Happy late Valentine's everyone! To celebrate the holiday I decided to read the seasonal "classic" Broken Hearts by R.L. Stine. Due to events I will explain there will be SPOILERS in this review but I will not reveal the final twist. Also I am not the target audience for this book so teen girl points are back into play! What are teen girl points you ask? As outlined in my first YA Horror review on here this book will be judged using 3 criteria for a total of 15 points. The criteria being for 5 points each: Is the main character likable/relatable?, Are the supporting characters annoying or likable?, And most importantly how good is the WTF moment? Now that is out of the way let's get to the review.
Broken Hearts is essentially about 3 sisters, a pair of twins named Josie and Rachel and their baby sister Erica. In the last days before school starts they go horseback riding with a mutual friend, Melissa and a horrible accident happens. Rachel being too cool for a helmet sets off on her horse only to be thrown from it later due to the horse getting spooked combined with Josie's half assed securing of her sister's saddle. Cut to the following February and Rachel has been rendered childlike from the brain damage caused by her fall, Erica is bitter that she is the one constantly being charged with Rachel's care, and Josie has started receiving threatening Valentine's Cards promising her death on the upcoming holiday. This actually turned out to be a fun little murder mystery but we have to talk about Josie.
She is such a self centered bitch with a capital B. She feels guilty about the accident but constantly shirks her responsibility to help Erica with Rachel's care. On top of that it's established she treats the guys she dates as disposable and is unnecessarily cruel to Rachel's boyfriend who still visits even though she only recognizes him sometimes. Add in her other cruel self centered behavior towards Erica and her misplaced blaming of the accident on Melissa and SPOILER when she's murdered it's actually satisfying to the reader. Melissa then becomes the main character and she is much more relatable and engaging. Tallying this up I give the main character(s) a 3 out of 5 teen girl points. Now with the supporting cast it's really a mixed bag. On the one hand you have some really good red herrings since Josie is such a hate worthy character you totally understand why she has enemies even if she is popular and pretty. The parents of the sister's were really problematic to me though. I know it's the 90's and this book being YA parental involvement is not a high priority but you have a 16 year old girl rendered to a mental state of like an 8 year old constantly put in the charge of her siblings. I get the parents need to work but if this was modern times CPS would get called by the lone weekend nurse they employ after noticing the strain they are putting on their other children. Also the fact you never see the parents address Josie's shit behavior is appalling. All together this scores a 3 out of 5. For me, my favorite part of vintage YA Horror is the WTF moment and this novel actually delivers a fairly solid slasher film twist. I was actually surprised by who the actual murderer was since Stine did a good job with red herrings for once including some nice use of the childlike sister pulling some creepy kid tactics. I rate this a solid 5 out of 5 for a total score of 11 out of 15. If you want a fun, bloody teen horror treat instead of chocolate definitely track this down.
Well those are my thoughts on this teen chiller. Do you like holiday themed horror? Have any holiday themed horror suggestions? As always the comments are open and for the latest news on posts give a follow or subscribe. 'Til next time!
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| Archway's 1993 Paperback Edition |
She is such a self centered bitch with a capital B. She feels guilty about the accident but constantly shirks her responsibility to help Erica with Rachel's care. On top of that it's established she treats the guys she dates as disposable and is unnecessarily cruel to Rachel's boyfriend who still visits even though she only recognizes him sometimes. Add in her other cruel self centered behavior towards Erica and her misplaced blaming of the accident on Melissa and SPOILER when she's murdered it's actually satisfying to the reader. Melissa then becomes the main character and she is much more relatable and engaging. Tallying this up I give the main character(s) a 3 out of 5 teen girl points. Now with the supporting cast it's really a mixed bag. On the one hand you have some really good red herrings since Josie is such a hate worthy character you totally understand why she has enemies even if she is popular and pretty. The parents of the sister's were really problematic to me though. I know it's the 90's and this book being YA parental involvement is not a high priority but you have a 16 year old girl rendered to a mental state of like an 8 year old constantly put in the charge of her siblings. I get the parents need to work but if this was modern times CPS would get called by the lone weekend nurse they employ after noticing the strain they are putting on their other children. Also the fact you never see the parents address Josie's shit behavior is appalling. All together this scores a 3 out of 5. For me, my favorite part of vintage YA Horror is the WTF moment and this novel actually delivers a fairly solid slasher film twist. I was actually surprised by who the actual murderer was since Stine did a good job with red herrings for once including some nice use of the childlike sister pulling some creepy kid tactics. I rate this a solid 5 out of 5 for a total score of 11 out of 15. If you want a fun, bloody teen horror treat instead of chocolate definitely track this down.
Well those are my thoughts on this teen chiller. Do you like holiday themed horror? Have any holiday themed horror suggestions? As always the comments are open and for the latest news on posts give a follow or subscribe. 'Til next time!
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