Spring Break

Fear Street Seniors #9

by R.L. Stine

Spring Break turns into a nightmare for Trisha Conrad and her friends when they are terrorized at Trisha's Arizona ranch.

Genres: Young Adult, Horror, Horror Thriller, Teen, Mystery, Paranormal, Childrens

204 pages, Paperback

First published February 16, 1999

About the author

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.

http://us.macmillan.com/itsthefirstda...

Reviews

[Brandon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fear Street Seinors book Spring Break is a very hard to find expensive book in the series.This series so far has honestly been a pretty big let down.I had three books back to back with a two star rating and I belive I even had a one star rating.The story is split into parts.One part is about a group of friends Gary,Josh,Tricia and a few others.They are going to stay at tricias ranch in arazona for spring break.On the way to the Ranch at the airport terminal.Josh has a little bit of a problem.He runs into this guy that accidentally bumps into him.Josh grabs his stuff after the two have quite a disagreement.They are driving to the ranch when somebody tries to run them off the road.It turns out to be this guy at the airport.The group has no idea what's going on.They end up outrunning the guy and make it to the ranch safe and sound.They meet some of the other characters.These are ranch workers named Simon Roberto and Rose.Josh goes upstairs and discovers he accidentally grabs the wrong bag at the terminal.It has a gun and the ID says Clay something.I forgot his last name, but it's the guy that tried running them off the road.Josh wants to return the bag and gun ,so he does,but to the address listed on the driver's license.The address is clearly abandoned though.We get back and we learn that there is an archeological dig going on near the ranch.They are looking for ancent relics from this tribe that use to inhabit the land.Josh is very interested in this so he sneaks over to the dig one night,eventhough Roberto tells him not to.Rose also tells Josh story about LA Amadora,or a legend rather about this lady who can disguise herself as animals if you disturb Graves or something.Tricia also has a vision of the group falling off a cliff.Josh ends up going to the sight and accidentally breaking a pot,so he brings it back and shows Roberto and he flips out We do have a few run ins with animals like a coyote and a snake .We do have two storylines going on and I'll get into that and it's honestly barley worth talking about.Dana and Jenifer stay home away from spring break because I think Dana is sick.They meet these two guys named Evan and Tim.Shortly after meeting them, they get written messages on their car asking if they want to play.They also get somebody whispering the same thing in the bathroom and that's honestly all of that storyline.They end up discovering what these two guys are doing and the two girls vow for revenge.Spring break was another bad book in this series.I thought about what I would rate this book for a little while and I decided I only really liked the ending and maybe the setting the rest was boring or just not super intresting.This book was two hundred pages.Thats like an extra fifty pages of this series I already didn't really like. I give Spring break a two out of five stars.

[Matthew MacIntyre · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 in reality but I’ll give it 4 stars. While I feel like this super chiller lacks in this chills department and the two stories are uneven it was an okay book. The longer and more beefed out story in the book was a group going to Trisha’s house in Arizona for spring break. Along with Trisha was Josh, Mickey, Deidre and Gary. I actually felt like this half of the book was the more boring part which was unfortunate because it took much more of the book. When they arrive at the airport in Arizona Josh gets into a scuffle with a man, we find out later named Clay, who basically goes on a high speed chase with the kids and tries to ram them off the road. When they get to Trisha’s place they meet Rose whose family run the estate, and there is some tension between Trisha and rose. Also we meet Roberto who is working on the land mainly doing an architectural dig looking for native artifacts. When Josh gets to his room he realizes he has clays bag and inside is a gun. Idk this whole story was boring. Highlights are Rose telling everyone to avoid the dig site because a spirit will get them for disturbing the site. Yawn. And also Mickey is a creep his girlfriend Dana is sick and had to miss the trip so he is all over her twin sister Deidre. Trisha has another vision this time of a striped coyote and all of them falling to their deaths. The outcome is super lame and it’s obvious who the bad guy will be. Also the one death is lame and happens to the one person I didn’t want to die. The other half of the story which unfortunately is smaller is way more fun Josie and Jennifer are back in shadyside and want to have a fun spring break. They meet Tim and Evan at a club and have lots of fun times except paint messages are being left and are scaring the girls. Could they be in danger? Are Tim and Evan out to hurt them. While this whole part is pretty much fun and not serious, when they call the guys to confront them they are able to overhear during a faulty call waiting mishap that the guys are trying to scare them to turn them on when they are there to save them. Basically get them more turned on so they can get luck lmao. So the girls come up with a plan get their friends to pretend to be ghosts and scare them, they even call Dana who’s sick to help. Their plan obviously succeeds and they guys are scared off and when *spoliers* Jennifer and Josie call Dana to thank her she’s all like I was too sick to help. Omg lol

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spring Break returns to the format of having dual narrators--the same from the first book, in fact, stepsiblings Josh and Josie Maxwell. This one doesn't have the obvious filler of Let's Party, but apart from calling back to the Doom Spell and having Jennifer Fear reveal her secret from The Gift to Josie, it doesn't do anything to advance the plot, either.

