Fear Street #25 One Evil Summer by R.L. Stine

 

WARNING: THE PETS DIE IN THIS BOOK. Also, spoilers.

Something about the cover of One Evil Summer always draws me to it (surprisingly, not the cat). I think it's the colors. I really like the way the yellow lettering looks with the teal background. Random, I know, but I wanted to make a point of it because I think this may be my favorite Fear Street cover of all time. 

Are books like this even around anymore? I work in a library and we still have a collection of Goosebumps books, but we don't carry Fear Street or any Point Horror novels. Our entire YA section is fantasy/dystopian/romance (there's nothing wrong with that, I love a good dystopian novel), but we don't have any fun, paperback horror novels like we did when I was a kid. R.L. Stine was everywhere back then.

I'm going to be making "predictions" before reading these R.L. Stine books again. (With the exception of Halloween Party because I already read that book by the time I came up with this idea, even though this post is going up first.) For some of them, I also have very specific memories associated with them, so I'll probably briefly mention those things, too. Or any other "interesting" tidbits about the books. Like the fact that I bought this book on Etsy and there's a guy's name and number written inside the front cover. Anyone else see Serendipity?

I decided to start off this series with One Evil Summer because I personally feel that even without a psychotic babysitter, summer is pretty evil. I did read this book 500 years ago, but the only thing I remembered about it was the cover. So! My prediction, based on the cover and the description on the back...I don't actually recall how dark these Fear Street books get, but I'm going to guess the babysitter kills the kids she's supposed to be taking care of. And maybe the cat helps her? Let's see how evil the summer really was.

The book begins in the present, where our protagonist, Amanda Conklin, is locked up in a juvenile detention center for the murder of a girl named Chrissy who was hired to help take care of her siblings for the summer. We're off to a good start, someone is already dead!

The Conklin family is leaving Shadyside behind for the summer and going to Seahaven. Amanda will be going to summer school (I didn't know you could even do that outside your own school district) and her parents will be working (her father is a lawyer and her mother is a journalist). Because Amanda failed algebra and won't be able to watch her siblings, her parents decide to hire someone to take care of  Kyle and Merry. Along for the ride are Mr. Jinx (an orange cat) and Salt and Pepper (canaries). 

Not long after the family arrives, a girl named Chrissy comes by to apply for the job. But something is weird about her. Mr. Jinx hisses at her, something he's never done to anyone before (TAKE THAT AS A SIGN), and Chrissy hisses back at him. Listen. If someone hissed at my cats, I would tell them to get the hell out. During Chrissy's interview, she claims to be living with her aunt and says her cousin just came home from college, so a live-in job is perfect for her. Mrs. Conklin gives her the job without even checking her references because the entire family is completely enamored with her, except for Amanda, Mr. Jinx and the birds (who stopped singing in Chrissy's presence).

As Chrissy is unpacking, Amanda notices a newspaper clipping fall to the floor. Chrissy reluctantly hands it over to her. It's an article from two years ago, about a 15 year old girl who was in a coma from carbon monoxide inhalation. Chrissy tells Amanda that Lilith, her twin sister, is still in a coma. And that she's evil. (Coming to you from the future here to say that this makes NO sense given the rest of this story, I don't even know why Chrissy made that comment.) I mean, she's the one hissing at cats, but sure, okay.

This is when Chrissy's lies begin to unravel. At summer school, Amanda meets a boy named Dave who lives in Seahaven. She asks if he's ever heard of Chrissy or her aunt, but he hasn't. This surprises her because the town has a small population, you would think everyone knows each other. The other lie Chrissy is caught in is that she told Mrs. Conklin that her parents died in a car accident and her sister is all she has left and she's worried about her. She just said Lilith was evil like, five pages ago. Amanda tried to tell her mom that Chrissy is lying, but of course her mom doesn't believe her. It's so frustrating to me when parents believe someone they barely know over their own children (assuming their children are generally well behaved and not Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son). Chrissy is probably going to murder them and all their pets, but sure, Amanda's imagination is working overtime.

