How I Broke Up With Ernie

I have read a lot of Fear Street. I mean, no duh. And a lot of those Fear Street books are physical releases from that era. And a lot of them featured an ad for several of Stine's standalone books. And one that always caught my eye was the one I'm covering here. Because it's not a horror story. At least not in the normal sense. It's a romantic comedy about a breakup. An R.L. Stine romantic comedy. That scares me more than his actual horror books. So let's find out How I Broke Up With Ernie.

COVER STORY

The cover is just okay. I guess it conveys the concept easily enough. Amy clearly tired of being with Ernie and Ernie not getting the message. Like, she doesn't want your jacket on her dude, get the message. We also have Amy's siblings Max and Michael being annoying to show that oh, does Amy have her problems, or what? Overall, it's decent.

STORY

Amy Wayne opens our story by telling her friend Regina Green that she's going to break up with Ernie Willers. They've been together for a year, and honestly nothing on the surface seemed wrong. But Amy is definitely ready for a change. Though Amy still likes Ernie, she still tries to find reasons to hate him. Be it his red, curly hair (because there's always a redhead in these books) or how he clicks his tongue, or smiles all crinkly. Or how he has the nickname of "Bear", which could mean a lot of things, but it at least comes from him being big and a part of the Seaview High wrestling team. Essentially there's really nothing wrong with Ernie. At least not in the normal way these stories progress. Or, at least not yet. Amy is at least different than, say, Joanna Collier from The Boyfriend. She wants to break up, but also doesn't really want to hurt Ernie either. 

But that also doesn't mean Amy doesn't have another relationship in mind. She's gunning for pretty boy Colin Sturbridge. While Amy's smitten, Regina realizes that Colin's rich and white, or as it was more easily called in 1990, a yuppie. A yuppie with a Saab Turbo. Which, even by 90s standards is kind of an ugly car. As they talk about Amy's love of the Saab, her seven year old twin brothers Max and Michael barge in and annoy her, wanting Ernie to show up. After that goes down, Amy decides that she may as well do it now. No use making Ernie hang like she has. 

But, of course, she just hems and haws and thinks of what she's going to say as she heads to the Seaview Mall. And, man I miss when malls mattered. Like, these books often make them feel like a capitalist wonderland. And yeah, capitalism bad, but oh the look and feel. In fact, Seaview's not a bad little seaside resort area. It even has a Pete's Pizza because everywhere has to have a Pete's Pizza. Okay, it's Pete's Pizza Heaven, but it's pretty much the same thing. Like how some places it was Chuck-E-Cheese and other places it was Showbiz Pizza. Kind of surprised Stine never snuck Pete's Pizza into Goosebumps. She finds Ernie and tries to tell him, but he doesn't hear her and she hasn't the nerve to say it again. But now the audience can realize that he's kind of annoying. He just stops conversations, says yep a lot and actually reads a Coke can. I mean, how else will he know he's getting his sugar/glucose-fructose?

Amy tries to tell him again, only for Ernie to be interrupted by his teammates from the wrestling team, Buddy and Greg. Since Ernie is so interested in a Coke can, he asks his friends if they have ever just read a Coke can. Now I know why Amy wants to break up with him. Dude's stoned out of his trees. After they leave Pete's Pizza, Amy and Ernie walk through the mall before Ernie then reads an oil can and I just think about that scene from American Dad where Stan and Roger are stoned at the convenience store. CheetAH. CheetOS. There's so much beauty in the world.

As Ernie talks about mowing his parents lawns and how he might turn the job over to Amy's brothers some day, his mom shows up to drive them home. So now this is her chance. Amy can finally lower the boom. Except she promised he could come over for dinner, so maybe now's her chance? So, at this point we can see why this has taken a few months. After leaving Ernie, Amy runs into Colin who does come off as the most yuppie shmuck you can imagine. And Amy's still smitten with him... or his Saab. One or the other, really. But Amy decides that the dinner will totally be the-this is going to be the whole book, isn't it?

