Well, at long last we've made it. The final Point book from R.L. Stine that I haven't covered for the blog. Yes, I know he did a short story for Thirteen, which I haven't covered, but in terms of a long-form, Stine only book, this is our last one. And hoo boy, it's been a rocky road for Stine and Point. Some of his highs and a ton of his lows. But this book at least on paper could be okay. I give the man too much undeserved praise. He's posting AI slop on Instagram, he absolutely doesn't deserve that praise. But there's only one way to find out if praise is deserved. Let's get talking about The Dead Girlfriend.
This cover is pretty good. I think it would have definitely creeped me out as a kid. You have our titular Dead Girlfriend, and she seems at least partially dead. That or she's wearing like a really freaky half-skull mask. The shadows work as well to add this creepy otherworldly vibe to her. As is the white veil behind her that gives this creepy glow to her. It's all great stuff, much like most of the Point Stine covers. That's usually a bad sign though, but we'll see...
Annie Kiernan starts the book by noting that she should have avoided Jonathan Morgan from the start, but couldn't because we wouldn't have a book, would we? It all started when Annie was riding her brother's bike around Shocklin Falls, her new home as her family just moved there. She admires the beautiful scenery before making it to the falls and spotting Jonathan, who she says looks like Luke Perry with a James Dean haircut, in case you needed reminding that this book was released in 1993. She then watches as it looks like he's about to jump over the falls, but he actually wasn't going to do that at all. They talk for a bit and it turns out Jonathan's an avid bike rider as well. He also invites her to a party to meet his friends, including his best friend, dorky wildman Caleb Dorsey. Annie heads back to Kenny's bike, only to find both tires torn to shreds, despite nobody being around to interrupt them with their loud tire slashing.
Jonathan and Annie head back to town with Kenny's busted bike, all while Annie notices that Jonathan is acting strange all of a sudden. Angry, sort of lost in his thoughts. It doesn't help when they run into Ruby Bonds, one of Jonathan's friends, who tells Annie that Jonathan is dangerous before leaving because we have 160+ pages to get any concrete answer to that. They make it to Annie's house and Jonathan makes his leave, with Annie noticing Ruby near the bushes, leaving with Jonathan on their bikes. Was Stine big into bike riding in 93? This book sure feels like an ad for it. Maybe he moved on from his ambitions for a Taurus and decided biking would be more fun? Annie heads to Caleb's for his Friday night parties and we learn that Caleb has stringy brown hair, crushes cans on his head and seems to be more of a goof, which is a definite opposite to Jonathan. Caleb also tells Annie that Jonathan's an animal, to which this escalates to Jonathan saying Caleb's a vegetable, Caleb calling Jonathan a sponge, and Jonathan having a decent comeback in saying Caleb is the stuff the sponge cleans up. The most "I'm not a chicken you're a turkey" dialogue I've ever read in a Stine book.
We're also introduced to Dawn Pedderson. She talks with Annie for a bit, noting she's the on again off again girlfriend of Caleb. She also tells Annie to be careful around Jonathan, that he's been through a bad time recently, but Caleb takes Annie away as the group are going to the batting cages at Sportsworld. Jonathan drives the group there, while driving very erratically in a "I'm probably not the actual villain of the story, but I'm still damn creepy" way. At the batting cages, Caleb acts like an ass and climbs up the cage. He dares Jonathan to climb up, before calling him the most dreaded name ever, Chicken Face. Then he slips and falls off the cage. Thankfully it's just a batting cage and not Hell in a Cell. And there's my wrestling reference for the blog. Turns out he does this all the time. They drive home with some other kids noting that Caleb's been arrested plenty of times. Annie returns home and someone leaps at her! That someone being Goggles, her cat. A pet in a Stine book, YOU KNOW WHAT'S GONNA HAPPEN!
