R. L. Stine

Joanne is flippant about her relationship with the people in her life, but when her recently deceased boyfriend returns from the grave, her life is no longer a laughing matter.

The Boyfriend

Briar's Reviews

I love a good horror book, especially one by R.L. Stine. One of my goals is to read R.L. Stine's backlog of books, which is very daunting and going to be tough... but I'm down for the challenge.

I found The Boyfriend at a local used book store and picked it up to continue my reading goal. I needed something a little different, so I decided to pick it up. And man... I'm so torn on this one!

Joanna is going to break up with Dex. He's obsessed with her and she's... obsessed with herself. And then he dies and she doesn't help him. Life seems like it's going to be great - there's a new hot guy after her and life couldn't be better... until Dex shows up looking dead and destroyed. He's back... and he's ready to torture Joanna.

I absolutely hated Joanna and her personality. I very much felt she deserved every bad thing that came her way. I did enjoy the actual plot that went down, but listening to Joanna as the narrator... That was rough. She was too snobby, whiny, and down right annoying. Joanna was the mean girl we all hated in high school, so why make her the lead? She deserves the bad things but having to deal with her as the narrator didn't work for me. It was almost too much. I can see why R.L. Stine made her the narrator, but still... it was just a bit too much for me.

The actual horror was impeccable. I am impressed with the story as a whole and highly recommend it for someone looking for a short horror read.

Two out of five stars - Not for the plot, but for Joanna who made me want to DNF this quite a few times. I think if there was some sort of anthology television series with this as an episode, it would work so much better. The book just needed refining for me not to want to bash myself over the head as I listened to Joanna narrate her way through.

Noha Abdelaziz

Jana Jenkinns 

A spurned ex-boyfriend comes back from the grave to haunt the girl who broke up with him.