Josh's story involves a trip to Tucson with a group of friends to spend spring break at rich girl/class psychic Trisha Conrad's ranch. First he gets stalked by an aggressive drunk at the airport (leading to what might be my all-time favorite chapter title: "One Angry Cowboy"), then he falls for a superstitious local girl who warns him of the legend of La Amadora, a ghost out for revenge for the desecration of the native land. This is the better of the two plots, if only because there are more characters to interact with each other. The resolution is disappointing, though.

Josie, meanwhile, laments the fact that she is stuck at home while her brother gets to go have fun. In an effort to spice up her life, she and Jennifer Fear use fake IDs to get into a bar where a bunch of college kids hang out. This little interlude is a lot of fun--probably the best part of the book, because it feels like the kind of real-life shenanigans that a couple of actual high school students might get up to out of boredom. Unfortunately it leads to them meeting Tim and Evan, a couple of college-aged dorks who are either evil or just "pranksters". Either way they're pretty lame, and the rest of Josie's narrative involves dates with these bozos. This one is the inverse of Josh's plot in that it's dumb and boring most of the time but actually has a pretty good conclusion.

Thus far in the series, three quarters of the way through, we now have seven Main Character deaths. I use the term "Main Character" loosely, of course, because some of the dead characters who rated yearbook photos were only glorified extras when they died. Also one of the deceased from several books back was Josh's girlfriend and he never so much as thinks about her here. Poor girl.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of a bunch of teenagers going to other state alone, afar from their parents sounds like an interesting setting for a good story…. But Stine pretty much decides to use a bunch of uninteresting cliches and characters. This part of the book feels like a bad Scooby Doo episode.

Josh isn’t an interesting character, also I’m surprised how Debra Lake’s death didn’t affect him at all. Mickey is a jerk going for his girlfriend sister, but Deirdre isn’t innocent either. Trisha for me feels like a plot device, she’s barely there, and she does nothing. The ending and the bad guys are just dumb. It would’ve been more interesting if there’s was actually something paranormal happening.

And then there’s the B plot with Josie and Jennifer, this was so much fun, especially because this is probably the most relatable story in this saga. It remind me of that episode of full house where Stephanie and her friend met two older guys that invite them to go for a ride and they start acting reckless.

I like the characterization of the guys since I didn’t truly know if they were actually reckless people or just straight up lunatics. The ending was great, I loved how the girls got back at them, and it was kind of sad/ heartwarming too. No one can’t deny that Deirdre was a true friend.

[Jack Reacts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Full review at: https://www.jackreacts.com.au/fear-st...

Snippet: This was absolutely not what I expected from a book set during spring break, but I loved it! The tribe and La Amadora stuff was super interesting and completely different to anything we’ve seen before in Fear Street. The plot back in Shadyside wasn’t nearly as interesting, especially because Tim and Evan were such losers, but I enjoyed seeing more of Josie and Jennifer’s friendship. The only thing I’m disappointed about, as usual, is the lack of deaths. In nine books so far, only seven seniors have died. This is supposed to be the doomed class, why have so many been spared this late in the game?!

We do have some unanswered questions though...

Check out my full review linked up top for an in-depth recap :)

[Chelsea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is split between stepsiblings Josh and Josie Maxwell. Josie wasn't invited to the cool trip to Trisha's Arizona ranch so is majorly bummed to stay back with Jennifer. They meet some college boys but when they figure out they're nothing but trouble, decide to play a prank of their own. Josh is part of the larger group on the ranch, trying to hook up with a local hottie and get in on this cool archeological dig...but he accidentally breaks a piece of pottery they found. There's also this half plot of an angry cowboy that literally goes nowhere and the potential restless spirit stalking them. It was kind of a silly plot and I'm upset it didn't do more with the doom spell stuff since we're almost to the end of the series.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I have mixed feelings about this part. It was entertaining, but it didn’t really fit into the series. I am wondering if I liked the showdown because it made no sense at all. I thought the archaeological part (because of my background) was nice tho.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was way more boring than I remembered it being. The ending was awesome, though.

[Sreypich Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting another death but here we go again.

[Hope Vollm · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this one. The dual storylines were really fun and added so much

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm 🤔 a rather boring book that is mostly filler. Literally nothing was going on in the majority of this 200 page book.

[Stephanie Tuell]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/10224586

[*_Kathleen_* · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great and thrilling part!!!