The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: Bad Dreams

So, it's rare I come into a new blog worried. You see, we're covering a Fear Street book focused on dreams. Now, these have always gone down the hypnosis route. The Sleepwalker, The Face, Bad Moonlight, all have hypnosis used as the main trope. Hey, maybe Stine can surprise me. Or, I'm going to whine about hypnosis again. New year, Same Stine. Let's talk about Bad Dreams.

Well, this is certainly an interesting cover choice. One that's easy to remember in your head for plenty of reasons. The positives of the cover is the looks of fear and concern on the faces of the two girls, scared at whatever is approaching them, which unfortunately also bodes the girls in peril trope we've seen many times before. The only negative is that it really doesn't scream a book about bad dreams. Aside from the bed and being in bed clothes, you can't read much else into it. Also, and I know I'm treading lightly here given how old I am, but there's this weird, somewhat exploitive feeling of forced titillation with the cover. The positioning of two vulnerable teenage girls on a bed in nothing but their nightgowns. This cover woke some kids up, didn't it? Also, the little subtitle thing's a Goosebumps book title. Oh god, I've been reading so many of these at this point that my brain is turning into shredded wheat. Overall, solid cover.

We open with a prologue of a girl waking up from a bad dream, so the book delivered on that at least. She then notices someone in her room. Someone with a knife. It's her sister who indeed attacks her with the knife. In fact, she gets super stabby on her as everything fades to black. 

Maggie Travers, her younger sister Andrea and their mother are lost trying to find their new house on, where else, Fear Street. Andrea in particular likes to take shots at Maggie for getting them lost. In fact, they don't seem to have a rosy relationship. First off, given they used to be in the more snooty section of Shadyside, North Hills, before moving to Fear Street, it made Andrea more of a bratty snob. And she's always been a brat, like in a "setting fire to Maggie's Barbie doll" sort of way. But if Maggie argues back, she gets punished because Stine parents are the worst. Although, in this case, we learn that Mr. Travers had suffered a stroke and died not too long before the events of the book, hence why everything's changed for the family so suddenly.

They arrive at 23 Fear Street and begin to leave the car. This includes Gus, their golden retriever, who rushes into the street and almost gets hit by a truck. I'm surprised Stine showed restraint, but I guess as long as he put an animal in danger, he can sleep better at night. After that happens, they all go inside the house. Maggie then discovers that there's a still-intact canopy bed inside. Which is weird. Why did the previous owners take everything, but leave this one bed? Andrea wants the bed, but Maggie claims it via the old law of "Finders V. Keepers". Mrs. Travers tells the girls to stop going at one another as if they hate each other, but Maggie starts to think maybe they really do hate each other. Not even their dad's death changed that. But Maggie's at least determined not to let the family fall apart even worse.

Maggie gets a call from her boyfriend Justin Stiles, followed by a call from her best friend and swim team partner Dawn Rodgers. So at least she still has her circle of friends, which also seems to be making Andrea angrier, but everything in this book's made Andrea angry, so we're not treading new ground yet. Maggie goes to sleep in the canopy bed that night and has her first bad dream. She falls through a pink haze as she sees a blonde girl. Well, she can see everything but her face apparently. Maggie wakes up with a scream. She tells her mother about the girl in her dream, to which Mrs. Travers says it may have been Dawn she was dreaming of, which is enough to put Maggie at ease and back to sleep.

The next day, Maggie wakes up late, which is odd for her. Justin arrives with sponges, seeing  as she wanted to clean the place up and because I guess he doesn't get jokes well. They turn their attention to the upcoming 200IM swim meet coming up, and Maggie has several girls who could best her. Dawn, another girl named Tiffany Hollings, and even Andrea who has been improving. They start having a make out session when Maggie again thinks she sees the girl from her dreams, only its Andrea. After she gets ignored, she storms off angrily. Maggie then tells Justin about her weird dreams and he collapses on the ground. But it's just a joke because it's a chapter stinger early in the book. I mean, we still have over a hundred pages to go here. Oh and because so many of these boyfriends kind of suck.

Maggie heads to swim practice. There are a few girls there including Claudia Walker (Sunburn) and two other girls, Renee Larson and Carly Pederson. They compete, with Maggie coming in first, though Dawn complains about it. After she showers, Maggie arrives back at the pool and sees Dawn face down in the pool! Because she's practicing her breathing! Oh there are some stinky chapter stingers in this one. That night, Maggie dreams of the blonde girl again, only now she sees that the girl is being attacked by someone with a knife. When she wakes up, she sees Andrea in her room, which confuses her more as now she's starting to think the girl in her dream is Andrea.

Maggie talks with Andrea about the dream, and the victims. Andrea tries to help her with it, and thinks that maybe her dreams have a lot to do with the pressure she's putting upon herself. Their dad's death, the swim meet. To which Maggie spoils the one good moment they have by claiming that Andrea only said that because she wants to win. And, while yeah Andrea's been whiny a lot, she's actually in the right this time to explode on her, to which she begins to think that maybe Maggie is more like the attacker, and maybe she'd be happy if her competition was killed off. 

The next day at school, Maggie is still groggy, given she hasn't had a good night's sleep since moving to Fear Street. She goes to talk with Dawn, but in the process, Dawn falls down the stairs. She doesn't die, but she does break her arm and she thinks she was pushed. Which of course means that Maggie gets the blame. Andrea says she never saw how Dawn fell, so everyone thinks it must have been Maggie. Even she starts to think that her dream has something to do with it. How her dreams have involved a blonde girl and given Dawn is blonde, maybe Andrea's right. Or Andrea's the one who pushed Dawn, but we still have half a book to go.

