Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/ghostie phone caller is.
Tag Line: The line is dead.From the Back of the Book: Clarissa Turner is NOT crazy! Her dead sister, Justine really did contact her through a psychic hotline - and Clarissa discovers her sister's death was not an accident - it was murder. Now Clarissa realizes that another Shadyside senior is about to die. And it could be her!
This book was published in 1998 and this is my first time reading it. It's the fourth book in the series and I'm not going to take the time to review the first two so use these friendly little links if you want to refresh your memory about anything I've already recapped.
Book One here.....
Book Two here.....
Book Three here.....
The beginning of each book gives us a
“yearbook” with all the characters. I'll summarize.
Trisha – lists her likes as
shopping and her dislikes as “rich girl jokes”
Clark – lists his likes as
Debra and his dislikes as garlic
Jennifer – lists her likes as
basketball and her dislikes as being a Fear in a Fear-hating town
Jade – lists her likes as
cheerleading and her dislikes as ghosts
Gary – lists his likes as art
class and his dislikes as cops
Kenny – lists his likes as
Jade and his dislikes as kids who torture camp counselors
Debra – lists her likes as
Clark's poems and her dislikes as possessive boyfriends
Stacy – lists her likes as
sports and her dislikes as pyscho killers
Josh – lists his likes as
Debra and his dislikes as funeral homes (uh oh, that's two for Debra)
Josie – lists her likes as
standard goth fare and her dislikes as being compared to stepbrother
Josh
Mickey – lists his likes as
partying and his dislikes as studying
Marla – lists her likes as
writing and her dislikes as goth girls
Mary – lists her likes as
running and her dislikes as rich girls
Dana – lists her likes as boys
and her dislikes as “private cheerleading performances”
Deidre – lists her likes as
mysterious guys and her dislikes as “being a good girl”
(Dana's twin BTW)
Will – lists his likes as
clubbing and his dislikes as the clinic
Ty – lists his likes as
cheerleaders and his dislikes as Valentine's Day
Clarissa – lists her likes as
art and her dislikes as Mira
Matty – lists his likes as
computers and his dislikes as “people who can't take a joke”
Phoebe – lists her likes as
cheerleading and her dislikes as liars
In the last episode, Stine cheated and
introduced four new characters (!): Danielle,
Mira, Jon and Anita. I refused to accept the
existence of any of them and that worked out okay because only one of
them made it to the end of the book. Senior year started with
Deirdre having a hopeless crush on her twin sister Dana's boyfriend
Mickey and being desperate to have some kind of relationship of her
own. She met the mysterious Jon and had high hopes for a happily
ever after with him but he just didn't seem very into her. We
briefly got hammered over the head with the fact that Gary is
cheating on Mary with resident pseudo-psychic Trisha and then people
started dropping like flies. Danielle was the first casualty
followed by some Home Ec teacher that I don't remember the name of
and then Anita. Sort of. Everyone was convinced that a vampire was loose in the town because the corpses were all drained of blood and I
wish I could tell you that it was just stupidity but they were right.
Clark is suspected but it turns out that Jon and Anita were the real
vamps. In the end, Jon stakes Anita and then Deirdre stakes Jon and
all's well that ends well. Except for Danielle and that Home Ec
teacher.
We begin this book with Clarissa who
definitely exists. She's at the cemetery visiting the grave of her
sister Justine who died two months ago. Clarissa doesn't
remember the day Justine died at all but she's told that she found
her sister's body at the bottom of the stairs with a broken neck.
Clarissa has been residing in some kind of mental health clinic since
that day but now she's out and ready to start her senior year with
the rest of her class.
On her first day back, Debra greets her
enthusiastically and tells her how happy everyone is to have her
back. School has been back in session for six weeks at this point and Clarissa asks Debra what else she missed. This is the part where Debra should definitely
mention those vampires and the fact Danielle died despite never
existing at all. But she doesn't because #fuckcontinuity. A bunch
of our regular characters come up to greet her or wave at her as they
pass but nothing really happens so I'm not going to bother with it.
Before they can head to class, Mira
approaches. ((MIRA IS STILL NOT IN THE YEARBOOK AND THEREFORE DOES NOT
EXIST......AGAIN)) Debra isn't happy to see her. Mira has
apparently been behind the bleachers with most of the boys in school
and Debra thinks it's gross but Clarissa admires Mira's
self-confidence. Mira hugs Clarissa and tells her that things
weren't the same without her around. She says that Will in
particular is looking forward to seeing Clarissa. Clarissa
apparently met Will around the time Justine died. He didn't visit
her in the clinic but they did have a lot of phone conversations.
