Time to travel back to early Fear Street. It's the second book ever released. So, definitely a case of Stine still experimenting. And it's another book I'm reading to involve a party. Hopefully it'll go a little better than that New Year's party went. Either way, let's find out if I'll be surprised with The Surprise Party.
We cut to some time later as Meg Dalton is biking through Shadyside with her friend Shannon Harper and Meg's boyfriend Tony Colavito. As they bike, Shannon mentions her need to shed some extra pounds, which confounds Meg as she thinks Shannon looks a lot like Molly Ringwald. Oh yeah, this is definitely a 1989 book. Shadyside in the spring is filled with life and energy. While biking, they almost run over a baby squirrel, which I'm surprised. Stine showed restraint. Meg and Tony have been together for two years, but he's always in a bad mood over everything. Meanwhile, Shannon has been dealing with Dwayne, who she thinks is a creep, and is weird as despite being a gym rat, is always playing Dungeons and Dra-no, wait, Stine's not going to get himself sued. It's "Wizards and Dungeons" with Meg's cousin Brian.
Speaking of Brian, and more specifically Shannon, it has been a year since Brian found Shannon's brother Evan shot dead in the woods. As they bike some more, they run into Cory Brooks and Lisa Blume, who were the stars of the previous book. So continuity was a thing early on, which is neat. Cory and Lisa tell them that Ellen Majors is coming back to Shadyside to live with her aunt. The same Ellen Majors who was going out with Evan before he was killed. Meg decides that they should hold a [[TITLE OF THE BOOK]] for Ellen, to show that everyone still cares about her. Tony is less interested and more upset his bike tire is flat.
That night, Meg gets a phone call. And it's Fear Street, so of course it's a whispery phone call, warning her not to throw a surprise party for Ellen, or else. The next day, she thinks it must have been someone pranking them who has seen so many horror movies like Halloween V, Freddy Returns or Friday the 13th Part 400. You know, had the Jason franchise not died like it did, we may have made it that far by now. She talks to Lisa, who says she told a lot of people about the party, so it could be anyone and not the initial batch. Tony tells Meg he got the same call. He suggests calling the cops just in case, but Meg is more focused on having this party for Ellen come hell, highwater or, you know, someone actually gets hurt by a whispery maniac.
Meg suggests to Shannon that the party should be held in the old Halsey Manor in Fear Street Woods. I mean, it's creepy, and in, where else, Fear Street, but it's been rebuilt by her dad, so it should be fine. And no adults either because that's a concern I guess. Meg then notes the people she knows who all suffered from Evan's death. Shannon as he was her brother, Tony was Evan's friend, Brian who found Evan's body in the woods and was so affected by it, he began to slip deeper into his Wizards and Dungeons games. She then mentions that apparently the reason Evan was there was because he took a dare to stay overnight in the woods. And despite Ellen's pleas, he left with his rifle and stayed on that fateful night.
While at school, Meg gets a call to get a message in the office. But when she arrives, there's no message. When she returns, however, the invitations she made for the party have been shredded. She then gets another message at the office which is a threat written in crayon, warning her that she'll be physically hurt if she tries to throw this party. She tries to talk to Shannon about it, but instead runs into Dwayne Colligan, who looks much larger and older than most high schoolers, which, okay then. After that happens, Meg then runs into Tony who also got a threatening letter. Tony again says the party is a bad idea, but Meg won't hear of it. She'll give Ellen a surprise party if it literally kills her. She then mentions the cut up invitations, when she sees Brian staring at them, then running off.
So Meg has two suspects. Brian for how he acted, and Shannon for her also acting strangely. She also suspects Ellen, despite her not being around yet, and Dwayne on the grounds that he's a creep as well. She gets a call from a freaked out Tony who mentions that someone was following him the other night. He couldn't tell who, only that he managed to get away from them unscathed. He again suggests not holding the party and MY GOD this book is already spinning its wheels. Like, we're at page 38 at this point in this 167 page book and since the threats began, this is our third time with this "Don't do the party" "I'm still doing the party" "Don't do the party" "I'm still doing the party" stuff. It's also making some things even more obvious, but we're still super early. But, it's enough for Tony to be done with it and invites himself out of this surprise party and out of his relationship with Meg.
Meg is, of course, flustered by this, but decides to focus on not making Ellen a suspect anymore. She then finally talks to Ellen for the first time since hearing she's come back to Shadyside. It goes pretty well. Too well. As if Ellen is acting overly enthusiastic. As if she's hiding something. Meg then goes to Lisa's and after Lisa weirdly compliments Meg's skin, it's round four of "Don't do the party" "I'm still doing the party". You could sleep for a week on this book, it's that heavily padded. She then mentions her list of suspects, and Lisa finds them to be odd choices. Especially Shannon.
