Review: All-Night Party (Fear Street #43) by R.L. Stine

Title: All-Night Party

Series: Fear Street #43

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller

Publication date: March 1997

Published by: Archway Paperback

Source: Purchased paperback

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Synopsis: Planning an all-night birthday party for Cindy on Fear Island, Gretchen Davies anticipates dancing, love, and non-stop fun, until Cindy is murdered, and Gretchen realizes that one of her friends is the killer.

My rating: ★★★☆☆
Three friends plan a surprise birthday party for Cindy. On Fear Island 😑 It’s such a bad idea! Nothing good ever happens there! And this time it turns out there’s an escaped prisoner/killer on the loose there. All the kids are freaking out cause one of them gets murdered, now they’re wondering who the murderer will kill next 😬

I really liked the premise of this book. The mystery was okay, but the first person I suspected turned out to be the killer, so there’s that 🤷‍♀️

It was Patrick. There was NO escaped prisoner! That was all made up! I immediately suspected Patrick when he pulled out a real freaking gun to fake-kidnap Cindy. Dude! And then he spins this tale about how his cop dad gave it to him so he could protect himself because of the killer on Fear Island which NO ONE knows about. Supposedly his dad told him... Yeah right 🙄 BUT THEN there was all this obvious incriminating evidence against him in the cabin after Cindy was murdered and I was like, “Well, maybe I was wrong? This is way too obvious.” Patrick said himself that if he was the killer he wouldn’t have left clues all over the cabin that pointed to himself, which is true. But he DID do it! On purpose! He made it seem like it was glaringly obvious that someone was trying to frame him! It was pretty brilliant if I’m being honest. Oh, but his motive? Dumb AF. He liked Cindy, she didn’t, she teased him, boom dead. He also thought she had found out something bad about him, about his pyromaniac tendencies before he moved to Shadyside. She actually didn’t know anything. Check out this sad quote:

“She didn’t really know anything. Not anything at all. And do you know what I think? Do you know why Cindy teased Patrick so much? Because she liked him.”

Yikes. And that’s how the book ends. It’s pretty sad, tbh. It’s too bad Patrick was a total psychopath.

All that being said, I was very meh about the characters. Gretchen’s boyfriend Marco was the worst! I did not like him. And then when she broke up with him he was giving her a hard time and then she felt bad about it? Like it was somehow wrong of her to NOT like him. No girl, it’s fine if you don’t like him. Hot bod or not, you’re entitled to your own feelings. Oh, and then this Jackson character apparently liked Gretchen too but he was being a total creeper! WTF dude! Yeah, these guys? Not great.

Anyway, it wasn’t that bad. The set up for the killer had a double twist that was pretty cool. Plus I really liked the setting in a deserted cabin on Fear Island.

The Fear Street connection: Surprise, all-night part on Fear Island? Great idea! *insert eyeroll here*

Alternate cover:

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! 😊