This is getting long, I'm going to skip ahead. Strange things begin happening that prove Chrissy has some sort of supernatural powers. She gets Mr. Jinx killed. Then she kills the birds and makes it look like Amanda did it. Mr. and Mrs. Conklin bring Amanda to a psychiatrist because they think she's delusional. The psychiatrist says Amanda believes she doesn't deserve her parents love anymore because she failed algebra and that she feels Chrissy is taking her place. I think he got his degree from a Crackerjack box.

Amanda's parents decide not to fire Chrissy and feed into her "delusions," so she decides the best thing she can do is act like she buys into the doctor's theory and apologize to Chrissy. I was really on Amanda's side, but everything she does from now until the end of the book is absolutely idiotic:

1. She brings a kitten into the house, after Chrissy already killed three of her pets.
2. She calls Chrissy's references while she's in the house.
3. She snoops through Chrissy's room for the rest of the newspaper clippings and reads them in Chrissy's bedroom instead of going into her own room and then hides under the bed when Chrissy comes in.
4. When Chrissy thinks she's killed Amanda, Amanda comes back home and eats some Cheerios when Chrissy goes in the shower. Instead of grabbing Kyle and Merry and getting out of there. (She also leaves the box of Cheerios open, so Chrissy knows she's been there.)

Throughout the second half of the book, we learn three things. The first is that Chrissy's parents were found dead in bed, their car was left running in the garage. That's not exactly a car accident. The second thing is that one of Chrissy's references was a judge, who is now most likely dead, based on Amanda's conversation with the reference's neighbor. And the last thing we learn is that her father had Chrissy's father prosecuted for arson. Chrissy tells Amanda that Mr. Conklin is the reason her father killed himself and...What the hell? If you want to kill yourself, why take your entire family out with you? She also reveals that the two people she gave as references were the judge and the assistant D.A. so we can assume they're dead. And that's...Fine. But did she really have to kill the cat and the birds? And if Chrissy just wants revenge, why not kill the Conklins immediately instead of playing head games with Amanda? (Because then there would be no book.)

All of this leads to a showdown on a boat where Chrissy plans to kill Kyle and Merry. Amanda goes to save them and Chrissy falls and hits her head on the boat. Amanda takes that as an opportunity to tie Chrissy up and drag her back to the house, but before she can call the police, Chrissy breaks free and sets the house on fire. Amanda tells Kyle and Merry to get out, and then THE KITTEN TRIPS CHRISSY and she falls into the flames! That's for Mr. Jinx! Amanda escapes with the kitten and is then arrested for murder because when Chrissy's body was examined, they found the wound on the back of her head and the police believe Amanda set the fire to cover it up. That's...A bit of a reach. Kyle, who was in shock and unable to speak for several days, is finally doing better though and he confirms Amanda's story about Chrissy. Amanda is told that Chrissy was actually Lilith (why did she say her sister was evil, she was talking about herself, was she actually self-aware?), and the name Chrissy came from Lilith's pet cat. That is the most surprising part of all of this, that she had a cat who probably didn't hate her and that she would kill someone else's cat when she had one of her own.

One Evil Summer was fun, when Amanda wasn't making stupid decisions and her parents weren't ignoring all of her concerns. I would have liked it more if the pets didn't die, I feel like that never adds anything to the story, it's just a way to make people upset. It's unnecessary. We all know Chrissy is evil without her killing the cat. Other than that though, I think we're off to a good start rereading these Fear Street books!

That was supposed to be the end of this post, but this morning when I was cleaning off my desk so I could get on my computer and actually type my notes into something somewhat coherent, I moved a box of books (all purchased from Thriftbooks and Etsy)...

...And noticed one had a pink piece of paper inside it. So I looked at it...

I went from receiving a book with a guy's name and number in it and thinking it was my Serendipity moment, to finding a really creepy note in another book. Just wanted to share that. Also hope whoever this note was to didn't date that person's brother.