Amy heads home and finds her brothers in her room messing with her makeup, which like, any other situation I'd be worried, but they say they were making themselves look like flowers, so oh thank god I don't have to talk about anything super bad. Oh, wait, here's Amy's dad to get angry and blame Amy for doing it because Goo-err...Stine Parents. Ernie arrives and is far better treated by Amy's family than Amy is, which, you know, great for the self-esteem. So, now Amy's concerned that breaking up with Ernie will make her family mad at her, or at least treat her more like crap. So now we're starting to see why she's hesitated. 

After dinner, Amy tries again, but the twins interrupt her. And after that, before she can say anything again, he gives her his letterman jacket. So, now she's once again unable to break up with him. It's like the cosmos, or a 40+ year old author, really want to kneecap Amy at every turn. So, she does the stupider thing and writes a note to Regina during English class, which gets caught by the teacher who forces Regina to read it to the class. So, now that her class knows about her plans to break up with Ernie, Amy has no choice. So she tells Ernie at lunch. And he just doesn't seem to react. No outbursts, no talking to her at all. Kind of like a slate. He just grins. Well, at least we finally had Amy break up with Ern-holy crap there's like eighty pages left.

Amy is a mess, mostly out of having to go through with it, and also Ernie's odd reaction. But she's done it and now she can go home... where Ernie also shows up for dinner. He says he's here to study for social studies with Amy. Regina shows up and is confused about this, then mentions she takes women's studies, which Ernie believes must be typing. Okay, I'm starting to side with Amy more and more here. There's definitely a good guy, but also kind of an abrasive moron feel to Ernie that's starting to show itself more and more as the story goes along. Makes him less endearing and more annoying.

Regina believes that Ernie hasn't fully reacted to the break up just yet and must be in some sort of shock. Amy gets both of them to leave and then gets a call from Colin. Since she's free, at least she thinks she is, she accepts a date to the movies. The date night comes and Colin arrives to take her out. But it's not long until Ernie shows up yet again. He asks what movie they're seeing, to which they mention an animation festival with that new Computer-Generated animation stuff. We then get a discussion on animation and stuff and somehow this leads to Ernie coming with them to the movies. Okay, this is getting creepy stalker level super quick. 

After the movies, Amy and Colin try to ditch Ernie, only to find a flat tire on the Saab. Ernie puts the spare tire on and Colin repays him with some pizza because at this rate I kind of want Ernie and Colin to be together. They weirdly fit together in a cute little yuppie meets jock kind of way. Oh and Amy's not happy, but that's the story of the book at this point isn't it? Amy sees that Ernie is back the next day cleaning her dad's car. She reiterates her breaking up with him and he still doesn't react to it and then just leaves again. 

Amy heads to the beach with Regina. Colin is there, apologizing to Amy about letting Ernie tag along. After trying to drag her into the water with him, Amy rejects Colin's offer and heads back to her blanket. And guess who's sitting on her blanket? Hint: It's not Bert. And there it is, the Sesame Street joke has been made at last. Now I just need one for Hudson, for Kovacs, for Bushmiller, for Coombs... Suddenly, they see Colin struggling in the water, seemingly about to drown, so Ernie up and comes to his rescue. Oh, just kiss already! Like, this is already a more amazing bromantic relationship than either one being with Amy.  

Speaking of Amy, she decides to take her leave and the boys are like, "later". It's there that Amy runs into another girl named Julia who says that she knows about the breakup with Ernie, but thinks Amy's the one being horrible by letting him tag along. It's now three weeks since the breakup. It's Amy's sixteenth birthday. No sign of Colin yet, but here's Ernie with balloons and a pendant. Amy's finally had enough, throws the pendant back at him and tells him to leave, which he does so. She goes to meet with Colin and they leave, but there's Ernie trying to follow them again. She vents to her mother and believes that clearly Ernie is trying to trick her into going back out with her. So, Mr. Wayne has the perfect idea. Go on a camping trip in the woods. There's no way he could possib-Ernie shows up there too. Like, even most yanderes aren't this determined.

