Synopsis
From the master of spine-tingling horror for young audiences, Nightmare on Nightmare Street is full of strange sounds, terrifying visions, and things that go bump in the night. Includes a foreword by James “Murr” Murray, bestselling author of Don’t Move and cocreator of Impractical Jokers.
Twelve-year-old Joe Ferber, his sister Sadie, and their parents have just moved into a house that has all the hallmarks of a horror movie—tombstones in the basement, a creepy doll lying around, strange noises in the wall, and so on. As Joe tries to fall asleep on the first night, his nightlight begins to flash and change colors, and the creepy doll appears in his bed … and then twelve-year-old Shawn Hannigan wakes up from a dream.
Shawn and his little sister, Addie, are seemingly living in the same house with their mother. But when they arrive at their new school for the first day, the teachers are all wearing animal masks, and the principal’s office is pitch black and full of noises. At the end of the day, a stranger claiming to be Shawn’s mom picks him up and tells him he doesn’t have a sister …
As more and more strange things happen to each of them, Shawn and Joe have to figure out what is real, and what is a nightmare …
Review
Preordered this one as soon as I saw it was available. I absolutely love the cover and color choice. Luckily, thanks to Blackstone and Netgalley, I was able to complete this way ahead of schedule with an audio arc!
I have not read any of his books, so I suppose I didn’t realize they were friends, but a foreword by Murr from Impractical Jokers was a real surprise. So was the AI joke right out of the gate. I, too, love Stine and his Goosebumps and Fear Street series, but I’ve never been asked for a foreword…
The Ferber family moves into their new home on Nightmare Street. Twelve-year-old Joe finds it creepy, from the street’s name to the house itself. So is it any surprise that he immediately begins having nightmares? In these dreams, he dreams of a boy named Shawn, whose sister is Addie, and it’s almost as if Joe IS Shawn and Sadie (Joe’s sister) IS Addie. Are these just really detailed, really real-feeling nightmares? What’s happening on Nightmare Street?!
In the introduction, Stine talks about how he had the idea for this story one day while eating an everything bagel. Many people’s favorite bagel features every topping, so what about a book with everything his fans love? Werewolves, haunted houses, spooky dolls, tombstones, spiders, dummies, and more! For me, I love the idea, but when you throw everything at the wall, not all of it tends to stick. That happened here, unfortunately.
The flipping between Joe and Shawn erased a lot of the character and emotional depth for me. It is nightmarish, as it’s intended, but it gives off this sort of fever-dream feeling where nothing seems real. And when things lose their base in reality, the stakes plummet for me, as you’re sort of just expecting him to wake up again and again. It also kills a lot of the building suspense for the same reason. Sadly, this one needed more to make the “everything bagel” idea work. Stine promises something that will work for all ages, and while this could be considered somewhere between middle grade and young adult, I happened to love all the horror pop culture references in the novel; it just felt like it needed to be twice as long. Building that otherworldly, lost feeling would have gone a long way for this, but then again, maybe I’m just not the targeted reader.
Perfect for fans of middle-grade horror that’s fast-paced and features a lot of fan favorites.
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