Phone Calls

by R.L. Stine

After being humiliated by her best friend Diane in front of a cute boy, Julie decides to get even and plays a telephone prank, launching an all-out telephone war that results in mismatched romances and worse. Reissue.

Genres: Young Adult, Humor, Horror, Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1990

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

[Shadyside Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute blast to read! R.L. Stine’s humorous personality shines right through this book. It is filled will cheesy jokes and is just down right silly. Guaranteed to put a smile on your face!

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was legitimately funny and great, and I really didn’t expect it to be. Most of the time I collect these vintage young adult paperbacks for nostalgia reasons, often because the covers are great throwbacks to what seemed “cool” when I was a kid. I laughed out loud at a lot of the dialogue in this book. The format of the novel just being written as phone calls back and forth between friends was a really great thematic choice.
I love RL Stine for his Fear Street series, in all their campy gory goodness. I am going to have to pay attention to his more humorous titles going forward now.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A different type of book. Unlike Goosebumps or Fear Street this book is all phone calls from 5 teens. A funny book read in a little over an hour. Cute.

If you seek scares look for one of his other books,

[Nadia Shireen Siddiqi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a grownup in a half an hour and those 25 minutes were literally spent Rolling On The Floor Laughing.

[Alyssa Pupino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can’t remember how I was introduced to this book as a child but I do remember finding it hilarious and I’ve been looking forward to revisiting this strange entry in the R.L. Stine canon. Some moments don’t quite hold up today, but still very goofy and not a bad way to spend an hour on a long holiday weekend.

[Tarissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The horrors of teenage drama! (This may be the least scary book I've read from R.L. Stine, but that's okay.) Herein the author brings forth a satirical look at what teenagers may deem the scariest stuff of all... public humiliation!

This book serves great for introducing someone new into the Fear Street books. It's not creepy, or nightmarish scary, so it shouldn't scare off your friend(s) from trying more from R.L. Stine.

Suitable for: Ages 14 & up (for mature themes)

[Pulp_Fiction_Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect with a Stine rom-com but I had so much fun reading this, I literally laughed out loud so many times. It's basically a lighthearted comedy of errors style set-up that felt so early 90's in the best possible way. The layout of the book was very unique too as the entire thing is told through people phoning each other. Also I loved the dedication at the beginning of the book from Stine to his wife...
For Jane, who actually liked this one.

[Kelsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

[Hew La France · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was seriously not expecting to enjoy this as much as I did. This book really stands out, not because it's an R.L. Stine book that isn't horror, but because it's nothing but dialog; each chapter taking the form of a conversation on the phone. ALMOST an epistolary in that respect. Seriously, I kinda wish Stine would shake it up and try epistolaries more often. Honestly, definitely recommend this book.

[Gale · Rating 4 out of 5]

Phone Calls was unexpected. Not the usual R.L. Stine read. But I liked it anyway.

[☆ Raegan ☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, light read.

[Luke Southard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oh my god. I started reading this book a week ago? Maybe longer. Time ceases to have much meaning when it comes to this book. It was the biggest slog in the world to get through.

I thought “hey, this might be fun to read Stine that isn’t thriller/horror!” But it was not.

I’ll say that it had an interesting premise with the whole book being told through phone calls but this wore thin pretty quickly and I hated Al of the characters. 100% of them. They were all awful.

Also, it used the term “retarded,” featured a dick joke, and used the trope of making fun of a foreign exchange student.

I wasn’t offended by anything in it because it revolved around some of my least favorite things (miscommunication and pranks) and I was too busy hating those instead of getting hung up on smaller things.

AND it was boring!

Look, I know it’s super easy to be rough on books and it doesn’t exactly speak well of someone to rip books apart but holy shit - folks, this was awful.

[Siena · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ✨

A gimmicky but sweet rom-com by “Goosebumps” legend R. L. Stine! This book is about as zany as a grade-school game of Telephone, and it should be. After all, it is told entirely in dialogue, through the misunderstandings of 4 teenagers calling each other on the phone!

I found this one through the lovely book “Paperback Crush”! Even though it was a bit silly for my taste and some of the joke have aged poorly, it was overall a quick and fun read! Kind of reminded me of “A Year of Secret Assignments” by Jaclyn Moriarty (but take that comp with a grain of salt, as that’s the funniest YA I’ve ever read!

[Lindsay · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was going through some school work that my mom had saved and found a book report from 7th grade that I did on this book. I don’t remember this book at. Luckily I was able to get probably the only copy available from Amazon.
Each chapter is a phone call between characters. Doesn’t anyone ever ask for the person they are calling for when the phone is answered? Every time someone called somebody they just assume that that person is the one answering the phone. If you are calling for Julie and a guy answers why are you saying “Hello Julie?” Does Julie sound like a guy? If not, you just insulted Julie’s dad.
Nowadays it’d be text messages. I just wanted these characters to get together as a group and talk things out. Would’ve saved time and confusion.

[Liander (The Towering Pile) Lavoie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect from this book, but I definitely did not expect to be laughing hysterically the whole time I was reading it! Oh my god, that was hilarious!

[Erica Leigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stine does love his pranks, but for once, no one is pretending to kill anyone.

They’re all still sociopaths though.

Some of it hasn’t aged too well but it does have its funny moments.

[Kiiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is really good it makes you like you want to read more and not luike some other books that are confusing and you dont want to keep reading because its bouring. i recomend this book to people that like books about drama and love and stuff because this is a really good book. its about a girl that has a best friend and her best friend tells her something about some boy thatlikes her and she mess up the name and she got confuse with another boy and she made a fool of her self and then she tryed to get back at her.

[Wajeeha · Rating 4 out of 5]

i really like it. i remember starting this book thinking, i wonder how creepy this will be, keeping in mind how R. L. Stine usually writes. But i was pleasantly surprised, it's well written, funny, and doesn't drag.
Great Read, especially after a weekend full of Fear Street marathon (which renders you unbelievably paranoid) Great to unwind.

[Heather Guenther]

This book was confusing at times. I didn't think it would be just about phone conversation. After reading most of it I started reading it and it was a very easy read. Although people should not play tricks on people like they did in this book.

[Korrie Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I honestly thought this wouldn't be good. I thought the way it is written was gunna make it annoying and hard to understand, but RLStine made it work! I don't usually read humor but I would recommend this one to anyone that wants a quick read that's enjoyable.

[Swetha Bhat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still remember how I was laughing out loud every 2 mins reading this book when I was in high school or so, and everyone in my home thought I’d lost it.