I must confess... that it's time for another trip back to Shadyside. Hey, we're in a bit of a rhythm with them lately, so why not keep the good times going? Not sure what to think of this edition, since it apparently involves a murder mystery and we know Stine's history with those. But maybe he can surprise us? Let's talk about The Confession.
Anyway they then talk about the party at Rev-FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK-a Dalby's place. Huh, given what we already know of Reva's character I'm surprised she allowed Hillary to come. But, sure enough, she invited the whole senior class. What, is she gunning for another boyfriend to steal and more lives to destroy? At least I don't have to focus on her this time, I might be able to make it out of this book with what little sanity is left intact. Plus, she invited some bands to perform, like Red Heat and, what is definitely a 90s band name a 50 year old man would come up with, 2RUFF4U.
As the girls discuss the upcoming party, they get scared by Al Freed who just barges in like he's Kramer or something. The girls like Al, but feel he's changed a lot lately since he started hanging out with the "hard dudes" of Wanyesbridge. And sure enough he has the makings of a douchebag as he hits on the three of them before pressuring Julie for twenty bucks. We also get a mention that Taylor knows of Al the least since she moved to Shadyside a month ago. Hopefully that's not a Stine tell, but we'll see.
Al blackmails the girls some more as he smokes a cigarette and threatens to burn a hole in Julie's kitchen table, which would eventually get Julie found out that she still smokes as well. They stop him from burning the table, but he continues to threaten to blackmail them. Like threatening to reveal that Hillary had Al help her cheat on her chemistry exam and stuff like that. Hillary eventually gives him the twenty and he makes his leave, just as Julie's mom comes home and finds both the cigarette and a beer can that belonged to Al, which gets Julie blamed for it all, because Stine parents. She also grounds Julie, making her miss the party at Reva's. Oh no, no more Reva? I'm so devastated.
Regardless, Julie wants revenge on Al. In fact, all three girls want to kill him. So, we miss out on the party and the performance by 2RUFF4U. Guess they really were 2RUFF4US. Hillary and Taylor went and of course bring up how awesome it was to Julie, not helping matters. Speaking of Taylor, she was flirting with every boy there while Sandy came off like a simp. But Julie doesn't think it's a big issue. Hillary then brings up that Al has since gone from taking money to just taking her car. Also speaking of Al, they hear from Sandy that Al got suspended from school for starting a fight with David Arnold from the wrestling team. So Al gets permanently suspended, but David doesn't.
As they talk, suddenly Al arrives at the front door. He's super drunk and, being Al, super aggressive. He ends up punching a tooth out of Sandy's mouth before Hillary attacks him, which is enough for Al to make his leave. As everything calms down, Julie can see a lot of hatred in Hillary's face. As if there's more than we really know about what Al's been putting her through. Some time passes and there's been no sign of Al for a while. Julie mentions talking to Corky Corcoran-there she is again- and runs into a particularly grumpy Vincent. Turns out that he too has had his mom's car "borrowed" by Al because people just haven't thought to just beat his ass at this point.
Like, even if he was their friend at one point, and even with all the blackmail, enough has to be enough at some point. Like, maybe when Al comes back with the car destroyed, like some twelve year old took a picture of it or something. As Al leaves, Vincent is about to attack him, but Julie stops him before he likely gets his ass kicked. Cut to shortly after and now Vincent is the one grounded after the car was totaled. Julie, Sandy, Taylor and Hillary go blading at the roller rink. After Julie falls over Artie Matthews, a bratty kid who is always with his just as bad brother Chucky, Julie sees that Taylor and Sandy disappeared. Hillary leaves soon after, leaving Julie to head home by herself. She notices something in a nearby alley. Al. Or, to be more precise, Al's corpse. Somebody got to him and both strangled and smothered him using a pair of rollerblades. Dying by rollerblades outside a roller rink. Well at least he died ironically.
As Julie is confused, some people spot her by Al's corpse and call her the murderer before calling the cops. The cops don't think Julie is the suspect immediately. When the cop asks about a list of friends, she doesn't give them her friends names, but tells him that maybe it was one of the tough guys from Waynesbridge. Totally not her circle of friends. Each with a motive to want to settle Al's hash. But that suspicion is in Julie's head for now. They all go to Al's funeral at least. Though Julie learns that Al's mom was so distraught that she had to be sedated.
After the Funeral, they all head to Sandy's where Vincent tells quite the story about his grandmother's funeral. About how the casket inside didn't have his grandmother, but there was a mix-up. It has a large bald man dressed as Santa. Christmas in Shadyside's frigging weird, yo. Everyone laughs but Sandy, which is enough time to learn that his mom's a shrink as well as a maker of bronze heads, including ones of her kids, which, like this was weird enough in The Haunted Mask, Stine. We then get our titular confession as Sandy confesses to being the one who killed Al. So that totally means Taylor did it, huh?
Sandy mentions that he had no choice. Al was ruining their lives. Hillary then says the obvious. That his confession to them now makes them accessories to this now. That unless they confess, they could get in trouble about not revealing who the murderer is. She says they should call the cops, but Taylor says they shouldn't. In fact, everyone else thinks that it wouldn't be right to. Despite, again, Sandy making them all accessories now. Sandy apologizes and says given what happened, he won't totally kill again. To which Julie tells us he kills again... in her dream in the next chapter. Been a while since we got that, innit?
