Review: The Rich Girl (Fear Street #44) by R.L. Stine

Title: The Rich Girl

Series: Fear Street #44

Author: R.L. Stine

Genre: YA, horror, mystery thriller

Publication date: April 1997

Published by: Archway Paperback

Source: Purchased paperback

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Synopsis: Emma and her best friend Sydney always share their secrets. And now they have a big one: They found a duffel bag filled with cash and swore never to tell anyone. But Sydney broke her promise—she told her boyfriend, Jason.

Now Emma is terrified. She doesn't trust Jason. She knows he would do anything to get the money for himself.

Even if it means killing someone who gets in his way...

My rating: ★★★★☆

Sydney and her friend Emma find a bag filled to the brim with cash inside a dumpster. Our main character, Sydney, is pretty well off, money-wise. However, her parents don't want her to be a spoiled little brat (looking at you, Reva. Lol), so they had her get a job. And you know what? Sydney doesn't even mind working, which I like. This is how she finds the bag. She was at work taking out the trash when suddenly she saw this bag of money. Being the good person that she is, Sydney wants to turn the money into the police.

Her friend Emma, on the other hand, is quite poor and is in need of money for her mom’s operation. So when Sydney brings up the idea of turning the money in, Emma is like NOPE. I get it, I really do. But nothing good could ever come of this. Especially in a Fear Street novel. Lol.

Anyway, the promise not to breathe a word of this to anyone and decide to hide away the money for a while. If no one claims it, then they keep it. Sydney, however, let it slip to her boyfriend Jason that they found this money. And the reason why she even tells him in the first place is because he was being suspicious and getting all jealous, thinking she was sneaking around behind his back 🙄 She wasn’t, of course. She was just out hiding some money. Lol. but she’s never given him a reason to be suspicious before, and just the way he treated her in this scene... I didn’t like it. I didn’t like him! Especially because I suspected he was only with her because of her money. Ugh.

The money then goes missing from the hiding place and Sydney doesn’t know what to think. The only other two people that know about the money are her best friend and her boyfriend. And then things get crazy.

The only thing I know for sure, she thought, is that everything has gone wrong.
Horribly wrong.

At the site where they buried the money, a fight breaks out between Emma and Jason, accusing each other of stealing the money, and then Emma freaking kills Jason! It was an accident, but still! HOWEVER, this was all fake and planned between these two because THEY WERE SNEAKING AROUND BEHIND SYDNEY’S BACK! What. The. Fuck. Also, Emma is the WORST! Seriously? All this over money? I did suspect that Emma was gaslighting Sydney this whole time, but still. It is SO messed up!

Oh, but the craziness doesn’t stop there. After everything that happened, we think Jason and Emma get away with the cash, but NOPE! It turns out that these $50 bills were FAKE. They literally said UNTIED States of America and it had Benjamin Franklin with a backwards baseball cap! 🤣 Oh my... they’re idiots. I mean, I guess you could argue that it was dark in the alley when they first found the money... but come on! What about when they dug up the money at one point, just to make sure it was still there?? Oh, they’re so dumb 😂

I really liked these twists, but I really wanted more from the ending. Maybe something deadly with a kill or something? This was just insane, but I really enjoyed it!

The Fear Street connection: They hid their money in the Fear Street woods.

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! 😊