I had high hopes for this one. I love stories that play with dreams and a shifting sense of reality.

I had high hopes for this one. I love stories that play with dreams and a shifting sense of reality. Bad Dreams was all set up to do exactly that… and then it just didn’t. It ended up feeling like a book just going through the motions. Everything that happens here, Stine has done before and he’s done it better. Both of the main characters were irritating. The sibling rivalry stuff led to a few good scenes but for the most part, it was exhausting. Maggie’s boyfriend was useless, which is pretty typical in this series. The “twist”  at the end felt lazy and tacked on. The “villain” had completely implausible motives. So was there anything I liked? I liked the lesson learned at the end, which was perfect for the intended audience of these books. I liked Maggie’s unwinding sense of reality as the story went on, I just wish it had gone much further than it did. Ultimately, the stakes never felt high enough, things never got weird enough, and I was bored. Something I am noticing is that when the Goosebumps books are bad, they are still (mostly) entertaining and ridiculous. When Fear Street books are bad, it takes a concerted effort to finish them. Bad Dreams is easily one of my least favorite Fear Street books so far.Score: 1.5For my snark-filled, spoiler-laced, deep-dive review; check out my blog. -- source link

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