It's time for another ride into Cliffhangers, the not-exactly-Goosebumps series of kids books. Since we're still very much in (Woo!) Party Summer month, why not take said ride on an out of control roller coaster. It could be thrilling. Though given the last book about a carnival was set in Camp Crystal Lake, this has big shoes to fill. Will it fill them well? We'll see with Thrill Ride!
This cover is fine. I like the angle and the warped perspective, giving us enough to make us realize that this is indeed a very high roller coaster. The faces are a bit mixed. The girl looks okay, but the boy looks like he's in his fifties. Like for a child he has a very wrinkly forehead. You could chalk it up to the velocity of the roller coaster, but still, it stands way out. It lacks the pure comedy of the stoned cat from Don't Look Down, but in selling a story about a roller coaster, it does the trick.
Annie Blake wakes up to strange noises coming from her brother Stu's room. Stu is fifteen and Annie describes him as being rather pimply and nerdy looking. She's twelve and a girl, which being a girl is bad apparently. One shouldn't inherently place trans coding in something, but that line sure does it. Annie sneaks in Stu's room, only to get scared by him leaving the closet dressed in all black. See, there's a reason aside from a quick scare to be scared of someone in all black attire as Alston, Baltimore is home to the Alston Manor, the fun nickname everyone gives the nearby prison, which is also conveniently close to Playland, the local theme park. Stu tries to keep Annie from blabbing to their mom about his plan to sneak out and hang with some other kids, including Dave Blackstone, the son of Harvey Blackstone, the owner of Playland and the coolest kid in the middle school. We also learn that Annie is afraid of Playland, but it's still chapter two and we're not getting a concrete answer for a while.
Despite her best attempts, Annie is unable to get Stu to agree to take her with him, since he doesn't want his kid sister tagging along with him. She decides to sneak out anyway and follow him, but forgets her keys inside. Hey, you can tell this isn't a complete Goosebumps knockoff, the people in this book remember locks exist. She catches up to Stu who is pissed that she's following, but tough shit, he doesn't really have a choice now. They go through Hilltop Village, which sounds like a Sonic zone, and Annie notes something called the "Model House", which is a fully built house that's only there to show people how houses should be built. Wait, what? They sneak past the Model House and the nearby guardhouse, and Annie almost gets hit by a car entering the Model House. only for Annie to get her nightdress caught on the crossbar of the guardhouse causing her to be lifted up ten feet in the air. And then she falls!... like a foot to the ground because the bar lowers. Yeah, like the last one of these we did, every chapter ends with stingers like this. Stine would be proud.
After almost being caught via crossbar, Annie thinks it's best to go home, but Stu is still going on, especially since going home would mean passing the guardhouse again and we already had that harrowing incident. Annie notes that Stu is kind of a wild kid, who is already trying to be a bad boy. He even smoked once. They head through the woods with Annie finding an Arnold Palmer golf ball which I'm sure will totally not play an important part to the story later. They continue their journey as Stu tells them they're going to Playland, which bothers Annie. We learn why, as despite the fact that it's next to the prison, it also has a very scary roller coaster called the Serpent, which Annie is too afraid to ride, to the point that she chickened out of riding the coaster with her friends, which got her teased. But despite her issues with Playland, she's in too deep to go back now. Dave's parents are gone, and the keys to Playland are at Dave's house. Stu and Annie will go there, and Dave's brother Hal will drive them to the park where they'll have free reign of the place. The perfect crime. He also tells her not to speak at all to them during the whole night, one of three favors that Annie promised to him for her to keep going. Speaking of crime, as they arrive at Dave's house, a cop shows up, handcuffs them together and ARRESTS THEM-oh, wait, it's just Hal pulling a prank. This book has more stingers than a beehive.
After the prank, they meet with Dave, who is described as muscular and good looking, which Annie says that he's so handsome she wishes she could be him. But she also kind of wants to be Cassandra, who Annie seems to full on ogle at, more so than even at Dave. This is the most queer-coded character we've gotten in a while, which is wild for a 1996 book. They're not happy that Annie tagged along, but Dave says that he didn't ask for her to do so, which bothers Annie. Also despite having the keys to the cuffs, Dave and Hal decide that Annie and Stu will stay cuffed all night. They all begin to head out, but Annie wants to go home instead, but since Stu is determined to go to Playland, and, you know, no way to get back without being caught, she's forced to go with them. Hal drives like a maniac, past the speed limit and almost crashes into a tree and other vehicles. They get stopped by the cops... who then just leave because Hal's wearing the cop costume he used to prank Stu and Annie earlier. Because I guess it's that easy? They make it to Alton Manner and tell Stu and Annie that they have to go through there firs-no, wait, that's another joke. Great company you keep, Stuart.
