The Bookworm: The Dead Boyfriend
The Dead Boyfriend, by R.L. Stine. 276 pages. Thomas Dunne Books. September 2016.
Of course, the police would never buy that story. No one would. Knowing I wasn’t responsible should have made me feel better. But here I was, a prisoner of this crazy girl, one more victim of the Fear family’s evil, about to break into a chapel and steal a corpse from its coffin. (p. 144)
Where do I begin with the disappointing mess that is The Dead Boyfriend? The story, I guess.
The Dead Boyfriend is a diary account written by Caitlyn, whose eponymous dead boyfriend, Blade, is reanimated by Deena Fear and the mystical knowledge gleaned from her family’s eccentric library. Is Caitlyn excited to have Blade back among the living, albeit as a walking corpse? Nope—especially after what she did to him. Blade stalks Caitlyn while she slowly goes mad, hoping Deena Fear will undo the black magic that brought him back from the dead.
The Dead Boyfriend is another Fear Street book that had me wondering how everything would come together in a satisfying and reasonable way. How is Stine going to end this in 10 pages? I wondered. How are the pieces going to fit together? However, I was once again lured into the trap of expecting too much from young adult horror, expecting a completed puzzle. Deus ex machina is cruel like that.
I’m overexaggerating when I say the book is a disappointing mess, because the ending is the only thing that irritates me. The Dead Boyfriend is another well-written and engaging addition to the Fear Street series; the story and characterizations are much more robust and realistic than those in the books written in the eighties and nineties. (It occurred to me just now that each book is similar to an episode of a TV show. In that way, the series is akin to The Twilight Zone and Are You Afraid of the Dark with Fear Street and the teenagers of Shadyside as common threads.) I’m not a big fan of the diary-confession model, but it works. However, it is easily forgotten because multiple chapters pass between references to the diary. It is an imaginative and compelling love story—until Blade dies.
On the flipside, the ending leaves a lot to be desired. However, this is young adult horror, so I am expecting way too much. Or am I? Can the insanely convenient plot device that closes the book pass the shit detector of modern-day tweens and teens? I doubt it. Stine can try to slip it pass them, but I think they can easily identify a cop-out.
Here are a number of itemized odds and ends that are also notable about The Dead Boyfriend:
• Caitlyn describes Deena Fear as being goth. Are there still goths? I thought goths were just a phase in the late nineties and early naughties but maybe I’m wrong.
• The book is riddled with examples of bad copyediting/proofreading. Though men have “blond” hair, women have “blonde” hair. There are both a “time out” and “time-out” during a basketball game, and the referees call a “penalty.” However, I’m unsure if those minor mistakes are intentional because the story is written by Caitlyn or if they are the result of negligent production.
• In one scene, Caitlyn manually dials her best friend’s phone number. Dials? Who does that anymore? Though this would not have raised an eyebrow in the nineties, I doubt many people know or dial personal numbers from memory anymore, especially modern-day teens.
• There may be an allusion to sex, the first I have come across in the Fear Street series. While recalling a special night with Blade “in his car up on River Ridge,” Caitlyn writes, “We kissed ... we kissed and ... and ....” And? I think everybody who reads that will think the exact same thing: Caitlyn and Blade [insert your favorite euphemism here].
