Review: Call Waiting (Point Horror) by R.L. Stine

Title: Call Waiting

Series: Point Horror

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller

Publication date: February 1994

Published by: Scholastic

Source: Purchased paperback

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Synopsis: Someone wants to talk to Karen badly. Very badly. Someone who has something very special to say.

Someone is calling Karen to say they care. To tell her the plans they've made just for her. Someone wants to reach out. Touch her. Kill her.

Poor Karen. She's all alone this time.

And if Karen can't trace the killer caller...Karen's going to die.

My rating: ★☆☆☆☆

This book was... frustrating. We start right off with the main character’s brother doing some really dumb jokes that I hated. And then the main character herself, Karen, was absolutely unlikable. She threw tantrums, cried out of nowhere, had angry outbursts and threatened to kill the other girl all for a freaking guy. And her fixation on Ethan was SO unhealthy. But not only that, she also gaslit the guy and manipulated the hell out of him! It was such a toxic relationship that she didn’t even want him hanging out with his own friends! WTF! I felt bad for the guy, actually. And I don’t know if she was meant to be sympathetic because I am not about to be okay with this toxic person.

When I come across an awful character, I tend to always compare them to Reva Dalby (from Silent Night) because she’s an awful character I love to hate. She is a terrible person and she deserves every bad thing that happens to her. But Reva is supposed be mean and awful. We’re not supposed to like her. Karen though, I don’t know if we’re supposed to dislike her. The book is written like everything she does is okay, which it is absolutely NOT.

Oh and don’t get me started on her mother. YA parents tend to be not great usually, but this parent... wow. So, Karen has a date with Ethan, but just before they leave for the dance club, they all make an interesting discovery... and her mother let’s her go to the freaking dance club ANWAY! It was absolutely insane! Like, your daughter did a THING! Deal with it!

Basically, Karen had been receiving threatening phone calls... which were obviously being faked by her. They ONLY happened when she was on the phone with Ethan and we never got to see those actual conversations, so it was obvious. Well, on that night of the dance club date, Ethan and Karen’s brother Chris are talking about the threatening calls Karen had been getting. They’re both understandably worried. But then Ethan mentions the call waiting thing on the phone and Chris tells him that they don’t have the call waiting feature!! They then tell the mom what Karen has been doing. When Karen is confronted, she pretty much has a breakdown and is all aboard the hot mess express. And even after witnessing all of this and catching Karen in her lies, the mom STILL let’s her go out with Ethan! We’re never inside Ethan’s head so we don’t really know what he’s thinking, but I presume he is only going along with all this insanity because he’s afraid for his life. The poor guy! 😩 And the mom doesn’t give a single fuck about this OR the mental health of her daughter! 😠

So yeah. I hated that. It was dumb, there were a bunch of fakouts, and that ending was just... no good. I love R.L. Stine and the 90s vibes of his books, but this one was not for me 😬

 
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! 😊