Tag Line: Someone is watching....From the Back of the Book: An adoring fan or a crazed killer? Janna always wanted to be a star. She dreams of the applause, giving autographs, and, most of all, the thrilling attention. And now she finally has an adoring fan. Someone who has seen her dancing onstage. At first he just sends flowers and notes. But what seems like innocent admiration soon turns into a terrifying obsession. He is always near her. Always watching her. Waiting to make his move. Is the stalker just trying to get closer to Janna? Or is he trying to make sure no one ever will?
This book was written in 1996 and I've never read it before. I have high hopes, though, because I've liked several of Ellis's books. I picked this one out myself after the suffering I endured at the hands of "Someone At The Door". This is my recovery book, so to speak.
I'm counting on you, Ellis. Don't let me down.
The print in this book is REALLY BIG. Yay for me! Not only is it an Ellis and unlikely to annoy me excessively, but it shouldn't take too long to read with print this size.
We begin with a prologue. Oh, goody
gumdrops. Our protagonist Janna is alone in a theater. She's
crossing the dark stage when she pauses in the center to take a bow
and blow kisses to the non-existent audience. Suddenly a spotlight
turns on her and she's embarrassed that someone has caught her
looking silly. She starts to cross the stage to head off and the
spotlight follows her movement. She starts getting creeped out. Just as
she's about to exit the stage, she sees movement from the catwalk
high above. Something comes sailing down to land at her feet. It's
a rose with a card that reads: “Soon you'll be mine, Janna.”
Prologues are usually useless or
annoying but that one wasn't so bad. It was short and sweet.
Chapter one begins with Janna
performing in the musical Grease to a packed house. She's part of
the Regional Theater Company (seriously – inspired name, Ellis) and
they'll be performing the musical across two midwestern states.
Janna loves to dance and she enjoys acting and singing as well. She
isn't exactly humble about her looks. She tells us that being good
looking helps her get roles in the plays she auditions for.
Janna's stats: heart-shaped face, long
dark hair, big brown eyes (they're described as “snapping” but I
have no idea what that means), wide mouth, great smile and fabulous
body.
We briefly meet the choreographer Gray
who has piercing eyes and is hard to please. Next is Liz who is icy
and sarcastic. Janna knows that Liz is hella jealous of her because
Janna's such an amazing dancer and Liz just can't compare.
Y'all, Janna's ego is way too small for
this book. It's spilling out all over. I've had to wash my shirt
twice because it got Janna's ego all over it. I'm billing Ellis for
my detergent costs.
After Liz, we meet Ryan the stage
manger. He's always in the background watching things. We get deets
on him. Ryan's stats: dark blonde hair, green eyes with gold specks,
hot, walks like a cat. Not on all fours with his butt stuck up in
the air but graceful and prowly. Janna is totally macking on him but
he is either shy or snobbish. Janna isn't sure which. We KNOW it's not because he's just not into her because Janna is the STUFF.
Ryan stops her as she passes and she's
all excited thinking he's going to express his undying love (crap,
there's more Janna-ego on my shirt) but he just hands her an envelope
and says he found it on the floor outside her dressing room. She
doesn't have time to read it before she has to go back onstage for
curtain calls. Janna LOVES curtain calls. She loves all those
people in the audience clapping just for her. You know, because
there's not fifteen other people on the stage or anything. What's
wrong with you? Clearly they're clapping just for her! She knows
they are!
This is like Sea World when they tell
you the first three rows are in the “splash zone” and you will
probably get wet. This book should have a “splatter zone” for
Janna's ego bursting from the pages.
When curtain calls finally end, Janna
goes backstage to open her envelope. There's a piece of paper inside
telling her to break a leg and it seems like a nice sentiment until
she sees the drawing. It's a dancer with a severed leg spurting
blood all over the page. Nice.
This is bad. I think I'm cheering for
the bad guy already and it's only chapter one. In my defense, I
don't own enough shirts to keep reading this book. I can't do this
much laundry to get Janna's ego off of me. Let's just kill her and
I'll start reading a less messy book.
Ellis, I was counting on you. Shape it up.
Janna assumes that her ex-boyfriend
Jimmy is behind the note. Because it's Point Horror, ex-Jimmy was
controlling and borderline violent and didn't take the breakup well.
They really pound this particular trope right into the ground.