Debra demands to know why Mira has been talking to Will and Mira says
the two of them are friends.
The bell rings and they all part ways.
Clarissa only gets a few steps before she hears someone behind her in
the hall. Suddenly hands reach out and close around her neck,
strangling her.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
It's just Will. Clarissa is surprised
to see he's buzzed off all his dreadlocks. He says he did it to make
his band – Violent Argument (which has to be the stupidest name for
a band ever) – less grunge. They have a gig coming up soon in some random nightclub that high school students definitely shouldn't even be allowed inside.
Suddenly Stine skips to dinner time.
Clarissa's parents explain that Aaron will be moving in soon.
Aaron is the boy they intend to adopt and Clarissa isn't happy with
it. She says she feels like they're trying to replace Justine even
though the adoption process was started way before Justine even died.
Then Clarissa whines that is “hasn't even been a year”
since Justine died which.......no, it hasn't, bitch, since Justine died TWO
MONTHS AGO. I'm not sure what Stine is trying to do here. Her
parents are firm and tell her that Aaron needs a home and he will be
moving in.
Clarissa decides she wants to move into
Justine's room because it's bigger and has a better closet and Aaron can have her old room. It
sounds like there are only three bedrooms in this house so where was
Aaron going to live before? This make no sense, Stine, and it's only
two chapters in. It's way too early for you to be slipping. Anyway,
she volunteers to box up Justine's things because her parents have been unable to do it so far.
She's in there going through things and
thinking about her sister when she sees something moving out of the
corner of her eye. To her horror, an apparition of Justine appears
at the foot of the bed, broken neck and all.
Clarissa is in shock and worries that
she might be losing touch with reality. She doesn't want to go back
to the clinic. She has a flashback of the night Justine died. When
she came in that Friday night, she heard Justine on the phone arguing
with her boyfriend Eddie. She yelled at Eddie that she didn't want to hear anything else and then she came crashing down the stairs
holding the phone.
Odds that Justine was really on the
phone that night: 33%
Odds that she was arguing with someone
in person: 67%
Odds that Eddie is the bad guy: 45% He
seems too obvious but this is Stine and he likes the obvious.
The ghost seems to be trying to get
into the top dresser drawer so Clarissa opens it and takes out a
bunch of notebooks. One by one she holds them up for 👻GhostJustine👻 to
look at and finally she finds the right one. Before she can look
through it, though, someone knocks on the bedroom door and 👻GhostJustine👻 disappears.
Debra and Mira are there to visit but I
don't know why they're together since they seem to hate each other so
much. Stine probably forgot that already. They can see that
Clarissa is shaken up and they ask her what's wrong. She tells them
that she just saw 👻GhostJustine👻. Debra is skeptical but Mira believes
Clarissa. She says that they should look through the notebook to see
what's in it.
The notebook is mostly full of English
notes and caricatures of people Justine knew. In the back is a scrap
of paper with an appointment written in for some fortune teller named
Renata. Justine was supposed to go back the day after she
died. There's a phone number and Mira wants to call it. Clarissa
finally agrees and puts the call on speaker phone. It rings three
times and then it's picked up but no one is there. There's only a
really weird static. Suddenly Justine's voice came over the line.
She calls Clarissa “moon girl” which was her special secret name
and then announced that she had been murdered.
LOLZ
Suddenly Renata is on the line. Debra
calls fake but Renata says if Clarissa takes her off speaker phone,
she'll reveal a secret to prove that she's really psychic. Clarissa
does and Renata reveals that she knows Clarissa has a crush on Josh.
Clarissa had never told anyone that in her life so she's convinced.
Renata says that Justine must need some kind of help if she's
appearing. Renata can't say anything more because she's so drained from
channeling Justine but she tells Clarissa to call back tomorrow and
to have her friends there for the “extra energy”.
We skip to after school the next day.
Clarissa is meeting Will at Pete's Pizza. Um. Wait. Pete's
Pizza??? The pizza place in the Canby universe is called Pizza
Pete's. Do these two worlds exist in the same place? Wouldn't
it be hilarious to find out that the older waitress in the place is
really Shelley who couldn't hack it as an actress in the 80's so
she's working the counter at good old Pizza Pete's and married to
some local boy with five brats? I would so be here for that.
