Superstitious

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad
Review: As a fan of Stine's Goosebumps book series as a kid I decided to give Superstitious a chance and found I actually kind of liked it, there are problems of course, but Stine pens what I'd compare to a good slasher flick. I would advise that you reed this novel around Halloween time, it seems to fit into that time frame quite nicely. Overall I would say that Superstitious is a pretty good read and could be used especially to capitalize on the atmosphere of one of those cold and dark fall afternoons.

Rating:
Summary: If I could, I'd give SUPERSTITIOUS zero stars
Review: I have always been a fan of Stine's books. I was only 14 when I read this book(when it first went onto the shelves)I went on vacation right after I got it. I couldn't even enjoy the sights,I finished it in a day. It doesn't equal anything by Stephen King or Dean Koontz, but a great book never the less.I was mostly intrigued with the character Liam O'Conner,his mystery and charm, and all his little superstitions. Very graphic and (amusingly)sexual. You pretty much guess the plot in the middle of the book, but keep wanting to know what happens anyway. I recommend this books to anyone who's a fan of horror/Stine. Defiantly a page-turner.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book Ever
Review: Stine's gift is merely his presence and the familiarity of his name. At the time of <i>Superstitious</i>' inception, he was all but omnipresent, what with his cash-cow Goosebumps series and his B-level legacy in the annals of YA suspense. I've no problem with a Youth/Young Adult horror author testing the King/Koontz driven waters of adult fiction in the same genre. Stine's sometime rival and (I feel) literary superior, Christopher Pike, has made several successful trips to the same place, most notably with the haunting, meaningful <i>The Season of Passage</i>. However, Stine's writing lacks the depth and humanity that keeps me stalking the YA shelves for Pike's work over a decade after abandoning the Fear Street saga.

There are alternating moments of viseral strength and creative prowess in this tepid and try-hard adult debut. He demonstrates at least a pretense of nerve in the death scenes--of which there are many, and bordering on gratuitous--and his stories have always been at least conceptually alluring. Superstitons throughout history and their relevance in modern society is solid subject matter, and--with the right imagination and structure acting as vessels holding and guiding the blood--could have added up to a blistering supernatural tour de force, with harrowing undertones of classic psychological terror. Unfortunately, Stine is not up to the challenge, and it shows. He bumbles through what should be complex scenes and seemingly mad-libbed plot developments like a poor man's John Saul, and with all the strength and vibrancy of a loaf of bread submerged in salt water (Thank you, Scott!).

The cast of "characters" are so bland and garden-variety uniform you could conduct a roll call based on their stereotypes (even their names are predictable and flavorless as a day-old wad of Bazooka...I've forgotten most of them). Liam is devastatingly handsome, smart and fit as a whipcord, with a swanky accent and a measured handful of quirks/intrigue to distract us from his potential dark side. Sara is disarmingly beautiful, disgustingly virtuous, and overplays the damsel in distress like a lobotomized Lois Lane. His colleague is a leering hulk of a skirt-chaser with a penchant for lethal weapons. Her best friend is a selfless wisecracker, visibly overcompensating for being the runner-up in beauty's sad scheme. His sister is an overbearing, sugarcoating busybody. Her former lover is an overindulged, sociopathic creep. One might theorize that Mr. Stine plucks his characters from fortune cookies, but I'm more inclined to think he scrapes them from the insides of his nostrils. Whatever you find there is virtually guaranteed to be monotonous, unpleasant, and often downright disgusting.

His writing style could tactfully be called an acquired taste, but I'll just come right out and say it's a hard one to acquire. There's no texture or flow to it, only a half-assed stream-of-semiconsciousness framework of words, fragments and paragraphs leading us clumsily from point A to point B. There are no insights or poignance or anything approaching an overall theme, just cause and effect, action and reaction. Instead of following up an intense event with an equally intense description of the charcter's emotional distress, we get simply. "No." A strong narrative and taut, stylish prose often creates the backbone that supports the whole show, but in this brittle networking of juvenile dialogue and superficial observations, a weak plot and weaker characters only suffer further. Everything cringes desperately under the thumb of the original idea, and there it all falters and dies with barely a whimper, much less a bang.