Now we meet Toni who is Janna's
roommate. Toni's stats: red hair, gray eyes, bubbly personality. We
know instantly she'll only be a sidekick because she is bubbly.
That's like major-character-kryptonite right there. Major characters
in Point Horror can NOT be bubbly.
There's a dozen red roses in the
dressing room for Janna. The note simply says “Soon”. A rando
named Gillian warns Janna to be careful because it's probably a
“crazy” fan. This is the point where I would usually make a
sarcastic remark about Point Horror and it's “crazies” but Janna
is pretty awful and a person would have to be a few eggs short of a dozen to
want to be with her. This one can slide.
Liz points out that Janna isn't exactly
a celebrity and basically implies that Janna isn't worth stalking and
I love it so much that Liz might be my new favorite character. The
girls walk out of the theater to find fans waiting for autographs.
Really? For what is basically high school production? Oooooookay.
One of the guys (Stan) makes Janna uncomfortable with his adoration.
Later she realizes he called her by name even though her name
isn't printed in the program and he had no way of knowing it.
Her name isn't printed in the program
and yet she thinks of herself as a big star? I'm having an attack of
the giggles. She's just like in the dance corps and she's acting like
she's the lead. Oh, Janna. Poor deluded Janna.
Gillian, Liz,
Toni and Janna are apparently roommates for this tour. They're
staying in a hotel with the rest of the cast and crew. They go back
to their room and Janna is about to call home when Jimmy calls. He
admits to sending the note with the bloody picture on it but he wants
Janna to take him back anyway. Charming. She refuses and he get
pissed and goes into the standard “you'll be sorry” routine that
we all know so very well.
Janna hangs up
and the girls discuss what a great suspect Jimmy will make for this
book and how glad they are that Ellis made him a complete asshat so
they can pretend to be afraid of him. Or maybe they just warned
Janna over and over to be careful. Janna changes the subject to Ryan
and asks her roommates how she can get her talons into him. Liz
warns her that Ryan is a serial heartbreaker and he's not what he
seems. She fell in love with him the previous summer on tour and he
cheated on her and broke her heart. Janna isn't sure she can believe
Liz. After all, Liz is really jealous of Janna's immense talent.
Sometime after
midnight when all of her roommates are fast asleep, Janna decides
that she wants the roses out of her room. She can't sleep with them
staring at her like that. So she puts on a robe and goes outside to
throw them away. This is back in the day where most motel rooms
opened to the outside instead of into an interior hallway. While
she's out in the dark, undressed and alone, she decides to get a
Diet 7up out of the machine and drink it while staring out into the
parking lot. Suddenly headlights come on and illuminate her. The
car doesn't move and she's certain that the person inside is just
sitting there staring at her. I'm sure they were. She's a teenage
girl standing outside in a robe in the middle of the night. The
driver was probably trying to figure out if she was a junkie or a
hooker.
Janna
rushes back into her room and locks the door. She stands there for a
few seconds getting angrier and angrier. She decides to go back
outside and confront the person in the parking lot. You know....for
viciously turning on his or her headlights. I mean, HOW DARE THEY?
How dare they turn on their headlights at midnight before operating
their car?? How dare they accidentally shine their lights on a
random teenage girl drinking a Diet 7up alone outside at midnight
that they had no way of knowing would be there?? She storms back
outside like the complete idiot that she is only to discover the
parking lot is empty. Ellis tries to make this sinister. Like the
person didn't simply turn their headlights on in preparation of
driving somewhere and then simply....drive somewhere.
The
next day after rehearsal, Janna's roommates head off to see a movie
before the evening's performance. Janna decides to run some errands
and rest instead. On her way back to the motel, Ryan sneaks up and
grabs her arm. Always a good tactic, gentlemen. We ladies LOVE
being startled. He invites her to lunch and she eagerly accepts.
Over salad and sandwiches, she tells him her entire life story. I'm
not surprised she thought he'd be riveted. Her ego is just
unbelievable. In turn, he tells her very little about himself other
than he enjoys being on crew at the theater and has no talent for
acting or dancing.
When
Janna gets back to the hotel room there are several phone messages
from Jimmy which she just tosses. There's also an envelope containing a
letter. It basically says the writer has been dreaming of her and
can't wait to hold her in his arms. Also he's mad that she threw
away his flowers and it almost made him forget how much he loves her.
