This sub-set of "Fear Street" was actually one of the few arcs that surprised and/or freaked me out (really only the "Historicals"/Fear family Sagas chilled me...for some reason Stine could think of a thousand and one ways to kill a person in olden times in terrifying ways) and despite having not read the first (or third) one in years I still had a decent enough working knowledge to muddle through this one unconfused.

There's a few things to remember when you're reading a Fear Street novel so you can actually enjoy them:
The Idiot Quota is pretty high in Shadyside: Doesn't matter how many times the residents (new and old) are told NOT to do something, they'll do it. Because all those stories about Fear Street and the Fears could NEVER happen to them surely.
Death or Injury by Fear is a legitimate insurance claim: Otherwise I can't see how the rest of the world hasn't come down like a ton of bricks on the "small town" of Shadyside for the ridiculous number of highly suspicious or improbable deaths of teens.
Love is deadly so don't look for anything more then angst: Its very likely at least one of the participants is dead, cursed, the villain or has a previous/current significant other/stalker who won't let go and will kill to keep them.
People don't trust the "Fears"...until they see the attractive ones: Mostly an ongoing problem in the "historicals" since the Fears bred an insane amount of highly attractive people despite folk in their family dying by the dozens each week. But the blinders seem to be on everyone's eyes if the bad guy is attractive in some manner.

This book has a twist at the end that I completely forgot, which is good because once you know it you'll see all the obvious clues of it and that ruins some of the suspense in the book.

( )

I usually shoot through these books in a day, but this one took me 3 days to read. It was because you pretty much already know what's going on from reading the first book. The same weird housekeeper and handyman get hired, weird stuff goes on in the house, and some of the plot points from the first book get resolved. I guessed all the twists except for the last one, which was BONKERS. Holy crap, I loved it and I wish that it was revealed earlier or that there were more clues pointing to it. Looking forward to finishing up this series. ( )

I usually shoot through these books in a day, but this one took me 3 days to read. It was because you pretty much already know what's going on from reading the first book. The same weird housekeeper and handyman get hired, weird stuff goes on in the house, and some of the plot points from the first book get resolved. I guessed all the twists except for the last one, which was BONKERS. Holy crap, I loved it and I wish that it was revealed earlier or that there were more clues pointing to it. Looking forward to finishing up this series. ( )

This book was extremely disappointing. Being a fan of R.L. Stine, I was expecting some real thrills, but this turned out to be a typical teenage friendship story with the odd poltergeist activity thrown in. I won't be bothering with anymore of the series. ( )

Possible Spoiler Alert:

So now rather than just having an evil force in the house, we have an evil ghost who presumably got that way due to the evil force. I did think the transition from the evil being Cally centered rather than evil force centered, doesn't entirely go. What's up with that strange handyman who never actually kills the rats? It was obvious that the bag was important, and I did like the way his "condition" tied in with everything. ( )