I can forgive a work of fiction for being all style and no substance when I'm in a generous mood, but Stine's entry into the arena of adult horror has neither...no style, no substance, no soul, no point. He's too scared of his own potential and those pesky necessities like originality to effectively scare the likes of us. Mr. Stine can still feel free to take a tentative place beside JK Rowling and act as an effective literary springboard for the youth of the world.

But for my buck and its bang, Stephen King is still horror's annointed one.

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: The opening of this book is excellent.. the story, the plot, the suspense.. everything.. I could not put this book down, except when I had to sleep, and I took it to work and school with me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of stories that grab you, intrigue you, and ultimately scare you, with an ending that makes you say.. "Wow.." Also to fans, and soon-to-be fans of R.L Stine who have read his fear street books, and so on... His entrance into adult fiction is applauded

Rating:
Summary: Wow
Review: The opening of this book is excellent.. the story, the plot, the suspense.. everything.. I could not put this book down, except when I had to sleep, and I took it to work and school with me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of stories that grab you, intrigue you, and ultimately scare you, with an ending that makes you say.. "Wow.." Also to fans, and soon-to-be fans of R.L Stine who have read his fear street books, and so on... His entrance into adult fiction is applauded

Rating:
Summary: Not Bad, Not Great
Review: This is popular author R.L. Stine's debut in the adult fiction world as he is most famous for his "Goosebumps" and "Fear Street" series, which are both aimed at kids and teenagers. As with Stine's previous works, he is not a master of the craft with intricate plots, great characters, and development. Stine writes novels that are mostly plot driven, leaving out a lot of character development and details. This is great for a reader that is not looking for the latter but readers that do enjoy this stuff should seek entertainment with a different book.

Sara Morgan is a woman that lives in a college town and is seeking work, so she takes a job with the dean of students at the university. She then starts seeing a professor at the school, Liam, an Irish born guy that believes in superstitions. Meanwhile, there are many gruesome, terrible murders taking place in the town and an investigation is started. This novel takes you into the affair of Sara and Liam and parts of the investigation.

If you are looking for a thriller that is very involved with the police investagations then this book is not for you. As far as Stine gets with the police stuff is taking you to the scene of the crime and describing lots of gore. Stine's writing is very easy to read though it does come off as very childish at times. This is an easy book to zip right through because of this, but for readers looking for entwined and detailed writing should look somewhere else.

One of the problems I had with the book was the lack of depth. Everything in the book was presented very quickly and Stine never dug deep enough to make the reader feel involved with the story on an emotional level. Instead of getting in touch with major plot events in the book the reader will be pulled into graphic sex scenes, which may be a bit much for certain readers. In fact, much of this book reads like an erotic novel do to the amount of sex and how Stine describes it. I wasn't bothered by this but I am certain that more sensitive and younger readers may.

Furthermore, the characters in "Superstitious" are not developed much, leaving the reader with a feeling that gives off a type of incompleteness. I like to read about characters that are well developed and make you care about them, but that was just lacking here. Sara is a likeable character but she just comes off as being too good. There is not much to identify with Sara.

Overall, "Superstitious" lacks the depth to make it great. This is an enjoyable novel that can be read very quickly as it has short chapters and is easy to read. If you're looking for a quick little beach read, this will be good for that.

Happy Reading!

Rating:
Summary: The best book ever!!!!!!!
Review: This is Stine's first attempt to write an adult (non Goosebumps) book. Over all, he did a pretty good job. It's obvious that Stine took the time to research the many superstitions and what they mean, and how to fight them off. The problem is that there's almost to many supersitions that are covererd. I found myself annoyed at times reading about them. I wanted the story to move along.

Sara is involved with a professor that takes superstitions very seriously. Sara is then swept up with the prof and his sister and all of superstitoins and rituals that they go throught. As if this isn't enough for Sara to deal with...there's savage, brutal killer on the college campus that targets women. And what this killer is savage and violent. Sara is soon trapped in the world of superstitions, in which she can't excape.

Over all this is a pretty good book. This is also a very violent and a gore filled book. Over all if you like horror and like Stine, then I suggest this book. Is this a fantastic book? No. Is this a decent book? Yup. If you like gore, then you may like this book.

Rating:
Summary: Best Book Ever
Review: This is the best book I have ever read. I could not put this book down, all I did was eat and read. There is no way anyone can come close to making a book as good as this one. Everytime you turn the page there is always a new twist. I will always remeber this book, it is diffently #1 on my list!!!!!