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Spinetinglers #18
Mirror, Mirror
Jake's boring life turns exciting when he looks at his reflection in a spoon and sees a bizarre being, who talks with him and offers to take away all his worries, but Jake soon realizes that the creature is evil. Original.
124 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 18, 2024
This Spinetinglers book is extremely rare as far as I can tell, and if you're into Goosebumps knockoffs it may be worth tracking down. Jake gets bullied by some kid named Rob who totally sucks, and soon enough starts to see a creepy man whenever he looks into a mirror. This wasn't boring at all and I had a lot of fun with the twin sister sub-plot (even though it kinda seemed like a cheap way to enhance the page count). There was even a creepy scene involving a baseball injury. Unfortunately the 'be careful what you wish for' trope is very much present here and that's not my vibe at all really. If you're looking for something fun with a decently cool villain that you can read in just a few hours, this isn't a bad option at all.
January 11, 2026
Kathleen Duey was the author of other ‘Tinglers, and none of the others are generally well received, more so the Spinetingler’s premiere book “The Substitute Creature.” Her entries have been notorious for being slower paced, and this one was no different. However, Kathleen decided to lock the fuck in for this book and create the best kids horror internal drama/emotional repression story I’ve ever seen—and combining it with mirror horror. This book is glorious, but not as much for its horror elements (though there are highlights) as the characters, themes, and the main—Jake’s—arc. The story has darker moments and scenes, especially towards the end whether it’s the gross finale or the entirety of chapter nine (keeping it vague because it’s seriously a disturbing treat). The mirror man is delightfully vague and there’s enough to chew on for the reader to deduct that the mirror man is the embodiment of Jake’s suppressed emotions, specifically anger and depression. Jake himself is a fantastic character; he’s heavily implied to be depressed, he’s paranoid, and he has great values + deals with everything he’s going through very maturely and naturally. His arc is great and I love the more subtextual theming with his character; there’s some monologues that sound like schizophrenia/SA victim/trauma parallels, some heavier ones in the back half of the book. His mother was a pleasant side character who amplifies his arc and conveys his subtle emotional repression. There’s great payoff (especially with the bully) and I absolutely loved the ending of this; the only thing I would alter is perhaps adding one more scene with his mother that allows his character to become emotionally more vulnerable, as it would’ve been very sweet. The black eye being symbolic of his internal tension is brilliant, and it being referred to as “fading” in the final chapter is fucking awesome and supportive of the trauma coding of this book. And Kathleen Duey is a great writer once again, being able to bring out these themes, ideas, messages, and displaying this depressed character in full (and subtextual) glory, not to mention just being really good at writing in general, helps elevate this book immensely. My only criticism is the pacing, and alike to “Let’s Get Invisible!,” I feel okay forgiving this issue as this read felt entirely worth it, plus it’s only 117 pages, just has some longer chapters for the genre. Overall, 10/10. Kathleen Duey has proved her capabilities as an author and pulled her shit together to pump out this emotional storm of a book. I highly recommend this to anyone looking for kids horror mixed thoroughly with character drama, or who want to read a genuinely worth-it K.D. Spinetingler.
January 11, 2026
A sick-ness last week slowed me down as well as some other stuff but I’m back with our next for the ripoff round which brings us to Spinetinglers. A series that is usually pretty good to me so surely this kept that up!
Yeah this one I’ll keep short. Author for this one is Kathleen Duey who I’ve had quite the history with. She’s done a bunch of these that I’ve read and I’ve noted that she’s good at writing and character stuff but struggles to fill up the pages with a strong story. Like, you’ll get some nice stuff that is refreshing but very little happens with the writing often padding things out.
So let’s see how this stacks up. Jake has a deal going on. By that I mean he has this bully that bugs him a lot and despite having one friend, most people worry about being a bully target like him so they tend to avoid him. Also he has these annoying little sisters and Mom works an extra shift a lot.
Nothing as terrible as some other kids we’ve seen but it’s still rough at times. One day he notices his reflection starts acting on its own, usually winking at him. He goes through this rough stuff while sometimes the mirror guy acts up and eventually he discovers that this mirror guy can give him the power to deal with this bully.
I didn’t care for this one, it’s easily the weakest Spinetinglers I’ve read and the first to get below decent. Not to a horrific extent, it’s on the upper end of Average as nothing was too bad and it hits its moments. But you're gonna have to wait a while for them to get to that fireworks factory.
I noticed how oddly similar this was to the Shivers book I read before this. We got a new dealing with a bully, and as he has a hard time with that he is given the shot to fix that via evil means. Somehow MD Spenser did that way better. For one, it actually focuses on that. This takes, I kid you not, 90 pages to really play with that. The book is 117 pages.