During graduation rehearsal, Julie talks with Hillary some more about the murder, which Hillary is still ready to tell the cops about, when they spot Taylor looking at them, as if she knows what they were talking about. But as the two walk, Hillary continues to bring up how weird it is that Sandy just goes on with his life as if nothing happened and that they should cut ties with him. Because I'm sure that's going to go well with the guy who confessed to a murder. And then we get a chapter stinger where a chipmunk leaps out of a hedge. Okay then. When they get to Julie's house, the cop, Officer Reed, asks if they have any leads, to which Julie just blurts out that it was Sandy... in her head, that is. Oh god we're in full spinning wheels mode now. And not even at 100 pages yet. Oh no. After the cop leaves, Hillary and Julie spot Sandy hiding behind a tree.
At gym the next day, Vincent takes the basketball from Sandy, which is enough for Sandy to heave the ball right back at him. So now the girls are convinced that Sandy is turning evil on them. They go to see the new Keanu Reeves film, which works oddly well for 2022. It gets changed to Jude Law for the eBook version. Julie runs into Taylor there who again tries to tell them that Sandy's innocent and to not call the cops on him. After another graduation rehearsal, Sandy shows up at Julie's house and is again acting suspicious, wondering if she's really planning to call the cops on him. He gives another warning then leaves.
At lunch the next day, we have our Deena and Jade cameos as they arm wrestle for some reason. Wrong Number 3 starting off weird. Hillary was also warned by Sandy, which has him now in sort of the Al role, when you think of it. Violent and threatening. They run into Taylor again who pleads with them not to get Sandy in trouble, and then just proves who really did it by attacking Hillary. But that's also enough for Hillary as she's ready to confess what she knows. Which, you know, given she was just assaulted, I'm on her side here.
Julie tries to convince her otherwise, but Hillary, again, has more than enough reason to finally be done with this. She then changes her mind and asks Julie to take her to Sandy's house instead. So Hillary goes inside while Julie leaves instead of, you know, going inside to ensure Hillary's safety with the guy who confessed to a murder. And sure enough when she calls Hillary's house, her parents mention that she never came home. So award for awful friend goes to Julie right now. That is, until Julie gets a call from Hillary who confesses the truth. She killed Sandy.
Julie and the others arrive to Hillary's as she confesses what happened. She did go to Sandy's to try and get him to confess the truth, but he got angry, to which Hillary grabbed one of those bronze busts his mom makes and conked him in the ol' brain bucket. Hillary is about to call the cops on herself when Taylor finally admits what we waited the whole book to finally get to, Sandy didn't kill Al. She did. So, remember the bit about how Taylor was flirting with everyone? This included Al who she was cheating on Sandy with. Turns out Al had been blackmailing her too, for hundreds of dollars. That night at the rink after she left, she ran into Al again who attacked her. But in her defense, she took her rollerblade laces and strangled him until he died. And, of course, Sandy, the simp king of all simps, took the bullet for her. Confessing to be the actual murderer.
Suddenly, Sandy shows up at the front door. You see, Hillary didn't kill Sandy. She realized that it was Taylor setting him up all along and she managed to finally get the truth from her own mouth. He only confessed to show Taylor that he could be as tough as Al. AKA Super Simp! Super Simp! He's super simpy, ow! We really don't wrap up what happened with Taylor or Sandy or the murder, but given Al's dead, I don't care either. Anyway Vincent makes a confession to Julie that he's had a crush on her since third grade and she screams for some reason. Boy, Stine was ready to sign off on this one, huh?
Eh, this one was just okay. Another unfortunate case of Stine yet again making too many things too obvious too quick. Once the book both sets up how Taylor treats Sandy, his devotion to her, and his confession, it becomes super obvious who the killer really was. So we have to sit through a slog to get to the most obvious outcome. A curveball could have been Hillary. Given her hatred for Al, which seems to have been far more serious than we even know. Like, given how much of a scumbag he was, it's plausible that Al probably said some really racist crap towards her. But Stine, thankfully, didn't feel wise to go down that route, so we went with the more plausible culprit.
Julie is fine as a protagonist, but doesn't really feel all that unique. Hillary makes for a more interesting character. And no, I don't mean why you might think I mean that. Her turmoil seems more involved, especially since we've been given her reasons for hating Al, but also her reasoning for wanting to be the one to at first call the cops, then later get what's really going on. Taylor's also interesting as she's definitely in a weird moral gray area. Killing Al was clearly in self defense given his past threats and treatment of others. But she was so willing to just let Sandy twist in the wind for her. Which makes you wonder. She was so worried about Sandy getting arrested. Was it really out of caring for his safety, or out of fear that he'll reveal it was her all along? Also, of course, this is a book from the 90s, so we just ignore DNA tests and everything else. but it's far from the biggest problem with this book.
So what we're left with is a book that does flow well, but feels like it's stuck having to plow through over 100+ pages to get to our real villain. Some of it used well, some of it not. And giving us some of Stine's worst traits when it comes to chapter stingers. But, it's thankfully not a book that ends on bad mental health or some other bad Stine trope. And the survivors are people you want to see live instead of pricks like Al, so I can't leave this book angry. Just, hoping for something with a bit more bite. But at least we were teased Reva and not given her. Points for that at least. The Confession gets a B-.
It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Demi Moore comparisons, Rollerblading, "Let's Get Ready to Rumble", Michael Buffer references in general, Pre-Matrix Keanu Bashing
It Was Acceptable in the Reprint: Jude Law Movies
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