Before curtain that evening, the stage
manager tells Janna that she has an emergency phone call. It's her
“biggest fan” calling to tell her that he loves to watch her and
he'll see her soon. I guess that was supposed to build suspense but
it's so completely non-threatening that it just feels like page
filler.
Janna completely flubs her opening
number and gets chewed out by Gray in front of the entire cast.
Afterwards her roommates try to make her feel better. Well, except
Liz who appears to be enjoying Janna's misfortune. I really like
Liz. She tends to say all the things I'm thinking. Toni thinks
Janna should go to the cops. She realizes that Ellis really hasn't
done a good job of making this book suspenseful (or interesting) so
she informs us that a girl named Kathy was murdered by a stalkerish
fan while performing on Broadway recently. And before she was on
Broadway, Kathy was with THIS THEATER COMPANY. Dun dun dun.
Seriously. I so do not care about
anything in this book. And why is it so long? The print is huge. I should be done by now.
That night Janna is tormented by
thoughts of being murdered by her “biggest fan”. She glances
toward the window where the cheap motel curtains don't close
completely and she sees someone looking in from the outside. It
actually says that he was watching her with “hungry eyes”. My
eyes fell out of my skull because I rolled them so hard. She screams
the entire room awake and pounds on the window for a bit. They see a
shadow running away. Janna starts to go outside to follow the person
but her much smarter roommates stop her.
The next night is their last
performance before moving on to a new town. After the show they head
to a nightclub to party. Janna orders a 7up with a slice of lime and
I'm starting to wonder if 7up paid Ellis some kind of marketing fee
to get mentioned in this crummy book. They should ask for their
money back. Also, should the touring company be allowing their high
school cast and crew to party at a nightclub?
Ryan again sneaks up to her and puts
his arm around her, scaring her. I don't like this guy. They dance
and, for some reason, Janna weirdly rubs the fabric of his shirt
between her fingers. It completely reminds me of that Seinfeld
episode where George doesn't get the bra job because he feels the
CEO's fabric. (That was a weird sentence.) They have a lame conversation where Ryan implies that he's falling in love and Janna doesn't seem to react much to it. I guess she takes it as her due.
After several dances, Janna decides she
needs to splash some water on her face. I think that's PH code for
she needs to pee. On her way to the bathroom she feels like someone
is watching her and quickly concludes that she looks so hot the
entire bar is probably checking her out. Oy. I can't even with this
chick right now. The ego. The massive, massive ego.
She bumps into Stan again and wonders
if he's the one who has been stalking her. She starts screaming at
him demanding to know why he is in this public place that he has
every right to be in. Stan seems really confused by this behavior. Also, he's with his girlfriend who is getting pretty mad. Janna makes quite a scene yelling at poor Stan and he gets really
embarrassed. Finally she realizes she's accusing him without any
real proof and she semi-apologizes telling him that she's just tired.
Run, Stan. Run as far away from this
girl as possible.
Back at the motel, the other girls pack
to leave the next morning. Liz thinks Janna is making an idiot of
herself and acting like a crazy person. I still think Liz says all
the things I think. Someone knocks on the door. It's 2am and
there's a stalker gadding about but Janna just opens the door without
checking to see who it might be. So dumb. Much stupid.
It's Jimmy-the-ex. Yay. There's
several paragraphs that go exactly as they always go. He fluctuates
between calling her “Babe” in a smarmy voice and accusing her of
picking up other guys. She tells him again that it's over and he
says something mildly threatening. Very predictable conversation.
I'm disappointed, Ellis. Janna is now convinced that Jimmy is the
stalker despite the fact that she just caused a huge scene in the
nightclub accusing Stan of being the stalker. She's just awful.
They leave the next morning and head to
a new town and a new hotel. This one is a little nicer than the last
one but they aren't staying with the rest of the group. There wasn't
enough room in any one motel for everyone to be together. They
barely get time to put their bags in their room before they have to
be at the theater for rehearsal. Since they aren't with the rest of
the group, Janna and her roommates have to walk.
There's mail for each of the girls in
the dressing room and another rose. This one is from Ryan. Everyone
heads for the stage but Janna's shoelace breaks and she has to go
back to the dressing room to get a new one. Written in lipstick on
the mirror is: “Miss me yet? I'm closer than you think. We'll
be together, Janna. Soon.”
Janna realizes it's not Jimmy's handwriting.
