You know what's great and so full of childhood memories? Reading a book by R.L. Stine. Whether you were a fan of Goosebumps and/or Fear Street, you know you can't go wrong with a cheesy R.L. Stine horror book, so that's what we decided to discuss in our very last episode of 2020, The New Year's Party by R.L. Stine. This book was perfect for our book club theme for the month, Holiday Escape: Escape into your favorite book, holiday themed or not. Now, while The New Year's Party might not be your *actual* favorite, you can't deny that you love R.L. Stine books, plus this one is about a holiday that is coming up, therefore, it's perfect.
The book starts out in 1965 at a New Year's Eve party where things don't go so well. A quiet boy is the butt of a joke and runs outside, angry and embarrassed. A girl comes out and tries to stop him from leaving (I mean, it was just a prank after all, not that big of a deal) and they end up getting into the boy's car and recklessly driving off in the snow. We all know how that will end, spoiler alert, but then we shift into present day, which is 1995. There's a group of friends who love playing practical jokes on each other. Sometimes they're funny and sometimes they're dangerous. New students arrive at their school and get in the middle of their pranking and one of them DIES and then his body DISAPPEARS. But that's not the end. There are more deaths, murders even, and then there's another New Year's Eve party which also involves murder and death. It's a Fear Street novel... what do you expect?
We had SO MUCH FUN discussing this one, and you can definitely tell if you listen to our episode. As this is a Fear Street novel, every chapter ends in a cliffhanger and we enjoyed shouting that out at every possible moment in the episode. So many cliffhangers! But seriously, we really enjoyed discussing a book from this classic teenage series. Here's an image from the episode where we were probably shouting about a cliffhanger:
Thanks so much for sticking around for another year of Fictional Hangover! We're of course back next week with a new monthly theme (Wash, Rinse, Repeat: Read a book or series already covered on the show and/or read your favorite book (because not everyone is on the podcast. Just us.)) where we'll be diving more deeply into The Selection by Kiera Cass, which you might recall if you're a lifetime listener, we covered in episode 2. If you're participating in our Book Club Challenge, what are you going to read? Join our Book Club group on Facebook and tell us all about it!
See you next year! (hyuck hyuck)
Amanda