“Oh, what fools these actors be!

It was a horror movie that turned into real horror: Three young actors lost their lives while the cameras rolled. Production stopped, and people proclaimed the movie was cursed.

Now, sixty years later, new actors are venturing onto the haunted set. In a desperate attempt to revive their failing studio, Claire’s dad has green-lit a remake of Mayhem Manor, and Claire and her friends are dying to be involved.

At first, Claire laughs at Jake’s talk of ghosts and curses. He’s been too busy crushing on her best friend, Delia, or making out with that slut, Annalee, to notice that she’s practically been throwing herself at him. What does he know anyway? This is her big chance to be a star!

But then, Claire runs into a creepy little man named Benny Puckerman, and gets her hands on a real love potion! Unfortunately, the course of true love never did run smooth…

Get ready for laughter to turn into screams as the Grandmaster of Horror, R.L. Stine, takes on the Master of Theater in this modern reimagining of Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

What I see: Le sigggggggghhhhhhh. I know that people have been super negative on Goodreads about this book, and that’s one of the reasons why I got it as soon as it was published. There are a lot of haters on the Internet and I wanted to see what was fact and what was fiction.

I had also just finished some of Stine’s Goosebumps, so his juvenile writing was fresh in my mind. I was really disappointed by this story. I felt it was a good idea, but it lacked the execution. It just didn’t work. I felt that the snuff film references were too adult for the piece, and yet, all the dialogue and characters acted like they were ten.

There was a huge disconnect with everything. Some scenes were too obvious when others were not obvious enough. The sentences were a lot like Goosebumps, to short, with a two page cliff hanger chapter. It just didn’t come together and flow. I wish it did. The blurb and idea are fun, interesting, but the end delivery isn’t there. It makes me sad, because I am a huge fan of Stine’s work. I hope he keeps at it for YA! I want to read what else he can do.