, wanting revenge for his wife's death while mostly running away.
She's gotten a bit sick of it, especially since she likes their current town with her current friend Annie. She meets local man Trevor Fier who she falls for, despite seeming a bit off. From there, she gets tangled in a tale of vampires, love and loss. Not necessarily in that order.
The ghostwriter is Brandon Alexander. Not much is known about him but other books to his name include Charmed books, and a bunch of new age type stuff. He did 5 total for the series, this being last. And it's a good one.
Above all else, this is super cheesy and a lot of fun for that reason. It gets into these cliches with the romance and tries so hard to be more literary with the prose. It can be legit emotional even with the cliche nature of it, and fun in the cheesy-ness.
As a story, 199 pages is a bit too much as it be slow in the first half. While it's not boring, you do feel how not much happens in the first half. These journal entries from a past Fier we read provides the main excitement.
Eleanor is mostly standard and flip between smart and a bit dumb but there's usually some reason for it and her actions tend to make sense in context. She works well enough even if the others outshine her. There is solid tragedy here and as corny as it is, it can work as we see how miserable everyone is.
This doesn't shy away from how well...bloody vampires are so we can get some cool deaths, it's one of the darker ones. It's not one that glorifies vampires at all, even good people who are one do not like it, it sells how horrible it is to be one if you don't want it.
I thought dad would be more unlikable but we do see how he regrets some of his actions in his request for revenge. To its credit, there are more nuanced figures here and only like 1 truly evil person. The romance here is the kind that happens because why not and it's simple and corny but effective with how it's written.
Near the end we get twists piled up and they are goofy and fun. I didn't see the villain reveal coming with how out there it is and it makes just enough sense but was mostly just wild. The ending is abrupt, with the final note being neat but it has no epilogue. It just...stops.
One Last Kiss is a weird. It's often cheesy and cliche but effective. It's the exact kind of cheese that I like, and it's fairly appealing. There's a bit more nuance and deep bits in here than usual even with how corny it is. The target demo is in mind here and this is a good one for them and those who like me who can enjoy super cheesy stories in a certain mood will find enough to enjoy.
Maybe not everyone will get into it, but I enjoyed it a fair bit. For Vampire stories under Stine's banners, I'd put it above Vampire Breath and about on par with How to be a Vampire. Haven't read Goodnight Kiss so maybe we'll do that soon to see how it is. For now, this was fun.
I already know the next read I'll do and we'll return to Disney Chills to see how it's doing these days. See ya then.