The Babysitter 4 or Sharkjumping: Babysitter Edition

Hello wonderful humans. You asked for it. You voted for it on my instagram @genrebucket. That's right, I'm going to review Young Adult Horror on this blog now! So what does that mean? Essentially Young Adult Horror from the 1980's through the late 1990's will be reviewed on here around every other week. Keeping in mind I'm no longer a teen girl (teen girls were actually the predominant audience for these books) I will be rating these using a scale of 15 teen girl points. These points will come from 3 categories each worth a max of 5 points each. These categories being likability/relatableness of the main character, the level of annoyingness/likability of the supporting characters, and the quality of WTF moments. Ah the 90's. The era of landline telephones, thriving malls, and teens making money watching kids of adults they barely know. This is the world of R.L. Stine's The Babysitter 4. The final volume in R.L. Stine's Babysitter series for Point Horror we follow the extremely unlucky Jenny, who after understandably going a little crazy after surviving a murder attempt by the father of a child she babysat for she spends a year in a mental ward. You would think after being declared sane again and released she would spend her summer recovering but nope she's out barely a day and her new neighbor is begging her to babysit. She of course starts feeling a possible presence in the neighbor's house, hears strange noises, and could swear she's spotted a small child running across her lawn late at night. Is she going crazy again or is it something sinister?

Scholastic's 1995 paperback edition

So how does The Babysitter 4 score? When it comes to the main character Jenny you really feel for her. She feels like an actual teenager and just wants to move on with her life and enjoy being a teen. Saying that homegirl is not the brightest bulb when it comes to self preservation and really needs a new job. Ultimately though she scores a 5. What about supporting characters how do they rank? Given the type of book this is they run the gamut of cardboard stock character to actual character with a semblance of personality the most "fleshed out" being her friend Claire and boyfriend Cal. I will give props to Claire narking to Jenny's mom about Jenny thinking she's hearing stuff at the neighbor's house etc. because she genuinely cares about her friend's mental state and it's not common to see that in these kinds of books. Cal is a standard 90's generic teen boyfriend complete with tussled blonde hair and a gold stud earring. His personality trait is caring/horny and has anger issues that wind up being a red herring but still mildly uncomfortable. I give them a score of 4. Now my favorite part of Young Adult Horror the WTF moment. So in this book Jenny is babysitting twin boys and a little girl and you totally think it's going in the evil twin direction. But then it reveals there are no twins and the second boy is the ghost of a kid murdered by his babysitter in the house! Dun dun dun. But then out of nowhere it's revealed that the ghost of ghost kid's original babysitter is also in the house locked in the attic because ghost kid actually murdered his babysitter up there and died tripping down the attic stairs after doing the deed. Then to ice this WTF revelation Jenny then stands by and watches these ghosts fight to death in wolf form? before disappearing into hell smoke. The End. What? I honestly did not see that coming, 5 points. In total The Babysitter 4 earns a solid 14 out of 15. This a fun, mildly spooky read with a delightfully insane ending that's worth checking out. Well that's the review. YA Horror really is a nice break between the regular horror on this blog so I look forward to doing it as a feature. As always the comments are open. Subscribe or follow to be alerted to the latest happenings at The Genre Bucket.