Welcome to The Real World According To Sam! Today we continue the month long of Spooky reads by wrapping up a trilogy I started reviewing the first Friday of October. Let's finish discussing the Fear Street Saga.
Fear Street Saga #3: The Burning
Author: R. L. Stine
Genre: YA Horror
Year: 1993
Genre: YA Horror
Year: 1993
Synopsis:
The end...and the beginning.
Simon Fear thought changing his name would stop the evil. He was wrong -- dead wrong.
After generations of unspeakable horror, it is up to Daniel and Nora, brought together by their fateful love, to unite the feuding families. But is their forbidden love strong enough to withstand such awesome evil?
Poor Nora -- desperate to tell the truth and bury the family curse...before it buries her.
Review:
The Burning is the final book of the Fear Street Saga trilogy. We have seen how the feud between the Goode family and the Fier family started. We have seen how each family's decisions have been influenced by the past and how they have compounded to reach this point. Now we will see what the Fier family has to do with Fear Street. This story is really an origin story to the rest of the Fear Street series, because it creates the history of Fear Street and why strange things seem to continually happen there.
This book opens the same way as the last two did...with Nora Goode narrating. After short narration, we are thrown back to 1845 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Why? Because that is where we find Simon. Simon thought that if he changed his last name from Fier to Fear, he wouldn't have to worry about the family curse anymore. When do simple fixes like this ever work though? This is the same Simon from the previous book, but now he is grown up. The first part of the story focuses on Simon's longing for Angelica and his attempts at courting her. After this section, we jump to 1865 to see what happened with them and we get to meet Hannah and Julia, who are sisters that will also face unfortunate circumstances. Then we jump ahead again to 1900, where we finally find out how Nora fits into this story.
The first part of the story in 1845 was pretty interesting and it came with a crazy twist I didn't predict at all. The second part in 1865 was neat, although I enjoyed the first part better. The last part with Nora and Daniel brought things full circle with the previous books, since Nora was featured in every book. Nora has been the person writing down the history of the curse, and she is also directly impacted by it.
This is one of the strongest books in the trilogy, although it feels like things have changed up from book two to book three. Simon's personality is very quickly changed from what it was. The reasoning is present, but it also an abrupt change. It is a bit plot-convenient, and seems to just serve as a means to keep the curse going for a final 50 or so years. The course of the story does make sense and it is interesting to see all the connections finally laid out.
This trilogy is alright. It's light fun and hits the kinds of tones I wanted to have around Halloween. It's a pretty quick read and it provides more Fear Street fun, but it isn't a set of deep or elaborate novels. These are all very breezy historical fiction stories that are family and plot-based, not character based. Some characters are more developed than others, and some don't have much to them at all. The fun in this series is seeing just how messed up the lives become for each of these families. I give The Burning a Lone Star rating of ✯✯✯. It is fun, but it isn't going to be deeply satisfying. It isn't a trilogy I feel like I would want to read every Halloween. Once is enough and now I'm ready to keep exploring the other Fear Street books. This is an interesting add-on, but I wouldn't call it a must-read. This isn't a series that has to be read to enjoy the Fear Street books. It is really just a bonus if you're interested in it.
This concludes another review here at The Real World According To Sam, where I bring the books straight to your screen and even provide my own two cents about them. See you tomorrow!
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