They arrive at Playland with Hal leaving them there to have their fill of the place. Dave notices something's up though. The gates are already opened, as if the guard forgot to close them. Dave throws some raw hamburger for the Dobermans which BITE ANNIE IN THE LE-It's Cassie grabbing her leg to scare her. But there are Dobermans and he was joking about the gates being left open, because with like half a book left, it's now pretty clear that these kids suck eggs. But despite that, things actually take a turn for the better. Annie has fun at the park with the others and Dave has control of everything from the rides to the sideshow games to the concessions. The Dobermans show up for real and almost attack the kids, but Dave lures them to the raw hamburger which fixes that issue. Stu is done with all of this, but also still wanting to be a part of the group, so he doesn't fully relent. Dave says that for them to prove their worth, they have to ride the Serpent. Stu tries to keep Annie from going with him, but she opts to do so. Given they're cuffed anyway it's not like she has much of a choice.
They arrive at the coaster and check the rules, which includes keeping your seatbelt on and filling the middle first for balance, and also having to empty your pockets before getting on, and Annie forgets about the whole golf ball thing from earlier, so she thinks she's okay. Stu and Annie get on and the coaster zips and loop-de-loops. It's a thrilling ride. However, stuff falls from Annie's pocket and something causes the ride to shut down, which leaves the kids stuck high in the air, upside down on the coaster. Also they can see Dave and Cassie running off into Hal's car. They see a cop in the park, which is their only hope in getting down, so they begin to throw their shoes off. No luck. But Annie still has the golf ball, which she throws at the cop and hits him... which also knocks out the cop. Okay that was actually a funny bit, good work book. Since they can't stay upside down because they'll surely die, Stu says they should unbuckle their belts and work their way to the front coaster in hopes it'll shift balance and move forward. They almost make it, but Annie falls... into the coaster which managed to move in time. They run into the cops who take them home while they also see that Dave and company were caught. Book done... right? Oh wait there's still about 10 pages and we didn't pay off the whole prison thing.
Stu and Annie get in deep shit with their mom for everything that happened. But both respect each other more and Annie feels she's gotten braver from the experience. Also Dave, Hal and Cassie may be suspended or arrested or something. Also there's news of an escaped convict from Alston Manor, a man named Joe Dodge. Annie decides that now that she's grown a rebellious streak that she'll sneak out at night and heads to the Model House, where she gets caught by the guard again. But as she's kicked out, she notices something odd about the Model House. It's filled with decorations from Halloween, including cardboard cutouts. But she notices there's one too many cardboard cutouts. Sure enough, it's Joe Dodge, as he was in the car entering the house from earlier. And the security guard there was an accomplice. She calls the cops and returns home, pretending to be shocked when the news comes out.
Annie is an interesting protagonist. Interesting in how she looks at herself. This hatred of being a kid, and more interestingly, of being a girl. That and how she seemed really interested in Cassie and for a minute briefly wanting to be Dave. I said that it does feel weirdly queer coded, or at the very least dysphoric. I don't know if that was Eric Weiner's intent, but it definitely reads like that. Stu is fine as the secondary. A case of the kid wanting to fit in with the cool kids, so much so that he'll put his own life in danger to be looked at as cool. Dave, Cassie and Hal work as our villains. A trio of shitty kids who clearly don't care that much about Stu, and more about putting him and Annie through a lot of torment to either scare them off, or get them in trouble. So the trio at least getting in trouble at the end is satisfying, but also it feels like they got off way too easy.
So overall, this was an okay book like I said. The last Cliffhangers book I felt was more thrilling throughout and as bad as it was with the chapter stingers, this one was much, much worse. I think that's the worst lesson most people took from Goosebumps' success. The overreliance on chapter stingers with no satisfying payoff. Just one "Gotcha" after another. If the book's second half had, maybe, started relying less on the stingers to build to actual big action moments, then I think the book would have been far better for it. That and the pacing is rushed. So rushed that the book literally has to fill an extra ten pages with an added beat that really isn't that exciting. Which for a book built on the concept of being high excitement, feels a bit too counterproductive. Still, it's a light recommend. Thrill Ride! gets a C+.
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