The Girlfriend (Point Horror)
Scotty has the perfect life. And the perfect girlfriend. But one weekend while she’s away. Scotty goes just a little…astray. Suddenly he has a new girlfriend. One who won’t go away. His one wild night has become a nightmare. Because his new girlfriend has decided that she loves Scotty…to death.
GOT U COVERED 📕
Author: R.L Stine
Published: 1991
Series: Point Horror
Tagline: When she was good, she was very good. But when she was bad, she was murder.
Description: A bloody thorn rose on top of a hand written note which reads, “Be mine always”.
He was struggling to unlock the front door when he saw something down low against the fence. It was a girl.
What was she doing down there? Was she okay? - pg. 29
SYNOPSIS 📖
Scotty and Lora are high school sweethearts and their young love has everyone’s heart skipping a beat. After announcing they’re both going to Princeton, it seems like they are definitely in it for the long haul.
However, when Lora goes on a week-long vacation to Paris, Scotty finds himself entangled in a situation with a girl named Shannon.
Shannon is mysterious, spontaneous, and possibly dangerous. Now she won’t stop calling or showing up to see Scotty even though he tried to cut ties multiple times. Lie after lie, Scotty has to cover his tracks or he may lose the most important thing to him, Lora.
Can he put a stop to someone who is crazy in love? Or will he be the one to die of a broken heart?
Scotty looked up to see Shannon standing on the walk a few yards away.
Her light windbreaker was open, and she had her hands on her hips as she stared intently at Scotty and Lora.
“Why is she looking at us like that?” Lora asked.
“I don’t know,” Scotty told her. “I’ve never seen her before” - pg. 69
THOUGHTS💭
The way everyone is so invested in Scotty and Lora’s relationship is so cringe. I could understand the parental figures being a bit overboard about it, but it felt like the whole damn community had stock in their relationship and kept doing things in honour of them to increase its value. I know that it’s supposed to give the reader higher stakes that something so good is about to be ruined by Scotty’s poor choices and that if Lora finds out everything will crash down, but reading this as an adult, I wasn’t that concerned about two teens and their young puppy love. However, as I type this I also know that an adult isn’t exactly the target audience for this story. It’s teen pulp fiction after all, so perhaps my pre-teen/early teens mind would have romanticised this situation and I would have hoped that Shannon put a stop to her stalking and let true love prevail lol 😅.
I didn’t sympathise with Scotty at all and I feel like the book is trying to manipulate us into being on Scotty’s side when he is actually in the wrong. He overstepped a line and now is paying the consequence for it. So while I do think Shannon took it to the extreme, it serves him right because he should never have entertained the idea of dating another girl while being in a serious commitment with Lora.
Tbh Shannon was so annoying. Like, stop whining. At some point, I started to side with Scotty when he got angry, irritated, and fed up with her and her antics. It was starting to drive me crazy as well. No matter what he told her, she’d just repeat the same “you’re my baby” line. I must say she is very determined though and that level of crazy makes her very unpredictable. She especially had me enthralled when she caused a scene at the Junior Commerce Ball. I felt like Scotty was finally going to get busted because of how many witnesses were involved in this scene.
R.L. Stine is not afraid to include the butchering of an animal. If you love snakes 🐍 and/or cats 🐈 then I hate to report to you that this book has two animal deaths. One gets snipped in half and the other gets squished inside a baseball hat. The imagery associated with those scenes is quite vivid and had me upset while reading and imagining it. Whenever an antagonist goes after a pet, it just adds an extra sprinkle of cold-heartedness and dangerous spook to them. If someone truly means business and wants the message to be received loud and clear, they go for something personal to the protagonist.
Side note. What kind of name is Fluffernutter? Like who names their cat such an obscure name? It doesn’t roll off the tongue nor does it sound remotely cute whatsoever.
The horror of this book is mainly predicated on whether Lora will or will not find out Scotty’s secret. This is what made the book more in line with a thriller, than a horror. It’s Fatal Attraction, but for teens. So if you’re expecting some horrific events, then this book is not for you. It follows a boy dodging getting caught and trying to rectify the situation by actually making it worse, only to find out that Shannon isn’t who she portrays to be. The twist ending felt very silly and didn’t have me gasping, only yawing.
I’m going to grade this book a D+
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