Janna
keeps screwing up during rehearsal. Is it wrong that I enjoyed it
immensely? She goes looking for Ryan afterwards and finds him
kissing Liz. Actually it sounds more like Liz is taking advantage of
Ryan in this instance. Ellis is careful to point out that her body
is pressed against his and her mouth is locked on his. I'm sure Ryan
will claim that Liz just glommed on him and he wasn't kissing her
back. I thought Liz was smarter than that, but whatever.
The
performance that night is awful. This time it wasn't just Janna.
Everyone is tense and unhappy afterwards. Ryan invites Janna out to
get something to eat but she tells him that she saw him kissing Liz
and she's done with him. He says something vaguely threatening about
this not being over but it's just Ellis trying to pad her suspect
list so I think we can ignore it.
The
next day, Janna notices her beloved teddy bear is missing. I'm sure
it will turn up gutted or something. She keeps seeing a white car
driving around the motel and she's convinced it's her stalker. I'm
surprised she hasn't started yelling at it like she does every suspect in the vicinity.
Later
, Janna goes alone to the theater to rehearse. She's dancing alone
on stage when she hears a sound and then the set falls on her,
knocking her out. When she comes to, Ryan and Gray and a couple
other people are there and she's bleeding from the head. Gray says
she can't dance that night and Liz will take her place. Janna feels
like Liz is taking her place with everything.
Janna
goes back to the hotel room where she takes a nap. We're treated to
a FIVE PAGE dream sequence in which Janna is a puppet and everyone is
pulling her strings. She wakes up to the phone ringing. It's her
stalker. He knows what she's wearing. She looks outside and,
through the pouring rain, she can barely make out a person in the
phone booth across the street. She lays down on the floor out of
sight and calls the police. She can't remember the name of the motel
she's in, but she demands the police find her anyway and save her.
Then she gets pissed off because the dispatcher keeps asking
questions to assess the situation so she hangs up the phone.
Because
she's too stupid to live, Janna decides the best thing to do is to
run outside alone in the storm to confront the person in the phone
booth. By the time she gets there, the booth is empty. She's
walking back to her room when someone hits her in the back of the
head and throws her into the motel pool. I shouldn't be enjoying
this.....but I am.
Gillian
and Toni arrive just in time to save her and help her out of the
pool. They call the police but there's nothing that can really be
done. The officer tells her to start keeping a log of all the phone
calls and incidents and to stop being so fucking stupid. Those might
not have been his exact words, but I assure you, it's what he was
thinking.
The
next night the girls discuss how Liz could have been the culprit.
She left before curtain calls were over and didn't return until after
Janna was pulled from the pool. They are getting ready to go on
stage when Ryan calls Janna out into the hall. As expected, he
blames the kiss on Liz and tells Janna that Liz threw herself on him
and he was the innocent victim. She doesn't know whether to believe
him or not but she tells him she doesn't want any part of the drama.
It's starting to affect her dancing and she needs it to stop.
The
musical goes well that night and Janna is back on top of her game.
As she's taking her curtain call, she sees Stan out in the audience
staring at her. She rushes into the crowded lobby afterwards and
pushes through people to get to the person she thinks is Stan. He
has his back to her, so she grabs his arm and starts screaming at him
to leave her alone and get out of her life. Of course, when he turns
around, it isn't Stan at all. The entire lobby is silent and staring
now Gray is furious with her for causing a scene in the theater.
Later,
Liz joins the rest of the roommates at a diner. They confront her
about jumping Ryan's bones and she tells them that they have it
backwards. She says that he sought her out and then kissed her
against her will. No one believes her naturally. I mean, men are
completely incapable of wanting to kiss anyone but Janna. Liz warns
Janna that Ryan is a likely suspect for the stalker and then she
stomps off.
Before
the performance the next night, Janna goes shopping for some new
shoes. On her way back to the theater, a white car tries repeatedly
to run her over. It's unfortunately unsuccessful. She gets through
the performance okay and then goes back to the dressing room to
change. In her bag she finds her teddy bear. He's been gutted and
someone has poured blood into the empty cavity of his stomach.
Another
book, another murdered teddy bear. What does Point Horror have
against teddy bears? Soulless bastards. Let's all have a moment of
silence for Ted E. Bear II. He will be missed.
