A Midsummer Night's Scream, by R.L. Stine

A Midsummer Night's Scream, by R.L. Stine

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Romance, "Horror," Mystery

Rating: 3/5 stars

Publication: July 2, 2013, by Feiwel & Friends

Format: Hardcover Edition (borrowed)





Goodreads Summary: Oh, what fools these actors be!

it was a horror movie that turned into real horror: Three young actors lost their lives while the cameras rolled. Production stopped, and people proclaimed the movie was cursed.

Now, sixty years later, new actors are venturing onto the haunted set. In a desperate attempt to revive their failing studio, Claire's dad has green-lit a remake of Mayhem Manor, and Claire and her friends are dying to be involved.

At first, Claire laughs at Jake's talk of ghosts and curses. He's been too busy crushing on her best friend, Delia, or making out with that slut, Annalee, to notice that she's practically been throwing herself at him. What does he know anyway? This is her big chance to be a star!

But then, Claire runs into a creepy little man named Benny Puckerman, and gets her hands on a real love potion! Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth...

Get ready for laughter to turn into screams as the Grandmaster of Horror, R.L. Stine, takes on the Master of Theater in this modern reimagining of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Review:

   Aw. Now come on, Boo from Monsters Inc. is even more scary than this book. If you're looking for a scary horror read that will chase your happiness away from you, then stay away from this book. It was probably meant to be scary, but it wasn't at all! So don't judge a book by its cover or summary because I was wrong the whole time.

   I get scared in books, I'm not going to lie. I'm the type who screams if you say a word to me while I'm reading a horror/thriller read. I get so into the world and reality of the book that I feel like I'm not even in Earth anymore. So I specifically chose not to read this book during the nighttime because I was afraid that I'd get crazy nightmares afterwards. But really, what the heck was this supposed to be?

    "Do you like that guy Jeremy Dane?" Jake asked. "No way," Delia and I both answered at once. "He likes himself a lot," Delia said. "He likes to toss his blond hair back and forth like this. He thinks it's a turn-on."

      I'm not going to lie; R.L. Stine is a good author. He really creates the capability of intriguing readers into the crazy world of his crazy books. But then he loses us eventually and we slip away because of many factors that go missing. This man is a fine author. His writing is well-established, and I can kind of see why the public has gone mad for him over the years, but he doesn't create my type of books. This seemed too childish in a way. The Goosebumps series would probably be a humungous disappointment for me, and therefore that is because of the age group. This is meant to be a YA novel, but I'd really classify it as a middle-age, using the type of horror and scenes added. But some things are too mature-- so it's a mix.

          The thing that frustrated me the most was the fact that this was not frightening at all. I wouldn't even classify it as horror. The use of ghosts and paranormalcy was very mild and unfortunate for those looking for a horror read. It's also a very short book that is easy to get by with and alas, it's very fast-paced. The plot was okay. Sometimes it was more "meh" than "yay," but it was bearable to get by with. The storyline was fine. I guess this was more about the story and the mystery than anything else, and I suppose Stine did a good job with keeping his readers entertained that way. It's a nice story and is unique, but too old-fashioned at times for this generation.

           

            The characters were fine. There wasn't anyone who was really special or was unique than other characters/protagonists in other books, but everyone was okay to deal with and Stine made them really chill. Claire was easy-going and a little scaredy-cat, but I liked her, as well as Delia, Jake, Shawn et cetera. Everyone was great and made the book better.

             I felt that the romance was just added as something extra, but it was cute and it was there. Claire + Jake= Cake, my new ship.

            The ending sucked. It was predictable and I knew that the movie would keep on filming, it was a big DUH. I wish that it was something unexpected (like all of the characters die or something haha) and that would make the book probably to a 4 star rating from me. But overall, this was okay, nothing special.