Ahh, I do love returning to Fear Street. A place that I still say is the inspiration for the Hellmouth on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "The Second Evil" I found to be too short and also it doesn't give you a chance to mourn any characters that we lose. Of course the ending leaves open another book (which I am so reading).

"The Second Evil" follows some months after the events in the first book. Corky is left mourning her sister Bobbi who was murdered. She's left the cheerleading squad and is now dating Chip. Yeah that Chip. Chip who has gone from dating another member of the squad (Kimberly) and then Bobbi and now Corki. I was not a fan of Chip. When Corky starts seeing things and one of the squad keeps intoning the evil has returned, she starts to worry that what they all did a few months ago didn't vanquish the evil for good. And she's right to worry.

Corky is definitely a MC you can root for. I do miss Bobbi, but Corky has more of an investigative spirit I thought. She starts trying to run down leads with Chip and then some of the girls on the squad. I have to say though there's not much development of anyone else really in this one besides us getting more information on Sara Fear. I definitely loved the more information on the Fear family and wanted to know even more about them. When I was a pre-teen and later teen reading these books I would get so freaked out about the whole idea behind Fear Street. A few blocks down from my home was a cemetery that sat besides the railroad tracks. We would go down there during the summer and picnic and play touch football or tag, but we were always taught to be respectful of the graves and people visiting. In the daylight there was never anything that was too scary about the place, but as soon as dusk came around 7, 8, or 9 (depending on the time of year) the place felt lonesome and you felt like someone was out there wanting to touch you. Stine at times makes me recall how I felt the first time as a pre-teen reading this (I was 12 when this book was published) and that alone was enough for me to give this 4 stars.

The writing was solid, but there's not a lot of scares (at least for me) in this one. We do get some gruesome scenes here and there, but Stine quickly moves along as if he is afraid of freaking out his readers. The flow is a bit stop and start in a few places too, but since this is a fairly short book (180 pages) it doesn't hamper things.

The setting of Shadyside and Fear Street still resonate with me and I so wish that Netflix or someone else would consider picking up this series. You can easily update these books and I think would be a fun horror series to sink your teeth into.

Oh Fear Street, how I have missed you. I think next year for Halloween bingo I may just read nothing but Fear Street books for squares. This is the first book in Stine's Fear Street Cheerleaders series. There are five books. As a teen I loved this whole series and couldn't wait for all of the installments. Fear Street and Shadyside High sounded like such dark and scary places and I always cracked up when something would happen and the police would just be all, well "Fear Street." This book definitely has a lot of girl get some sense moments, and there is actually not one, but two deaths. Stine never does shy away from killing off characters in a gruesome way. What was surprising is how we follow one main character and then it switches to another who will remain the lead for the rest of the series.

"First Evil" follows sisters Bobbi and Corky Corcoran. Both girls were very good cheerleaders back in their hometown and even were part of a team that went to state and appeared on ESPN. Seriously this gets mentioned a lot and I loved it. However, not everyone wants Bobbi and Corky to join the Shadyside cheerleading squad. When an accident leaves the former head cheerleader unable to walk again, Bobbi is named the new head cheerleader which causes a lot of resentment towards her. And then accidents start happening and Bobbi wonders if someone or something is stalking her.

So I loved Bobbi. She really wants to just be a cheerleader and make friends. She does make some dumb mistakes though. And at one point when she seems to throw herself into "dating" one of the local football players who has ties to another cheerleader I just shook my head. Bobbi and Corki though don't share a lot of scenes together though after a certain point which I thought was a mistake. Bobbi does try to go to Corki to talk to her about what she has seen and what she thinks is happening to her, but her sister doesn't believe her.

Corki is treated as a secondary character through the majority of the sister, until she is not and then we get to see more of her personality. We also follow former head cheerleader Jennifer and current cheerleader and queen of resentment Kimmy. Stine perfectly captures teen girls and how quickly they can turn on one another.

The writing is good, short and to the point at times. Stine definitely makes you scared about what is going on with Bobbi and also Fear Street in general. Also how does anyone live on Fear Street at this point? It's like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and everyone realized how weird their town was and never brought it up really. 

The ending was really good and I just maybe laughed at someone just going Fear Street and people stopped investigating what really happened. This is the first in a five book series, so think that Stine did a great job of making you care about the characters you read about and what happens next. 

 I remember just devouring these books as a teen. Should do another re-read some time.

Um. If I saw a girl who supposedly could not walk twirling around a graveyard at night I wouldn't just hang around. Just saying.

"Corky might have been more sympathetic. She might have been more understanding. More caring. More believing. But Corky had no way of knowing that this was the last night she would ever spend with her sister."