The next day at school, Dawn is again about to tell Annie about Jonathan. About something horrible that happened to Jonathan at the falls. However they're interrupted by Ruby, then Jonathan. After that, Dawn takes Annie to the halls and shows her a picture of a girl named Louisa Powell, who died not too long ago in 1993. She was Jonathan's girlfriend. But before we can get any more answers, the bell rings and the girls go to class. Thankfully we don't drag this much further as we get more from Dawn. A while back, Jonathan and Louisa were a couple. Until one day when Louisa and her bike went over the falls. Jonathan claims that he had spotted someone and left Louisa for a few minutes, but when he came back, she had gone over. The police ruled it a suicide, mainly because Jonathan has rich (and white) parents to drop the case. So while nobody has outright blamed Jonathan for it, it's also why everyone has been warning Annie about him. That he had a fight with Louisa that night, and that his car was parked in Ruby's driveway later. After Dawn leaves, another boy, Ryan Baker, shows up. He says that Louisa was his friend and she definitely didn't kill herself. He then asks Annie out for Saturday, which yeah, that's awkward as fuck. She heads to the computer room to work on her homework, complete with computer disks because, again, 1993. Suddenly, the screen goes blank and all of her work is erased. But on the bottom of the file is a message saying to stay away from Jonathan, it could save her life.
Freaked out, Annie leaves the computer room and runs into Dawn and Jonathan. Jonathan notes that maybe her work got erased by the crappy Apple computers they have at the school. They should really get the new Macs. Jonathan and Annie kiss, while Annie notices Ruby not too far away. She calls Jonathan's house that night, only to get his mother confusing her for Ruby who Jonathan went to meet. Then the phone rings with our old friend whispery voice on the other line, saying computers don't lie and to stay away from Jonathan. She talks with Dawn about it, and thinks it might be Ruby, but Dawn says that Ruby wouldn't be capable of something like that. But when Annie mentions Jonathan potentially dating Ruby, she stalls before she leaves for her electrical engineering class, which is definitely an out there class for a Stine book. I guess it's better than another swim team. Annie goes out on a bike ride with Jonathan with her rented bike, and it goes well. That is, until Jonathan suggests going to the falls. They pick up Caleb, who is freaked out that Jonathan wants to go back to the falls. He's also an idiot who drives on the wrong side of the road and almost gets hit by a truck.
They make it to the falls and Jonathan stares down at them for a while. Caleb tries to snap him out of it, but Jonathan notes that it can take a second for someone to die. As they try to lighten the mood, they spot Ruby grabbing Annie's bike handlebars, but she just says she was admiring it. Dawn shows up and says that she needs to lose some weight. Bob, much like Caleb, you should STAYINYOURFUCKINGLANE! Annie blames Ruby for the slashed tires, but Ruby says she didn't do it. In the midst of their conversation, they notice that Jonathan is missing. That's because he WENT OVER THE FALL-Oh, wait, there he is at the trail on his bike, driving away. Caleb is pissed that Jonathan went back to the falls so soon and blames Annie for it as they all drive off. We get the cover art represented in a nightmare as Annie sees Louisa at the falls, but her face is replaced by a skull. Annie is dressed in black, calling herself Jonathan's new girlfriend, her new dead girlfriend, and stands on the falls edge as someone is about to shove her. She's awakened by Jonathan on the phone who apologizes for just leaving so abruptly.
After talking with Dawn about how wild Caleb's becoming, Annie goes riding on her bike again, only to be chased by someone. That someone is Ryan who reminds Annie that he was Louisa's best friend, then he tries to make out with her, which if he's the villain I hope he dies then. Annie rides off with Ryan again warning her about Jonathan. She goes to the computer room to work on her term paper, however when she touches the keyboard, she gets badly electrocuted. It makes her again suspect Ruby, so that confirms she's not the villain. Annie attacks Ruby, but Ruby claims she doesn't know what Annie's talking about. Annie then sees Louisa's ghost! No, wait, this is Danielle Powell, Louisa's older sister that looks exactly like her. They talk for a bit, with Danielle noting that Ruby was there the night of Louisa's death. That night, another whispery call to stay away from Jonathan. She then gets another call from Dawn who notes that Ruby's only taken the electrical class for two weeks and wouldn't know how to rig a keyboard to electrocute someone. She does note that Ruby was interested in Jonathan, but it wasn't reciprocated.
