Point by Numbers: Sister Dearest

It's time to return to the world of Point Horror. It's been a while. Moreso that it's been a while since I've covered anything from Point that wasn't R.L. Stine related. Well, this time we're covering the works of one D.E. Athkins. Yeah, Deathkins. This is a pseudonym in case you couldn't tell. Namely that of one Nola Thacker, who is also Graveyard School's Tom B. Stone. Props to Thacker, she loves her some goofy names. We've got some family drama in this one. One that's just barely over 100 pages, making it easily the shortest Point that I've covered for the blog. So does that mean a good book that goes quick or one that's gonna leave us wanting more? The answer lies when we learn about Sister Dearest.

This is a very simple cover, but it does the trick. The fingers touching one another, the ring that easily signifies a younger girl in her teens, the trickling blood that forms into the title of the book. All good stuff. One could argue that a big issue with a lot of Point covers is that many of them are very basic. Lacking in a lot of the more exciting detail that could really entice a reader. But I feel when it's done well, a very simple cover can still be striking. And this one, while it won't be one you'll remember for a long time, is still enough to at least interest you into reading the book. Decent stuff.

Vicki Clements opens the story returning to her school of Amelia Aerhart High. Which I swear to god I didn't intend to time this book with a certain individual's latest distraction conspiracy theory. Her sister, popular girl and Delta member Alaina is concerned if Vicki will be good on her own, while Alaina's twin brother Alan just walks off. But Vicki promises she'll be all right. Vicki is wearing red high heels, which gets mentioned so much it feels like this book was written by a shoe fetishist. She then talks with her friend Janet Peretti, who notes that she's an only child, which I'm sure won't play into any swerve, when Vicki's former boyfriend Marty Harmon shows up, noting that she's back from the dead. Vicki mainly pays him no mind, noting that he's like a sleazy version of Rod Stewart. This is followed by Caddie Melville who isn't so pleased that Vickie survived whatever happened to her which we won't get an answer about because it's like the fourth page. She mainly is catty anyway and is after Marty, which Vicki is fine with. 

Janet then changes focus on the biggest thing going on. The new principal, Ms. Mary Sewell, who is a former nun. In fact, Mary Sewell is very serious. She says that she doesn't put the pal in principal nor the soup in superintendent. She also seems to focus in on Vicki in particular, giving her an icy stare. Later that night, Vicki gets a call by Dace Jordon, a boy she's madly in love with, who has a notebook she dropped, while mentioning her shoes again. At dinner, Vicki's parents, Ellen and Rutland, ask Vicki if things went well at school and if she wasn't tired. Her father is a criminal law attorney and also very strict, particularly with Vicki. He's even very happy about the new principal being a hardass to kids. Vicki, however, is more interested in what she'll wear when she sees Dace the next day, which don't worry, the red shoes are also going to be part of the ensemble. Vicki then has a nightmare where she looks down to her red shoes but instead of red shoes, her feet are covered in blood. 

The next morning, her issues with the color red continue as Vicki's father chastises her for not eating and looking so pale. Alan knocks over some tomato juice, which he doesn't clean up, because he's kind of a dick who is very "whatever" about things. But Vicki watches intently as the tomato juice oozes, and tells herself that she won't let herself get sick. At lunch at school, Vicki talks with Janet and a girl named Lolly Parsons about Dace. Dace, Lolly, Caddie, Rutland. This book feels rife with names that really don't exist much anymore so far. Janet tries to talk to Vicki about the accident, but Vicki doesn't want to talk about it. And we learn what happened. In Alan's 57 T'Bird, Vicki stood up like she was prom queen. Suddenly Alan swerved and Vicki went flying, and all she remembers after that was waking up in the hospital. She's annoyed that since then people act like she was going to die. That she's not as beautiful as her sister or as hot as her brother. Okay slow down there D.E. Incest. She doesn't care if people think she's not good enough, she'll show them. She then runs into Ms. Sewell again, who thinks that Vicki is goofing around and if she gets caught again she'll be suspended. Ah so she's Sister Mary Rod-up-the-butt. 