As she heads home, she sees a shadowy figure by her house. That shadow ends ups being a bunch of flower pots. At lunch the next day, Meg confronts Shannon about her being so strange since the news about Ellen. Shannon, as you'd expect, doesn't take being blamed for sabotaging the party very well and leaves. As Meg gets her lunch from her backpack, she notices it's leaking. And that it's filled with blood... actually it's red paint. But Meg moves on from that and is more focused on apologizing to Shannon. She heads to Shannon's house and apologizes for suspecting her.
As she goes inside, Meg notices a large framed photo of Evan and remembers a night that she and the rest of her friends were there and recalls Evan and Tony having a fight. Evan had backed one of the family's cars into a truck and Tony got a bit of a laugh about it. Ellen laughed too, which angered Evan even more. In his rage, he took a pool cue and tried to hit Tony, only to miss and hit Ellen in the shoulder instead. But Evan and Tony start fighting on the pool table having a pool cue swordfight, which, I've gone through a lot of stuff in Fear Street and that's up there with fifty Oprahs as the silliest things. What's not so silly is that Evan actually does crack Tony over the head with the cue and busts him up bad. You know, if my suspicions are correct, maybe the culprit had a good reason to off this kid.
Meg continues to apologize, but Shannon accepts it. And we get a change of pace as this time we get a "you should do the party" "I will do the party". They then both begin to suspect that it was definitely Brian who made the threats. He's so weird, maybe he's responsible. After Meg leaves, she sees that a car seems to be following her, who then straight up tries to run her over, but she evades in time. We then switch to the POV of the driver who almost tried to run Meg down. Sure enough it's the killer, and the one who has been sending the threats. He doesn't want to kill Meg, but he's determined to keep what happened that night with Evan a secret. He can't let Ellen reveal the truth.
Meg returns home and takes a shower after almost dying. She tries to call Tony, but only gets her father instead. Does this mean that Tony went out that night? We then switch over to Tony who is indeed out for a walk. He runs into Dwayne, who with how he's constantly described as not looking like a teenager and being in amazing shape, I think R.L. Stine just predicted The Rock. Dwayne brings up how he's not been lucky with Shannon and mentions how Evan hated him. How he constantly told him to stay away. And when he died, Dwayne thought that meant it would be easy street. Given Evan was Tony's best friend, even after the whole "compound fracture in the corner pocket", so he doesn't take too kindly to Dwayne's comments and runs off.
Later, Meg heads to Tony's house, but only gets Mr. Colavito again. He mentions that Tony went off with Brian to play Wizards and Dungeons. Meg doesn't pursue them despite, you know, her concerns about Brian. And sure enough, Mr. Colavito calls her that night to mentions that both Brian and Tony seem to have vanished. She heads out to Fear Street Woods with her dad and searches for them. However, when she's left alone, she gets grabbed by someone from behind who whispers to her that she should have listened to him. As she breaks free, she falls into a ravine, only to save herself in time. However, she soon sees a corpse. Brian's corpse. Wow. Wizards and Dungeons is a far out game. No, wait. Forgot this is super early Fear Street, so of course he's not dead. But really hurt. Oh and Tony's here. That's not concerning at all.
Of course, now Meg is concerned as to why suddenly Tony, who isn't friends with Brian, would play a game with him in the middle of the night near a ravine. But he says that he's innocent and is more concerned about the fact that the mysterious saboteur almost killed her. He again warns her about the party, but talking to a brick wall would be more worthwhile. Meg visits the injured Brian the next day and tries to get answers, but he speaks in RPG metaphors so again, that brick wall would be a better option. Stuff about having fourth level power. He does also admit to calling Meg. But he again won't admit to what, just that he was trying to warn her. Just as she leaves, Ellen shows up.
That night, Meg talks to Tony and mentions what Brian said, which really makes him concerned. Concerned enough to go back out with her and to conveniently take her up to River Ridge. We then cut back to Tony who indeed was the one who tried to kill Brian because he was certain that Brian would reveal it was Tony that killed Evan. Sure enough, it was him in those woods that night, with Evan and Ellen. He was the one who grabbed the rifle and shot Evan point blank. But he still doesn't know why he did it. I guess because Ellen was baad? So very, very baad? Either way, he now knows he has to silence Meg before she knows the truth.
The next day, Meg talks with Shannon by the large hill by Shannon's house, when Ellen arrives. They all chat, giving us I believe our first Suki Thomas appearance, and it just seems mostly awkward. But it seems like everything's still a go for getting Ellen to the surprise party. Which now Meg, after a whole book of "I'm still doing the party" has now gone "Oh god, maybe I shouldn't do the party". At another party for a kid named David (because my god we're stalling to get to this frigging party), Dwayne shows up drunk and harasses Shannon, before mentioning that Suki got him an invite to the surprise party.
