Review: The Secret (The Fear Street Saga Trilogy #2) by R.L. Stine

Title: The Secret

Series: The Fear Street Saga Trilogy #2

Previous book in this series: The Betrayal

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller, historical

Publication date: September 1993

Published by: Archway Paperback

Source: Own paperback

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Synopsis:

Buried Evil

What is the secret of Fear Street?

Why has its horror lasted so long?

Ezra Fier wants to find out. He searches for the answer among the rotting bones in the ghostly town of Wickham. But he find only betrayal and death.

Elizabeth and Kate are in love with the same boy. How can they know that they too are caught by the evil that will haunt this family forever?

My rating: ★★★★★
And we continue on with Nora telling us the story about the Goodes and the Fears (aka Fiers).

The first story starts off with Ezra Fier, who has his own family now, as he continues to search for the Goodes to exact his revenge on them. Oh no, he has not forgotten how William Goode killed pretty much his entire family and drove his aunt Mary insane (see last book for more details 😉). He is now dragging his wife and kids around looking for the Goodes until they arrive at a pretty literal ghost town... where they find death instead...

So, I just gotta mention this because it was one of my favorite parts of the whole book: Jonathan’s little sister Abigail is lured to the cemetery by a little girl who turned out to be the ghost of a Goode! She was killed by this Goode ghost-child by being buried alive! It was insane! And so sad! And creepy. And it was all Ezra’s fault because he’s a fucking idiot... ugh!

I never liked Ezra. In the last book he was mostly just a kid, but he was such a brat—I seriously hated that kid. And he wasn’t much better as an adult either. I really liked his son Jonathan though! In this first story he was only 12 years old... and had more sense than a grown ass man. Ezra treated Jonathan so awful—he was just the worst!

In the second story we fast forward a couple of years. Jonathan and his family have moved on... not from the vengeance, just from the death town. Jonathan is now a teenager and his insane father tells little sister Rachel about the awful Goodes every single night as a twisted bedtime story. Seriously, what is wrong with him?! Then Jonathan meets a girl, Delilah, and basically starts courting her. But then things take another dark turn. They begin to be haunted.

And also, Jonathan’s mom hasn’t exactly been stable since Abigail died, but they start seeing and hearing things, thinking they may be haunted by Abigail. But actually, no. It was just Delilah messing with them wanting them to think they were being haunted. She basically murdered Jonathan’s mother by luring her down into the well thinking it was Abigail! It was insane! You see, Delilah was pretending to not be a Goode pretending to be a Goode... yeah, wtf. Basically, she introduces her as something other than a Goode, then confesses that she is a Goode after she is told the awful Fier/Goode story, but then it actually turns out she really wasn’t a Goode. She did all this because they think that in order to break the curse a Goode and a Fier must marry and Delilah wanted to take advantage of that because the Fiers are rich and she’s a poor peasant girl. Anyway, I didn’t really like this double twist of her actually NOT being a Goode. I liked the first twist. Everything else just seemed pointless.

Just, all tragedy and death all the time... A little Goode girl killed Abigail, Delilah accidentally killed Jonathan’s mother, Jonathan accidentally killed Delilah after wrestling away a rifle from Ezra when he thought Delilah was a Goode, and then Ezra dies too. Damn.

Again, I loved Jonathan in this story too! He wa just the most sane character, especially when it comes to the Fiers. Jonathan buries the Fier amulet and apparently that pauses the curse for 100 years. Jonathan is just the best! He didn’t want more vengeance and death. And it worked... for a while...

Until 100 years later when Elizabeth Fier finds a pretty amulet buried under a dead apple tree.

And then Franklin Goode appears. Seriously these guys take turns torturing each other. Lol. And now Franklin wants some revenge. More instalove, blah, blah, blah. Elizabeth is in love with Franklin, but her sister Kate is too. Sibling rivalry at its best... or worst. Depends how you look at it. Lol.

But here’s the thing, Franklin did this on purpose. He wanted the girls to fight. Then he killed Kate and the family thought it was Elizabeth who did it because she was being a jealous bitch. But then Simon Fier, her brother, saves the day... and then turns evil. Because of course he does.

This third story had a random old lady known as Old Aggie and,just—who the fuck is she? She knows an awful lot of about the Fier/Goode feud/curse. And she is never brought up again or mentioned... she was just a rando exposition lady, I guess. Lol.

And you may be wondering, the series is called Fear Street, so where are the Fears? Well, they changed their name.

I am no longer Simon Fier.
Now and forever I will be known as Simon FEAR.

Yeah, 'cause Fear is so much better than an anagram of fire.

I really enjoyed this book too! This trilogy is like reading one long story. It’s pretty cool. My favorite story in this book was the first story, but I also liked the third one with Elizabeth and Simon Fier and Franklin Goode. Just, so much craziness! And I love it!

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! :)