Stinetinglers - New Stories by R.L. Stine!
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group so kindly sent a physical ARC of this book for Horror Bound to review and I was the lucky receiver of it on our team. Thank you!
I am a lifelong fan of everything R.L. Stine. I have him to thank for getting me into horror as a child with the Goosebumps series (both books and the TV show), as well as Fear Street. The way he ended chapters on cliffhangers always had me turning the page and reading a little bit longer into the night. So many of the monsters from his stories formed the base for what would become my phobias (ventriloquist dummies) and interests (ghosts and vampires).
This new collection of stories has the same fun feeling to them that I have come to expect from R.L. Stine. They are great for the usual young audience. There is humor, a spook factor, and something unique to this book, which is a brief description of how Stine came up with the story before each one. A couple of the stories were reminiscent of some of the original Goosebumps tales, but they felt like revisiting an old friend from a different perspective. I also applaud R.L. Stine for making reference to modern technologies so that kids of today can identify with them a bit more.
The stories I found the most entertaining and rewarding were The Ghost in the Car and The Boy Who Heard Screams.
This was a pleasure and a breeze to read. As an adult, I love to find myself back in R.L. Stine's world and I don't think I'll ever outgrow it. Ensure you pick up a copy on August 30th, 2022!
