Spring Break by Barbara Steiner
Released: December 01, 1997
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Scholastic
Source: Amazon
Angie is looking forward to the perfect spring holiday with her four best friends. The only problem is all the cabins, shacks and motels in the village are full. Except one…
The Jamison place sits dark and mysterious on the edge of the cliff. Nursing a sinister past. When the unsuspecting five awaken the sleeping evil, there are deadly consequences…
One by one, Angie’s friends go missing, and somewhere, lurking in the shadows, someone or something is awaiting the next victim…
I used to love reading Point Horror, Fear Street, and well, mainly anything that R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike wrote. I still revisit some of these books from time to time, to see if it spooks me on re-reading it. While some of the books manage to give me the shivers even now (like the Babysitter book by Stine), I thought “Spring Break” was extremely boring.
Firstly, I found the main character of the book, Angie, to be very annoying. Throughout the book, I only got to see Angie getting jealous of her friends having a dating life, even though her friends are genuinely nice; bragging about how brave she is and is a go-getter compared to her friends; and worst of all, falling for some guy she hardly even knows just because he looks like Brad Pitt! I couldn’t find any likeable traits in this girl that made me want to root for her in the entire story.
Secondly, the book is SO slow! The story never seems to progress except for the last 30 or so pages when the girls finally decide to go attend the ‘party’. Otherwise the previous 150 pages mainly goes in this sequential loop: Angie meeting Val, she drools for him, he disappears, she gets depressed and gets jealous in seeing her friends coupled up, she hears strange noises in the guest house, and repeat. I started to fall asleep multiple times while reading this book, and had to force myself to continue.
The only saving grace about “Spring Break” is the ending. Even though I guessed who the culprit was, it was interesting to find the reason for why this person acted in this manner. Even the cover of the book was apt with the events that unfold in the climax, which usually doesn’t happen in Point Horror novels. Speaking of the cover, I thought the artwork for the cover was really cool, as it gives the perfect 80s horror vibe to it.
Overall, this was a tedious book that contains hardly any thrills or chills, and I would recommend any fan of the series to skip this one.