Later, Maggie falls asleep in the backyard. She's beginning to realize that she sleeps fine everywhere else. It's just the bed that's been giving her the nightmares. As she's sleeping, some random old man shows up and wakes her up. This is Milton Avery, the next door neighbor here to give us all the exposition we need for the house. Well, more so his wife Claire who tells her about the former family that lived in the house, the Helfer family. Miranda Helfer was a girl about Maggie's age who was stabbed to death in her own bed. And that's all the backstory we get for now. During a date with Justin, Maggie meets up with Dawn who, while she apologizes for suspecting Maggie, she still clearly thinks it was Maggie who pushed her. Also during the date, Maggie tells a still skeptical Justin that maybe the bed is somehow like a way for Miranda to contact her from beyond the grave. Wow, those Casper mattresses really are great.

At swim practice, Maggie and Tiffany make it to the 200IM, while Andrea is now an alternate, which makes her mad, so not a massive leap in character yet. Maggie gets another dream about Miranda, then wakes up to see Andrea in her room with a knife! I mean with a curling iron! Oh dear, Stine is stuck in a mudhole and those tires are spinning wildly. Maggie leaves the bedroom and tries to get her mind back to sleep. When she returns to her bedroom, she sees a knife in the bed. But when she gets her mother, the knife is gone. So she not only suspects Andrea might be trying to get back at her, but now she's starting to lose touch with reality. I'm starting to like this book. Please Bob, don't blow it.

At the next practice, it seems like Tiffany is a shoe-in to beat Maggie at the meet. After Maggie talks with the coach, she returns to the pool area where Tiffany is on the ground with a stab wound in her side. And, despite Andrea being there again, it's Maggie who's blamed. Though, in fairness, Maggie did grab the knife and was spotted by Tiffany's body, so she's doing a really bad job of proving her innocence. But Andrea's happy at least now that she's in. That night, Maggie gets another dream about Miranda. However, when she wakes up, Miranda is still there, holding a knife and ready to strike. But when she gets her mother, Miranda disappears again.

And then we cut to Maggie with her class in a cave. Including-DEENA AND JADE AGAIN? Okay Stine, reel it in. At least they get lines in this one. Maggie slips and falls and gets lost from the group. She hears footsteps and thinks this feels like the dreams. Like she's Miranda being chased. She winds up cornered, only for it to be Justin. Maggie now has to see a psychiatrist after her last episode and even she thinks Maggie might be imagining all of this. That the trauma is coming from something else. She heads home and thinks she sees Miranda, but nobody else does and everyone still thinks she's crazy. She then heads upstairs only to find that the bed is gone. The psychiatrist thought it would be wise to get rid of what's triggering her. You see, Kramer family? You see? If your daughter's acting weird because of her new dummy, GET RID OF THE DUMMY!... or the bed just ends up in the attic. I guess they didn't want to part with such a sweet looking bed then. 

Maggie heads up to the attic and sleeps in the bed again, hoping to finally get her answers once and for all. But she finds Miranda sleeping in the bed. Oh wait, it's not Miranda, it's her sister (god dammit Bob) Gena. You see, Gena killed Miranda years ago and was locked away in the mental hospital (GOD DAMMIT BOB). But she escaped and has been hiding in the house ever since. Andrea shows up which is enough time for Gena to snap and try to kill Maggie. Turns out that she did everything for Andrea, including hurting Dawn and Tiffany. Because of how bad a sister Maggie is.

When Andrea comes to Maggie's aid, Gena snaps some more and decides to kill them both. Gena goes to stab Maggie, but gets the bed canvas instead. The girls tie her up in the canvas and alert their mom who calls the cops on Gena. And so we end with really no answer as to if Miranda was really giving warnings from beyond the grave. But at least the sisters are finally at peace with one another. So happy enough ending. Eh, at least there wasn't any hypnosis.

Bad Dreams almost works. It has a decent mystery. It has a really neat idea with the dreams and how they seem to connect to the warning about Gena. But Stine again just jams that square peg into that round hole. Thankfully no hypnosis so now I know it's not a trope he uses for all sleep-based stories. But still falls down to the jealous sibling trope and the poor mental health trope. Granted, a bit better used here as the idea of Gena just hanging around in the house with nobody knowing does work for a scary scenario. And it's a better explanation than most occasions Stine tries this out. Oh, and another book with a super spoilery prologue doesn't help its case.

What does work for the book is the handling of Maggie and Andrea's relationship. How they clearly have their problems with one another. How they can't seem to get along. Be it Andrea's jealousy or Maggie's thick-headedness about how she treats Andrea. Often giving her a reason to have that spite and frustration. So, if it was Andrea who was going to kill Maggie, you wouldn't be as shocked. But we also need that resolution and happy ending, so the book moves away from that to give us a more stock villain. 

In the end though, something just feels left on the cutting room floor about this book. Just the swatting away of any major resolution to the dreams and visions. Just an "I guess so" ending which is a bit deflating. Like I said, there are so many neat ideas that could make this book work really well, and even most of the ideas Stine presents are fine. It's just that something just really feels lacking. Well, if I was hoping for a better Fear Street book this time, I should dream on. Bad Dreams gets a B.

It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Addams Family references, CDs