Tony shows up and takes Meg out to River Ridge, particularly to the spot called "Lover's Leap". He's about to shove her off, when she mentions that Brian didn't fully reveal everything he knew to her, so Tony hesitates. But when she mentions that Ellen was talking to Brian, he realizes he's going to have to get this over with. But with this plan spoiled, he decides that he'll just shoot Meg, Brian and Ellen on Saturday night.
Speaking of which, we finally get to the fireworks factory. Meg picks up Ellen and takes her to Halsey Manor. They arrive inside and the surprise party is underway, much to Ellen's horror. Yeah, turns out you shouldn't have done the party. But, it seems to go well enough. Ellen sees Tony and that's a cold reaction. Suddenly Brian shows up and starts to talk about how he's a fourth level wizard and is going to bring Evan back. Everyone is about to stop him, but sure enough, Evan arrives. Tony panics and pulls out his gun, saying that Evan should be dead. And sure enough, yeah, Evan is dead. This is Shannon's half-brother Mike who looks exactly like Evan. Second book in and Kinda-twins? Oh, Bob you were already struggling, huh?
As Tony is about to explain, suddenly he gets shot by Dwayne. He grabs Ellen and Meg and drags them off to the kitchen where Meg learns what Ellen knows. And that she thinks that Tony killed Evan. That night, Ellen broke up with Evan to be with Tony. So he ended up in Fear Street Woods that night with the rifle, intent on killing anything. Tony and Ellen showed up, only for the gun to go off and Tony to kill Evan. Brian showed up and the three ran off to get help. Dwayne then reveals that Tony didn't actually finish the job. He was playing Wizards and Dungeons with Brian that night and when the three left, he stayed behind.
Turns out that Tony never shot Evan. All that happened after the gun went off was that Evan fell backwards and smashed his head on a rock, knocking him out. And given Dwayne's hatred for Evan for all of the cockblocking him from dating Shannon, took the rifle and shot Evan. So, it was Shannon who was baad. So very baaaaaaaaaaaad. Meg manages to get free long enough to grab a large frying pan and smash it over Dwayne's face, knocking him out and giving the two time to call the cops. The next day, Dwayne's been arrested, while Tony is gone to get some psychiatric help for everything and Ellen has moved back out of Shadyside. We learn that Ellen warned Brian about what was going on and he worked with Shannon's brother Mike to pull the double-Evan trick. Mike explains it all to Meg before he's about to leave. He says he'll be back in July, but they should probably not do the party. Meg probably did the party.
Meg is an okay protagonist. Though you have to wonder if her stubbornness to keep the party for Ellen is less trying to make Ellen feel better, or for her own benefit. As if she felt that her altruism was more important than Ellen's mental health. Like, she wants to reconnect, just go to Pete's Pizza. Making a big deal about or trying to help someone move on from their trauma in such a big way wouldn't help at all. Tony is a decent misdirect villain. Not perfect himself, honestly a bit of a simp for Evan in his own right given, again, he got smashed over the head with a pool cue, and let's not forget how desperate he got to kill others for a murder he didn't even commit. Brian exists mainly to tie in the big double-Evan con at the end, with the RPG stuff feeling super flimsy. Also Shannon and Lisa are characters.
The strength of the book is how it handles the guilt of these characters and the desperation to keep that guilt a secret, even if it does all boil down to, again, going to actually commit murders, so even that's muddied. But at least you get why Tony was desperate. The biggest problem with this book is its pacing. Not as glacial as the worst cases of Stine wheel spinning, but still a slog to have to sit through in parts, especially given how many scenes we get with people telling Meg that the party's a bad idea. The first couple times with Tony, given his real reasons are fine, but by the time it's Lisa having to tell Meg, then you can tell that Stine had a hard time getting this sucker to 160+ pages. Scares feel minimal and thankfully far less of the stock chapter stingers that he leaned on more as Fear Street (and Goosebumps) moved forward. Early, less desperate Stine is a breath of fresh air.
So, in the end, The Surprise Party was no surprise. A just decent enough book that doesn't feel like a waste of time, but not enough of a book to really stick with you as time goes on. And for the second book, that does feel like a sign of very shaky early Stine. But I'll be kind enough to give it the lightest of recommends, so long as you don't expect a top tier book. I guess the moral of the story is that R.L. Stine would make a really lousy dungeon master. The Surprise Party gets a B.
It Was Acceptable in the 80s: Molly Ringwald comparisons, Halloween 5, Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th still making new movies, Day-Glo, Dragon Magazine, That newfangled Styrofoam, Darryl Hannah comparisons, Boom boxes, "baad"
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