Amy has reached pure desperation at this point and her only answer is to have Regina ask Ernie out to the dance. Maybe it'll finally get him off her back. And they don't even have to call Ernie either as of course he's in the house reading the paper. Amy leaves to let Regina ask the question. Regina then tells her that Ernie declined her offer on account that he's still trying to get over Amy. Which given he can't stop stalking her at this point, that's not working so well. The next day at school, Colin asks Amy to the dance, and then they find Ernie in her locker-okay, restraining order now! Like, maybe long and ever ago, but restraining order now! Colin offers to talk to Ernie, to get this done with. Then Amy finds them eating sundaes together at a snack bar. No, seriously, this relationship has more pathos to it than either Ernie or Colin's relationship with Amy. 

But Amy has reached the conclusion that no matter what she does, Ernie will never leave her alone. The dance comes and Colin and Amy have a good time. She sees Ernie there and is finally ready to make him leave her alone by grabbing the cake and throwing it at him. And it's here that Ernie introduces Amy to his date Ingrid. Yep, he finally took the hint, I guess. And we end the book with Amy telling Regina that she went to see Ernie the other night. In fact, she's been following Ernie around everywhere. She's not even with Colin anymore, she's just really hung up on Ernie. So, happy ending? 

CONCLUSION

Well that one wasn't that bad. How I Broke Up With Ernie is fine for a Stine romance novel. Though, granted, it does seem to fall too much into creepy stalker territory to really find it endearing. Like, Ernie goes from likable goof to creepy stalker super quick. So it mostly becomes a book where we have to wade through over 100 pages to get to the ultimate reveal that Ernie did move on, even if Amy really didn't. And that she didn't to the point that she even gave up a good thing with Colin. Maybe she got tired of the Saab. So the book kind of just ends with this eternal loop of Amy not getting over Ernie and now becoming the stalker. And, I get it, this is a teen comedy, but it also makes Amy a bit too choosy and someone with a case of buyer's remorse.  

Amy is a decent character. You can understand her reasons for wanting to break up with Ernie, especially after he continues to follow her around. She's also a girl with a bit of a crappy family, though they become less awful as the story progresses. She's not like a Joanna Collier or a Reva Dalby who treats relationships like toys she can mess with. She does care for Ernie, especially when he stops giving her that attention. Makes her selfish, but also someone who doesn't seem to know what she's got until it's gone. Does make all of this pointless, but this also feels like a teen thing. Or at least how a man in his forties sees teen things. Impulsive decisions that you ultimately regret. Still, there's this real feeling of just not being a satisfying ending to it. Weakens Amy entirely to just become Ernie.

As for Ernie, like I said, he's not the worst person ever. He seems genuinely nice, even if he has his meathead moments like the women's studies crack. But yeah, he clearly is a boy who never learned much of boundaries. And yes, they don't ever have him talk as if he wants Amy back, but clearly if he just communicated that, this whole ordeal would be over with. but then we'd have a really short book, so instead he just stalks her everywhere she goes. Colin is also interesting. When he was introduced, I worried he'd be our villain, but comes off as a rather nice guy, especially towards Ernie. And again, they make a weirdly cute couple. Like, Ernie risked his own life to save Colin and Colin was grateful. He wasn't your stereotypical yuppie snob character and that's actually refreshing. Though it is a shame he gets screwed over in the end. 

So, what we're left with is a just okay, yet still messy book. Not the deepest teen romance story. Not the funniest book either. Gets way too creepy and a bit too "in your personal space". And certainly a book that fails the Bechdel test in every conceivable level. But, it was alright. Maybe tone down Ernie's awkward creepiness a bit as well as just having Amy become the stalker and it would have worked better. And cut some stuff as we really just feel like we're spinning the wheels until the final reveal. But it's still decent enough to recommend. How I Broke Up With Ernie gets a B. 

It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Seventeen Magazine, "Totally", "Yuppie", Saab Turbo, 90s Malls, Reeboks and Keds, Newfangled Computer-Generated Animation, The California Raisins, CD Boom Boxes, CDs, Sport Magazine, Madonna music.