ASK THE BONES

Like the previous book, these were on the list recommended for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

Ask the Bones and its sequel, More Bones, both are short anthologies of "scary stories from around the world."

Sound familiar?

Yeah, it's the same as Robert D. San Souci's Short and Shivery series and I believe several of the tales repeat from there. I don't have them in front of me to verify, but I've definitely read some of these before.

I zipped through Ask the Bones when I got it and honestly wasn't very impressed. The only story I really liked was "Ask the Bones" itself. The opening tale "The Haunted Forest" doesn't even finish. It's one of those "you decide" stories, which I hate, because a story's literal job is to tell me what happened. The other stories either just didn't stand out to me or had endings on the down side, which gets tiresome after a while.

More Bones arrived yesterday and once again, I read it quickly. These stories were far better than those in the first book and held my attention a lot more. "The Prince's Fate" from Egypt was the best, being something Egyptian I've actually never read. (Minor points off for the use of "hieroglyphics" though.) A lot of them are also repeats from other books, but they're told enjoyably, so I didn't mind. 

Neither of these books are the best of their type. I recommend the Short and Shivery series far more than these, but if you have read all the Short and Shiverys and want something more, try these out.

Slasher Girls & Monster Boys

I read a list online of suggested books for fans of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and this was on it. I remember almost buying it in Booksamillion months ago, but I put it back in favor of a plush Niffler. But seeing it on that list made me order it and a few others that were suggested.

I'm not going to go too into detail, but this is a YA anthology of horror thrillers. Each was inspired by movies, TV shows, even songs and those inspirations are printed upsidedown at the end of each tale. There wasn't a single story I fully disliked, although don't expect a lot of happy endings. I do love a good revenge tale, so those were mostly my favorites, but my #1 was "Hide-and-Seek," which used "The Crow" as one of its inspirations.

If you loved 90s YA horror thrillers, you'll like these stories. They take things up a notch, I think. Even if you prefer straight-up adult horror, I think you'll enjoy these.

PEN PALS 3

Annnnnnnd Palmer's up to her old tricks again.

Shocking.

This time though, she's a bit provoked, although she's still a total Jessica Wakefield.

Simmie sends her rather sappy letters, which Lisa dismisses as possibly just leading her on and not being letters as genuine as what she gets from Rob. Palmer is understandably angry.

Shanon's Mars mentions secret societies at the boys' school and Lisa's Rob says he won't be able to write to her because he'll be busy for a couple weeks.

Then right after that, Lisa gets another letter from Rob, this one typed and with a lot of misspellings. That should have been a red flag right there, but nope, Lisa still thinks it's him. She finds herself stood up twice and the recipient of an ugly sweater instead of Rob's class pin.

Shanon and Amy figure out that Palmer is behind some of this and they confront her and force her to tell Lisa. However, they figure this out too late to stop Lisa from sending Rob a nasty letter. You see, Rob's not even at the school and Palmer admits it's been Simmie who's been writing Lisa, as his secret society initiation is to embarrass a roommate. She had nothing to do with the first prank, but she was in on the second, as a bit of revenge for Lisa badmouthing Simmie. Although how she thought this was going to make Simmie look better is beyond me. They're really two of a kind, although I think Palmer's got more conscience than Simmie.

So naturally, Lisa's both furious and upset, because she can't unsend her nasty letter to Rob. Then she learns not only is he off campus, but he's in the hospital. She freaks out to the point of trying to sneak out in the middle of the night to ride her bike to the bus station and go to Boston to visit him in the hospital. Thankfully, two of her teachers are returning from a date and catch her.

Lisa ends up writing a nice letter to Rob in the hospital and then calling him at home. They work out their problems and eventually, she does get his pin and they're closer than ever.

For once, there's only one drama and that was it. Amy and Shanon are quite the background characters in this one. It's dominantly Lisa's story. And once again, we get Palmer maybe learning a lesson? We'll see. The next book is about her and problems with Simmie. Gee, no one could see that coming.

PEN PALS 2

How cute does Amy look on this cover? She's adorable. Lisa, too.

Remember last book when Palmer was a bitch? The main plot of this book is her continuing along that line.

Amy gets a giant poster of her pen pal, Simmie, and Palmer is dying of envy, because she seems much more suited to him than Amy does. (Which is true.)

Palmer is staying away from Suite 3D more than usual because she's made friends with a girl a year older. Germaine is a conniving spoiled rich girl, just like Palmer. So the two put their heads together and Palmer starts secretly writing to Simmie, designing herself as his perfect girl. She takes a look at this questionnaire of favorites all the boys filled out and matches her answers with his.

The main drama of the book is Palmer enticing Simmie away from Amy under the guise of a secret admirer. When Amy and the others find out, they're furious and Palmer realizes she messed up. Amy's a good ice skater and Palmer goes after her on the ice, only to sprain her ankle and have to miss out on the winter festival, which is where she'd arranged to meet Simmie, saying she'd be wearing a yellow skit suit.

Funny how her so-called friend Germaine ALSO ordered a yellow ski suit. And how she turns up, knowing Palmer is hurt, and tries to steal Simmie for herself.

Thankfully, Amy's on hand to save the day and the girls reconcile and switch pen pals.

