Retro Book Review

This Retro Book Review will cover the second book in R.L. Stine’s original Fear Street series: The Surprise Party.

The story takes place not long after the events of the 1st book, The New Girl. When you pick up and start the 2nd book you’ll notice that the format of the book is different than the first in that we are given an epilogue. The chapter’s also contain the date and time at the top of the page. It’s a nice way to keep the events that happen in the book clear as well as making the point of view changes easy to follow. The main protagonist in this story is Meg Dalton a student at Shadyside High. We also get point of view chapters from her boyfriend Tony and the mysterious killer. This format was a delight and it kept the tension at high as I progressed through the book.

The epilogue is where we begin and we are in the point of view of our mysterious killer. We see that the killer has used his hunting rifle to kill a Shadyside High student named Evan. It ends with the killer watching Evan die as his girlfriend Ellen screams and holds him.

We are then introduced to our main characters in the story starting in chapter 1. We meet Meg Dalton our lead character, her boyfriend Tony (supporting), and her best friend Shannon (also supporting.) They are bike riding through the trails in Fear Woods and come across our couple from the previous story, Cory and Lisa. They tell Meg and her crew that Ellen is coming back to Shadyside to visit her aunt. The group reminisce on the awful death of Ellen’s boyfriend (and Shannon’s brother) Evan last year and how it must be hard for her to come back. Meg then proposes that they throw Ellen a surprise party to show her that they still care about her. The rest of the group seem unsure with this idea, especially Shannon. Meg, undeterred, sets out to make this party happen.

However, she runs into trouble….

As the book progresses, Meg runs into issues planning and setting up the surprise party for Ellen. In a study hall class she shares with Shannon, Tony, and her weird cousin Brian (he’s weird because he likes a knock off version of Dungeons and Dragons. Oh the late 80’s and hating nerds!) she finds the party invitations she had been working on are torn to shreds. Of course, no one saw who did it. Around this time, Meg has been receiving creepy phone calls threatening her and warning her to not throw the party. This seems like this is going to be a regular trope in Stine’s books and even for the late 80’s it feels done to death. She decides that she will ignore the warning signs and continue planning the party, even when she is almost ran over by a car!

Halfway through the book we find out who the “killer” is and spend a couple chapters in their point of view. These chapters were, unfortunately, boring and slightly confusing. I kept asking myself, “Why did this person want Evan dead?” The reason is never really revealed to as why this person would want to kill Evan. Then when the day of the surprise party comes upon the characters and we eventually get to the party, we get a weird supernatural display that may or may not be the dead Evan. Of course, this is followed by several red herrings and when the killer’s true intentions are revealed it falls extremely flat and honestly pissed me off a little. It’s a cheap ending that gives several tired tropes as “scares” and no satisfying conclusions.

I would recommend this book only if you’re a R.L. Stine/Fear Street fan, but if you are unfamiliar with the author’s work. I would advise to skip it.

I would rate this book a 2 and half dead teenagers out of 5.

Please check out my next Retro Review in the original Fear Street series: book #3 The Outsider.