She then runs into Alaina, who had run into Dace, and gives her the notebook. But Vicki is frustrated, thinking she may have already lost Dace to her hot sister, and she wants to kill her, specifically pushing her down a flight of stairs for mentioning the accident again. Marty shows up and is a creep, which stops Vicki long enough to not want to commit murder. She also runs into Dace, who offers to take her to the movies. Mr. Clements is against it, feeling Vicki's overexerting herself after just recovering from her injury. But Alan is going on a date, and suggests doing a double date to make sure Dace is on the up and up, which is enough for Mr. Clements to be fine with it. Vicki hugs her father, but he kind of coldly backs off, which yeah, her issues with them being cold to her aren't really going away yet. But Alan actually ditches the two to let them have their date. It goes well, until later when Vicki begins to get this strange sensation as if she's being watched. They return home and Dace leaves, but Vicki hears strange laughter. However, neither her father, nor Alan who returns in time heard anything. 

Monday afternoon sees Janet catch Vicki smoking, which bothers her. She doesn't like Vicki not telling her anything, especially since they're blood sisters. When both of them were seven, they pricked their fingers and did a blood oath, making them blood sisters, which I guess gives us the book's cover. Caddie shows up and mocks the two before leaving, which changes the subject to Alaina's group the Deltas not accepting Caddie, who did not take the rejection well, and possibly accepting Janet, which might explain Caddie's bitchiness. After gym, Caddie rips into her some more, to which Vicki and Janet call her Moby Dick. Yeah, this book's going to do a lot of weight mocking. It's a 1991 book after all. Janet goes to her locker and gets dressed and then starts to panic. It turns out that someone put cockroaches into her shoes. Who it could be, nobody has a clue, but I just like to imagine the effort put in to get a bunch of roaches for the purposes of a horrible prank. She suspects Caddie who did it as a way to get back at Vicki for Alaina not letting her into the Deltas. But Janet realizes that she shares a locker with Vicki, so maybe the prank was intended for her. 

However, Vicki isn't convinced it was intended for Janet. After having a nightmare about drowning in blood, she's awakened by Alaina, who noticed her having a nightmare. Alan shows up to check, which seems to bother Alaina. Vicki begins to suspect something's up with Alan. His more distant attitude, his weirdness in general. Could the car accident have changed him for the worst? Still got half a book to answer that. The next day after school, Vicki kisses Dace, which gets her caught by Ms. Sewell who takes Vicki to the principal's office. After she leaves, Vicki again hears footsteps, and sees her red shoes with bloody, torn feet inside them. Alan catches up to her. She tells him about the shoes, to which Alan notes that the bloody feet thing sounds like a fetish. Oh good. The book's even calling itself out on it. But when Alan sees the shoes, there's hardly a bloody stump. So now Vicki thinks he must have planted the shoes to scare her, but really has no proof on that. She talks with Alaina who drops this little nugget on Vicki. Dace has a sister. One who has a split personality. She tried to stab Dace, but was institutionalized.

Marty later starts to threaten Vicki, which now makes her think he's involved. This is stopped again by Ms. Sewell who knows something is very wrong with Vicki. Dace asks Vicki to homecoming, which she accepts, while Janet manages to snag Alan for the dance. Speaking of which, Alan takes Vicki on a drive in the T'bird again, which goes fine this time. No standing and yeeting for Vicki. Vicki later gets a note that has a Little Bo Peep rhyme about her losing the shoes and coming home, dragging her feet behind her. Janet doesn't think much of it, even with Vicki panicking, given it's the second threat after the roaches, which Janet still thinks must have been for her. Vicki thinks it must have been Marty. He's been acting weird since she came back. He was also in the car with Janet, Lolly  Alaina and Alan the night of the accident. Maybe Marty is trying to finish the job that started that night. She confronts Marty who says he had nothing to do with it. She tells him to go and die, and it appears that he does as the next chapter opens with Caddie finding Marty, or that is to say, Marty's corpse! Well, not really. He's alive. Caddie snaps at Vicki and blames her for Marty's injury, which could have been Vicki's fault or it's all a case of bizarre irony.

