Review: Beach Party by R.L. Stine

Title: Beach Party

Series: Point Horror

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller

Publication date: August 1990

Published by: Scholastic

Source: Own paperback

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Synopsis:

It's the ultimate beach party in California. And Karen, who's just broken up with her boyfriend, is going to enjoy every minute of it—especially having two new guys who like her. But the party takes a nasty turn when Karen realizes someone is out to spoil the fun by getting rid of her.

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Karen’s friend Anne-Marie comes to visit her for summer break after having moved across the country a little while ago. They’re staying at Karen’s dad’s beach side apartment by themselves, and it should be nothing but fun and beach parties. And it starts out like that. Karen meets these two guys and she is having a blast. And then strange things start happening. Someone keeps threatening Karen to stay away from one of the guys, but are they serious enough to kill?

One thing that surprised me about this book was that it was pretty funny! Other R.L. Stine books I’ve read are also funny, but definitely not as much as this one! And I liked it! Fun fact: R.L. Stine actually started out writing joke books!

“How is your little brother?” Karen asked laughing.
“Compared to what?” Anne-Marie joked. “Compared to Freddy Krueger, he’s okay, I guess.”

The jokes were dumb and I loved it! Also, A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of my favorite horror movies, so the mention was pretty cool.

As for the guys that Karen meet, I liked Jerry. He was very sweet and cute. But he already had a girlfriend and these two were totally flirting it up, and sometimes even in front of said girlfriend! Ugh. Speaking of, I did not like Renne at all. She was very mean to Jerry, borderline abusive! Why in the world he was even still with her, I have no idea.

And the other guy Vince? Well, he’s supposedly a dangerous bad boy, and Karen is totally into it... but not? There were many times, and I mean many, that Karen mentions being attracted this danger, but also simultaneously scared of him. It was frustrating and it made zero sense! She’s an idiot!

“All of that shyness, that bitterness, the quiet anger—it was kind of sexy.”

Her words not mine. But then immediately after:

“Karen, are you losing it totally? she scolded herself. How can you be attracted to a guy like that?”

Exactly! She even admits it! She keeps saying how different and interesting he is, but that does not mean he’s a nice guy! Ugh. Also, wtf is up with these mood swings?

Anyway, the point is he’s not appealing. And Karen thinks some of it might be an act, and I agree! I wish he would’ve dropped it cause I was not a fan. He was just a weird guy. His actions I didn’t understand either. It felt like he was just trying very hard to keep up his bad boy persona. Lame.

I also did not see the point to this, well, pointless love triangle! It was so dumb! This guy, Vince, actually disappears from the book, around the middle, and not in the suspicious kind of way. There really was no point to this character really.

And Karen was no better either. Some of Karen’s actions were very spontaneous and confusing. Where do these things even come from? Wtf? She was just unnecessarily mean sometimes, to her ex-boyfriend Mike, and even Jerry!

One thing I always love about R.L. Stine’s books though is the descriptions of dead bodies. They are gory as fuck and I loved it! There was also this dream with Karen that was full of body horror and just... holy shit! It was horrifying stuff!

The plot twist where we find out that Jerry caused the death of his brother Todd and then he went insane because of it, now subconsciously adopting the persona of his brother sometimes... well, I was was sort of hoping that the ghost of Todd was possessing Jerry to get his revenge. That would’ve been so cool! But I don't think it was that. Poor Jerry, I really liked him and felt bad for the guy.

Overall, the book was... fine. I liked the gory descriptions and overall creepiness of the book. I also liked the setting but was not the biggest fan of the characters. Karen was dumb and frustrating and Vince was just awful. The mystery itself was okay and the plot twist was pretty good, though my theory on it was better than reality. Lol. Also, what’s up with the abrupt ending? That’s it?

(Abrupt review ending to go with the abrupt ending of the book. Lol)

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! :)