Toni,
Gillian and Janna decide to walk to the convenience store to stock up
on junk food. Janna glances behind her at one point and realizes
that Stan is following them. I don't know if this is actual-Stan or
the Stan that lives in Janna's imagination. The girls come up with a
plan. They'll casually go inside the store as they'd planned. Then
one of them will slip back to the pay phone and call the police.
Then they'll leave the store and start back to the motel like nothing is wrong.
Everything
is going fine until Stan spots the police car at the end of the
block. He turns around and starts walking the other way. Janna
can't accept this and she goes running after him. When he sees her
coming, he starts to run too. She ends up tackling him from behind
and pounds on him until the police catch up.
Stan
tells Janna that he loves her and just wants to be with her. Janna
screams at him for trying to drown her and for killing her bear. He
tells her he didn't. I'm sure he's probably telling the truth.
Stan's girlfriend Carly shows up right as he's being hauled away. How did she know where he was? Does she have a tracking device embedded in his ear or was she following him while he was following Janna? She tells Janna this is all her fault because Stan was doing fine
before he saw Janna's face. Me too, Carly. Me too.
The
next day Janna is feeling pretty smug and satisfied until she gets to
the theater and sees that her costume has been slashed. She calls
the police to find out that Stan has been released. He admitted to
the flowers and a couple of the notes and the writing on the mirror
but denied all the sinister things. And he doesn't drive a white
car. The police had no choice but to let him go.
WHY IS THIS BOOK TAKING SO LONG TO READ?????
Ellis has betrayed me. This is awful.
Janna
remembers that ex-Jimmy's dad owns a white car so she calls his house
to talk to him. Jimmy's dad says that he hasn't seen Jimmy for days.
Jimmy got a job selling encyclopedias door to door and he has borrowed the white car to do it. In the space of three pages, Janna
has been convinced the bad guy is Stan AND convinced the bad guy is
Jimmy. Make up your fucking mind, Janna. I hate it when
protagonists do this crap. You either believe it's Stan or you
believe it's Jimmy.
The
lights go out in the theater. Janna decides to GTFO but she runs
into Ryan before she reaches the doors. He's holding a tire iron
from the prop table. Which means it's probably fake but Janna
decides he's the bad guy after all. THREE BAD GUYS IN FOUR PAGES!!!
This has to be a new record. He tells her he wants to talk to her
but she's all scared and trying to find a way out. She's sure Ryan
will kill her if he catches up to her.
Janna
runs through the dark theater. At one point she trips and falls.
She hears a crash behind her and realizes Ryan has tripped and fallen
too. Only he doesn't get up. And he seems to be bleeding from a
blow to the back of the head. Because he wasn't the bad guy and
Janna is such an idiot.
Our
bad guy seems to be Stan's girlfriend Carly. This revelation
displeases me. Gillian or Toni would have been a better story. Or
maybe Vic the backstage guy. Carly is NOT a good story.
Sigh.
Carly
has some kind of lead pipe on a chain. It sounds like an awkward and
heavy weapon. Not the kind most people would choose. Several pages
of predictable dialogue follow. Janna keeps telling Carly that she's
crazy which seems like a poor choice on Janna's part. She has no
sense of self-preservation at all. Carly tells Janna how she needs
to die so Stan won't be obsessed with her anymore. I'm so bored.
Janna
attempts to make a run for it but Carly snags her with that chain.
Maybe it's a pretty good weapon after all. Janna gets away and makes
another run for it but all the doors are locked for the night. She
ends up on the catwalk high above the stage because that's exactly
where any reasonable person would go. {sarcasm} Carly follows her
out on it because clearly she's a bigger idiot than Janna. She takes
a swing at Janna with her heavy weapon and it knocks her off balance,
sending her plunging to the floor below.
Carly
survives. Ryan survives. Janna survives. It's the last one that
makes me blue. The book ends with Ryan and Janna kissing.
Ellis,
you're on my list now. I will never trust you again.
Final Thoughts: I can't believe I picked this book because I thought it was going to be a nice change of pace after the last one. This book was awful. I will never look at Ellis as a safe choice again. Janna was an awful protagonist. It was impossible to root for her. She spent all her time telling us how amazing she is. That is, when she wasn't screaming at everyone for being her stalker. I hated her from page one and she never changed my first impression of her. We never really got to know anyone else beyond their initial character descriptions. I didn't even care that Ryan and Janna got together at the end because she was awful and I didn't know him at all. Ellis let me down, man. She let me down.
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