Annie then has her birthday party which involves a spaghetti dinner, which feels really odd. Good old delicious birthday spaghetti. Jonathan kisses Annie and again Ruby looks on with a dark look on her face. Annie and her mom clean up the spaghetti mess when they notice a pot is still boiling. And inside is the remains of Goggles the cat. Really? He really set up a birthday spaghetti dinner because he thought a cat being boiled alive was a great scare? See this is why you don't invite Alf to your parties. She goes up to the falls again with Jonathan, who starts to freak out saying that he killed Louisa. He hated her so much that he killed her. Not physically, but his actions led to Louisa's death. Because Ruby did it actually. Ruby shows up right on time to say that's bullshit. Jonathan says that he and Louisa never got along, and on that night, he and Ruby were going to tell her the truth. He says that Ruby pushed her, but Ruby says that she talked with Louisa and that's it, then left with Caleb. The two start fighting with Ruby scratching Jonathan's face. She then lunges at him, but he avoids and she falls off the falls to her death. As Annie and Jonathan get their bearings, Dawn shows up and tries to blame Annie for pushing Ruby, before admitting she was the one who killed Louisa.
See, Dawn wanted Jonathan all along, not Caleb. She killed Louisa in hopes of being with Jonathan, but he never noticed her because she wasn't skinny like Louisa (god dammit, Bob). She was trying to scare Annie away, hence why she slashed the tires, tried to kill her with the computer and killed her cat. Dawn tackles Annie, and Annie goes over the falls. That is to say, she imagined it, because that doesn't happen and Jonathan subdues her. The cops arrive to take her away, and note that Ruby was the one who warned them. Yep, she survived the fall with only a few broken bones and managed to call the cops. The book ends with Annie and Jonathan driving home, noting that maybe some interesting things do happen in small towns like Shocklin Falls.
It makes sense that it's Dawn. She's the one pushing all of the exposition. The one who we learn about the electrical stuff with. She's always around when things go bad for Annie. Granted, there's some holes to all of this. Her heavy defending of Ruby, her whole "everyone will blame Annie for Ruby's death" stuff which would make more sense if Jonathan wasn't within earshot. It does feel like Dawn is a bit of an asspull in the end, or at least outing her as the villain when she was very likely bound to get away with it feels like the asspull. It does suck however that her entire motivation was jealousy over a boy and also remind the writer that she has body dysmorphia. Again, she feels like a villain that makes sense over the rest, but this is still a Stine book, and the path to getting her there and the inevitable reveal do scream of a need to give this book a finale where Stine didn't fully have that part laid out yet.
Annie's a decent protagonist. She falls into a lot of similar traps. Obsessed with a boy, caught in the middle of a mystery, gaslit into thinking one way about something, quick to blame someone else for the evil deeds of someone else. But she is likable and someone you do want to see have a happy ending. Jonathan is a character I like. Mainly in how Louisa's death has affected him. Blaming himself for the death of Louisa, while also blaming Ruby. You want to at least see him get closure. Ruby is a solid misdirect, though her constantly creeping around and popping up out of nowhere doesn't help her cause. Dawn is a decent villain but, again, not perfectly fleshed out. Caleb works as the comic relief and Ryan mostly exists to be creepy and give warnings, which honestly could have just been given to Caleb. It feels like Stine wanted to use him for a bigger role but couldn't make it work, so he ends up becoming the Superfluous Clay of the book. Danielle blinks in and out of this book so fast that I really don't get what Stine was thinking about other than to do a misdirect on anyone thinking this would be another evil sibling story.
So we end our Stine-focused Point content with a good book. Not great, it doesn't really do anything to buck the trend of other Stine works. But it has decent characters, a solid enough mystery (for Stine) and some okay misdirects. It feels like a story that Stine actually tried with and wanted to make work. Effort Stine is a weird beast, let me tell ya. So it's an easy enough recommend. Look after Call Waiting, even if this book was mid I'd still be praising it. The Dead Girlfriend gets an A-.
Def Leppard
Luke Perry Comparisons
James Dean Comparisons
Volvo
Betsey Johnson
Tarzan
The Gap
MTV
Computer Disks
Apple Computers
Macintosh Computers
The Y
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