The homecoming dance arrives and everyone that isn't Marty is there. It goes well, with Alaina being homecoming queen. Vicki then hears voices again and hopes in the T-bird to drive off. However, someone grabs her, ready to finish Vicki off. It's Alaina. Yeah, she's our big bad here. She sent the note, did the stuff with the shoes. She always felt like she was the sister Alaina could trust. But she saw the blood oath with Janet and felt she was being treated horribly. So when Vicki stood up in the car that night, it was Alaina who pushed her, sending her flying. Marty knew this and was eventually going to tell Vicki, so she tried to get rid of him before he could talk. Alaina says that she should have been the only sister and starts to strangle Vicki until Vicki fights back and knocks Alaina out of the car, sending her flying. Some time passes and we learn that Alaina is recovering, but has no memory of what went on that night. Dace reveals that he has a sister, but she's ten years older than him and doesn't have a split personality. They kiss, which angers Ms. Sewell, who wasn't actually a nun. She was a former drill sergeant. Well that explains some stuff.

This book is good. Not great, but it does have its good moments. It's very short, but does make up for it in word count, which does make the book feel longer than it really is. And because of that, it's a book that is paced all to hell, with the big reveal literally being down to the last few pages. Granted, that's a staple in these books, but it's also a case of a payoff not landing after a solid build. So rushed that it doesn't feel like it really lands a strong final beat. Alaina as the villain makes sense, but really only because the book adds in the blood oath, which doesn't feel like it plays into much other than being a plot device and motivating factor as to why Alaina hated Vicki so much. That her just hating that Alaina was born wouldn't be enough justification. So we add how important Vicki and Janet's friendship was and also point out a lot that Vicki wishes that she really was Janet's sister. There's also this weirdly incestuous vibe with Alaina, especially when it comes to Alan. Like that also feels like why she's angry that Vicki was born. Like not the most obvious, but enough weird obvert overtones to make it feel more noticeable. The book of course has to drag its red high heeled-feet to reveal this, and does the annoying trope of "character knows what's happening but never just up and blurts it out, then they're killed" which also feels like a last minute thing.

The mystery is predictable, but you can also easily buy that it could have been Janet. Again, going back to her being an only child and having the blood oath with Vicki. The book could have spun it to being Janet jealous about the life that Vicki has and have her be the one who pushed her, then tried to gaslight her by claiming the threats were directed at her, not Vicki. Caddie is too obvious, as is Marty, who is written to be too much of a creep for it to be the final choice. Alan is also too obvious, and his coldness could easily boil down to guilt over Vicki's accident and nothing else. Dace is never really considered as a threat and it does feel like the entire "crazy sister" thing was always bunk. But I'll admit, when this book was starting to pivot to "villain may have split personality" I was very concerned. Nah, I guess we can save that old shitty chestnut for R.L. Stine works more than the other writers for Point. 

Vicki is a decent protagonist. You understand her frustrations with her family, her anger that people keep bringing up the accident, and even her own murderous imagination. Granted, it may be our most "teenage angst" character I've covered for these blogs, but it does help to make her feel more multidimensional. Alaina does work as a villain, even if again it does feel rushed. Alan is a decent misdirect, as is Marty. Callie is fine as one as well, but also feels like she's just here so we can make shitty jokes about her size. Janet works in the best friend role, but you do feel like the book missed an opportunity to make the blood oath matter more than it does. Ms. Sewell is a character you think might matter, especially given how she seems to single out Vicki with her punishments, but nothing. Lolly is the Superfluous Clay of the book. Like she sure does exist in this book. 

So overall, this book was fine. It has some decent horror ideas with the bloody shoes and does have some really good tension in places, but also feels like it rushed itself to get to the finish line, even though with just 106 pages, it still feels sluggish in places. It's still worth a recommend. So this is our first D.E. Athkins book for the blog, and while it's fine, it does leave me hoping the next book I cover from her will be a far more interesting outcome. Only time will tell. Sister Dearest gets a B-.