We never know what the mirror man’s deal is. He’s able to give Jake these powers but he never explains why he’s doing this and how he can do it at all. At least in the Shivers one it committed more to this sort of dream-like logic in a way. Before that 90 ish page mark, it’s mostly just slice of life stuff with the mirror guy sometimes popping up.
There is some good writing here but man Kathleen loves padding things out with description. It sometimes feel like the literary version of that guy who likes to hear himself talk. There’s a solid setup and some good moments.; Once again the parents are good with the mom getting in some nice moments. Granted, the thing with her job doesn’t go anywhere and is unresolved but whatever.
I did like that section where we finally get to use this power thing. He gets rid of his sisters and that is a decently emotional portion. There’s a fair wrapup and a good moral but man we barely got to explore it. We saw with Shivers the fun we can have in exploring what happens when hatred goes too far and all that.
This puts a fair bow on that lesson and hey having substance puts it above a lot of what I read in these. But it doesn’t do enough with these ideas. There are some fun/charming moments but there’s too much filler in-between those moments. I kept waiting for it to pick up and get to at least decent but that didn’t.
I didn’t know much of this one going and was hopeful for a good one but I got the opposite. It’s better than a fair bit of what some other series could do The other Kathleen ones had enough to be decent, but this just didn’t quite come together.
The ending was fine but there’s not enough time to let it have fun all this. Overall, it’s okay but doesn’t go far enough and is just too little. Sadly it’s easily skippable. I reviewed a stand alone book from her called Double Yuck Magic and that was good at least.
Well that was a let down. Next time. We’ll see if Graveyard School can improve with a sportsball book. See ya then.
Yeah this one I’ll keep short. Author for this one is Kathleen Duey who I’ve had quite the history with. She’s done a bunch of these that I’ve read and I’ve noted that she’s good at writing and character stuff but struggles to fill up the pages with a strong story. Like, you’ll get some nice stuff that is refreshing but very little happens with the writing often padding things out.
So let’s see how this stacks up. Jake has a deal going on. By that I mean he has this bully that bugs him a lot and despite having one friend, most people worry about being a bully target like him so they tend to avoid him. Also he has these annoying little sisters and Mom works an extra shift a lot.
Nothing as terrible as some other kids we’ve seen but it’s still rough at times. One day he notices his reflection starts acting on its own, usually winking at him. He goes through this rough stuff while sometimes the mirror guy acts up and eventually he discovers that this mirror guy can give him the power to deal with this bully.
I didn’t care for this one, it’s easily the weakest Spinetinglers I’ve read and the first to get below decent. Not to a horrific extent, it’s on the upper end of Average as nothing was too bad and it hits its moments. But you're gonna have to wait a while for them to get to that fireworks factory.
I noticed how oddly similar this was to the Shivers book I read before this. We got a new dealing with a bully, and as he has a hard time with that he is given the shot to fix that via evil means. Somehow MD Spenser did that way better. For one, it actually focuses on that. This takes, I kid you not, 90 pages to really play with that. The book is 117 pages.
We never know what the mirror man’s deal is. He’s able to give Jake these powers but he never explains why he’s doing this and how he can do it at all. At least in the Shivers one it committed more to this sort of dream-like logic in a way. Before that 90 ish page mark, it’s mostly just slice of life stuff with the mirror guy sometimes popping up.
There is some good writing here but man Kathleen loves padding things out with description. It sometimes feel like the literary version of that guy who likes to hear himself talk. There’s a solid setup and some good moments.; Once again the parents are good with the mom getting in some nice moments. Granted, the thing with her job doesn’t go anywhere and is unresolved but whatever.
I did like that section where we finally get to use this power thing. He gets rid of his sisters and that is a decently emotional portion. There’s a fair wrapup and a good moral but man we barely got to explore it. We saw with Shivers the fun we can have in exploring what happens when hatred goes too far and all that.
This puts a fair bow on that lesson and hey having substance puts it above a lot of what I read in these. But it doesn’t do enough with these ideas. There are some fun/charming moments but there’s too much filler in-between those moments. I kept waiting for it to pick up and get to at least decent but that didn’t.
I didn’t know much of this one going and was hopeful for a good one but I got the opposite. It’s better than a fair bit of what some other series could do The other Kathleen ones had enough to be decent, but this just didn’t quite come together.
The ending was fine but there’s not enough time to let it have fun all this. Overall, it’s okay but doesn’t go far enough and is just too little. Sadly it’s easily skippable. I reviewed a stand alone book from her called Double Yuck Magic and that was good at least.
Well that was a let down. Next time. We’ll see if Graveyard School can improve with a sportsball book. See ya then.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews