The Bookworm: The New Year's Party

The New Year’s Party, by R.L. Stine. 193 pages. Archway Paperback/Simon Pulse. December 1995/August 2002.

“I think P.J. is getting his revenge,” Sean told them. “And maybe he’s not finished. Maybe he’s after all of us.” (p. 159)

Unwilling to do anything on New Year’s Eve but stay home and warm my back with a heating pad, I was able to polish off this fitting Fear Street book: The New Year’s Party.

The New Year’s Party follows two timelines, one somewhat briefly, that eventually converge in a rather messy, convenient way.

The first takes place in 1965—or at least it starts on the eve of 1965. (The date for part one is 1965 despite the fact it starts in the very last minutes of 1964. That’s a quandary for a copyeditor: What date does one give a part spanning two years? Stine and company obviously chose the year when most of the action takes place.) Beth and Jeremy are at a party to ring in the new year when a mean prank on Jeremy spoils the evening. Upset, they leave the party, and Jeremy drives recklessly through the countryside. He hits what he thinks is a boy and then crashes into a ditch. Jeremy and Beth are able to climb out of the totaled car, but nobody they try to flag down on the highway stops to help them. Nobody even answers the door at a farmhouse they walk to.

Fast forward to “this year,” which we eventually learn is 30 years after Jeremy and Beth’s wild ride. Reenie and her friends love playing pranks on one another. They decide to play a prank on a new boy at school, P.J., but it goes horribly wrong and P.J. goes missing. His sister, Liz, is furiously angry, and soon Reenie’s friends are being found murdered, their heads twisted completely backward.

How do the timelines converge? What happened to Jeremy and Beth? Will P.J. be located? Who is killing Reenie’s friends? The ending answers all, with that customary dash of convenience, of course.

This is not one of the better Fear Street books. The mysteries kept me wondering and unsure until the end (though I had my suspicions), but the story is not very good. Over halfway through the book, I still had no clue where either timeline was heading or how they could possibly converge. They do, but it is total deus ex machina.

Regardless, Fear Street books like this one make me seriously question the investigative and administrative skills of Shadyside’s public institutions and officials, especially the police and school administrators. (SPOILER ALERT!) How can apparent zombies register for classes at Shadyside High, occupy supposedly abandoned houses (which have heat and electricity), and escape police suspicion when they have no parents or guardians? Yes, I understand that this is young adult fiction, but it bothers the hell out of me when stuff like that doesn’t add up. I’m a stickler for details. If I ever write a Fear Street–inspired horror tale, I will make sure everything adds up (which is probably a reason why I don’t write, because covering all the bases is hard as hell). As much as I love these books, I’m unwilling and unable to suspend all reason when reading them.

Anyway, the character names in this book annoyed the crap out of me. Reenie, Greta, Artie, P.J. Something about them did not sit well with me. They’re clunky, awkward, and don’t easily roll off the inner tongue. Reenie is short for Maureen, which I think is a much better character name. (Would anyone named Maureen like being called Reenie?)

I think The New Year’s Party also has the longest chapters of any Fear Street book I have read. They keep going and going and going. I would have hated this book when I was a kid, when I counted the pages of every chapter before starting it. As someone who likes to stop reading at the end of chapters, I was always planning ahead. (The chapters in the Redwall franchise seemed epically long when I was a kid.)

Here are a couple other noteworthy items about The New Year’s Party:

• A number of characters from other Fear Street books are mentioned or make an appearance, such as Deena Martinsen, Corky Corcoran, and Ricky Shore.

• Reenie says she can smell beer on the breath of another character at a party. I believe it’s only the second or third time beer or alcohol has been mentioned in an original-run Fear Street book I have read. I think this is noteworthy because the use of alcohol and drugs is much more prevalent among real-life teenagers than it is among the characters in the Fear Street franchise. Yes, this is another unrealistic detail I’m stuck on, despite the fact I assume sex, drugs, and alcohol were placed off limits by the publisher. (Only heavy petting; hungry, lingering kisses; and very occasional mentions of beer-bated breath seemed to be allowed.)

• It is mentioned that Reenie’s boyfriend, Sean, is on the chess club. She even mentions him possibly discussing chess moves at a party. (Must have been a crazy party!) Though I expected more details or for the fact to contribute to the story, Sean’s love for chess turns out to be inconsequential.

• The “FEAR STREET” and “SUPER CHILLER” text on the front cover are fluorescent and can be lit by blacklight.



• Though The New Year’s Party was originally published by Archway Paperback (not Pocket Books) in late 1995, this copy is a reissue published by Simon Pulse starting in August 2002. Was I bummed that this copy isn’t an original? Yes. The ladies on the We Know What You Did on Fear Street podcast have noted that some reissued Fear Street books feature minor updates to slang, pop culture references, and technology. In one book they discussed, characters in the original version visit the library and look through the microfiche archive for information; in the reissue, the characters visit the library and search Google. Thankfully, I don’t think any of the text in the version I have is updated. Frankly, there’s nothing that would need updating.