A Book Review - The Dead Girlfriend by R.L. Stine (Point Horror)

Another book that I can't quite work out my feelings for. R.L. Stine is probably one of the most popular YA authors, and I attribute this to the powerful - and sometimes horrific - images that are so prolific in his novels. While I didn't really remember the plot of this, several of the scenes - the waterfalls, the electric keyboard, the cat in the spaghetti pot - were embedded in my memory without being attached to any book or plotline. That kind of heavy-handed imagery is a little too clumsy for my adult self, but very effective on teens and preteens.

In this novel, we have Annie, who has just moved to a new town. The first person she meets is the mysterious, attractive Jonathan, and she is immediately interested in him, an interest he seems to return. However, at school she finds out that his last girlfriend died (either a few months ago or a year and a few months ago, it's not clear - although I assumed the latter) when she fell off the cliff at the waterfall. Her death was ruled an accident, but rumours fly that Jonathan had something to do with it (he was there that day, and allegedly left her alone for a few minutes, which is when she fell).

Annie starts having some nasty tricks played on her, ranging from the mild (erasing a disk containing a research project) to the really awful (killing her cat), and she has no way of knowing if it's got anything to do with Jonathan and his dead girlfriend or not.

This isn't Stine's best. Nor is it his worst. Annie is kind of a blank canvas, neither particularly likeable nor loathsome. Jonathan is kind of interesting - I'd like to have seen more of him. I didn't guess the killer, although I probably should have.

Verdict: Lightweight fluff that I enjoyed while reading - and will most likely forget in the next couple days.