Amy's main drama for the book isn't even the Simmie thing. It's that she's playing guitar for a girl in the talent show, helping her rehearse and they get the idea to play an original song, which Amy has to write. She struggles with lyrics until she reads a poem by Palmer's original pen pal, John Adams. She and John end up getting along very well and they're perfectly happy to be new pen pals.

Lisa's drama is that she took an idea from her pen pal Rob and got in academic trouble for it, because she used it the wrong way. She stupidly blames him, he rightly gets pissed. And then they make up while building an "abominable snowperson" in the snow sculpture contest. There's also possibly a hint at problems in the future, because she's not happy her older brother is seeing Shanon's friend Kate, who Lisa doesn't like.

Shanon, who had the big drama in the first book, is thankfully drama-free this time. She and pen pal Mars have a great time at the festival and she's writing more articles for the paper.

Palmer seems to be better at the end of the book, but will she get back up to her old bitchy tricks? We'll see!

PEN PALS 1

So when I last did a review, it was mere hours before Hurricane Michael hit. Michael would change my entire life. We lived without power, running water and cell service for 8 days. Our entire apartment complex was condemned. We were forced to call my dad, who lives in North Carolina, and have him help relocate us.

Here it is, about 5 weeks after we arrived. We lived in a motel for almost a month before being able to move into our new apartment.

The majority of what I lost in the hurricane was books. My entire off-site storage unit was inaccessible, so we abandoned it. The last time we checked, they still weren't answering phones. My favorite books were in the apartment, but I lost almost all my childhood collections, academic books, manga, Archies I've collected since 4th grade, graphic novels, Stephen King books, all these series that I loved and spent thousands on, just gone. The only 80s/90s girl series I still have are Sleepover Friends, Bad News Ballet, Junior High, and Canby Hall. And I only have Canby Hall because I never got very far rereading them! My entire Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins and Fabulous Five collections are gone.

Now that we've got an address again and I've got income, I looked into some of these series on ebay. Obviously, BSC and SVT are out of reach. There are just plain too many of them. But smaller series are quite doable. Pen Pals is one I was going to reread at some point, so I decided to start there. With only 18 books in the regular series and 2 super editions, it was pretty affordable. I got all but three of the books for less than $20! I'm not sure what other series I'm going to recollect, though I do know Fabulous Five is one of them. Their prices looked pretty decent, too.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to 80s time travel with some Pen Pals reviews. The series is a combination of the allure of all-girl boarding school, a la Canby Hall, and the dynamics of a group of girls with different personalities, a la Babysitters Club.

Let's look at them on the cover. You can tell blonde Palmer is the snobby, spoiled one by her outfit and her stance. Amy is the rocker girl, although I don't think she'd be wearing white socks and sneakers. Some black boots would have been better. Amy's one of the original girls who wear mostly black. Shanon is the shy, low self-esteem one who's there on a scholarship, also obvious from her pose. And Lisa is the tall, artsy one. She looks like she should be sporty, but she's more Claudia than Kristy. Or actually now that I think about it, she's a pretty good blend of the two, since her "great idea" was to have the girls advertise for pen pals from the nearby boys' school. Lisa's the most leadery of the foursome.

So yeah, the girls are bemoaning the lack of boys and Lisa decides they should advertise for pen pals. There's a kerfluffle about them doing this, because due to misunderstanding, an awkward older girl thinks they're starting a sorority. With the headmistress's blessing, the girls finally get their letters and choose their pen pals, who turn out to be a group of four roommates, just like the girls are.

This book has a lot of interesting storylines going on at the same time. It's definitely more complex than BSC and SVT. Let's count them off.

1) The girls advertise for pen pals and then the entire rest of book, you get to read letters back and forth between the two groups.

2) Shanon wants to write for the paper, but becomes a gofer. This one ends well with her getting to work on some of her ideas, even though the older girl in charge was initially against younger students writing.

2a) Linked to Shanon's writing are mentions of the school being a bit old-fashioned, because the career choices they discuss are limited and they don't offer a wide variety of classes. Like they have knitting and not woodshop or auto mechanics. I can't remember if this goes anywhere in future books, but it's a little bit of social commentary either way.

3) The Kate problem. I can't remember their term for Kate. She's not an RA, but she's kind of in charge of the area of the dorm the girls live in. She also works for the paper and is the one who got Shanon the job. There's this whole subplot with her having a crush on some guy, who ended up dating Shanon's popular older sister, and it causes drama. She ends up being friends with Shanon and possibly Lisa's older brother is interested in her based on her Halloween party costume.

4) When the girls go to send pictures to their pen pals, Shanon chickens out and sends a photo of her older sister instead. Then there's big drama with her pen pal finding out.

5) Palmer is a bitch. Like seriously, she's one of the bitchiest main characters in any of these series. Possibly the bitchiest actually. I don't think I can come up with another girl who's like her. The ones that are typically are the antagonist (the Bunheads in Bad News Ballet, Cokie Mason, Jenny Carlin) or occasional antagonist/frenemy (Lila Fowler). She's constantly snobby, disagreeable, selfish and can be downright mean. She's also a plotter and you can see the wheels turning in her head, because she does not like her pen pal.

Yep, all of that is going on in 100-some pages.

The characters are mostly likeable, except Palmer. Shanon's the quiet, studious underdog you want to root for. Amy's the wild, creative musician. I always liked those two best. I do like Lisa for her artsy side, but not as much as the other two.

I'm looking forward to digging back into this series!