Anyway, she meets Will for an after
school snack of pepperoni pizza. Mira and Ty are there and Josh is
working the counter. Trisha walks in and Clarissa waves her over to
pick her mind about being psychic. I'm not sure what she thinks
Trisha will be able to tell her since Trisha seems to be a pretty craptacular
psychic. They're just beginning the conversation when Will suddenly
grimaces as if he's in terrible pain. Clarissa immediately
overreacts and cries out.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
Apparently Josie also works there and
she just dumped an entire tray of drinks on some woman and Will is
simply trying not to laugh. Clarissa gets back to the matter at hand
and asks Trisha if she thinks people can really channel the dead.
Trisha says she has no idea because she's not a medium and then she
beats it out of there to meet up with Gary-the-cheater-pants.
Will walks Clarissa home after pizza
and asks her why she wanted to talk to Trisha about channeling the
dead. Clarissa admits that she called the psychic and that she's
seen Justine's ghost. Will immediately tenses up which makes me
super suspicious so I'm just going to throw one of these up here real
quick.
Odds that Will is the bad guy: 40%
Will doesn't believe her and tells her
that she's crazy which doesn't sit well with her. She yells at him
that she's going to call the psychic later and find out who murdered
her sister and then she runs off. Well, that was all a perfectly
normal reaction. \\sarcasm font//
Later, Mira comes over to lend her
energy to the phone call. She mentions that Will emailed her to
tell her how worried he was about Clarissa and to try to talk her out
of making the phone call. She makes sure that Clarissa knows that
she and Will are just friends but Clarissa isn't worried about that at all.
Debra finally arrives and they can get down to business. Renata does
some chanting and all of a sudden she's channeling Justine again.
Justine says again that she was murdered but she didn't see who did
it which blows my theory of her arguing with Eddie in person out of
the water. She then tells Clarissa that one of them will die.
By the way, every piece of dialogue
Clarissa has is described as “cried” instead of “said”
or whatever. Clarissa does a lot of “crying”. It must be
exhausting to be that dramatic all the damn time.
Renata tells them she has to rest now
and they should call back tomorrow. You know, this is a 900 number
which means each call costs money. I think Renata is making a nice
heap of change over this and Clarissa's parents aren't going to be
amused when they get the phone bill. Clarissa decides to look
through the notebook again and Stine completely forgets he told us it
was English notes and now it's magically morphed into French notes.
Sigh.
DO
BETTER!!!
I guess the other girls go home at this
point or else Stine just forgot they were even there to begin with
(even odds) because suddenly Clarissa is alone again. She decides to
clear some boxes out of the closet but as she's sliding one out, it
catches on a floorboard. A little prodding reveals a secret hiding
place containing a fake ID and a hunting knife with the word “Slash”
embossed on the leather hilt. Some more poking around produces a
diary from the last year of Justine's life. Clarissa settles in to
read it.
The diary is surprising. Justine was
clearly secretly leading another life. She was skipping school,
sneaking out, “borrowing” the car without permission and
hanging out with some mysterious person she called Slash.
Clarissa is stunned because this isn't the Justine she remembers at
all. Slash clearly thought of Justine as his but she was still
seeing Eddie and some random guy she calls Strummer who is in
a band she sees often at the club. (Do you think Strummer is
Will???) Slash goes full nice-guys-of-Reddit on her and demands to
know why she's going out with every guy but him when he's the one who
loves her and treats her so well. Then in typical 'nice guy'
fashion, he shoves her.
The next few entries turn a little more
troublesome. Slash starts calling her at all hours of the night to
make sure she's home and she's seen him watching her bedroom window
from across the street. She even gets a dead bird in the mail which
she says came from Slash.
Hmmmm.
What if none of those things were
Slash? What if she just assumed the mystery caller, bedroom peeper
and bird sender were Slash because he was acting so douchey? Maybe
the baddie is Strummer. It's a theory.
Clarissa hears something outside of the
window and then it opens and the killer comes through.
{{GASP}}
LOLZ
It's just Will. But he might be the
killer so I might be taking that LOLZ back at some point.
Will says he broke into Clarissa's
bedroom uninvited to apologize to her for being such a jerk earlier.
Because that makes perfect sense.
So, he's oddly wearing gloves AND he
had no idea that Clarissa was moving into Justine's bedroom, so
clearly he's just here to steal back some kind of evidence. I mean,
COME ON, Justine. Use a brain. He seems a little freaked out when
he sees the knife and asks her where she got it. She tells him it's
Justine's and then she shows him the diary. He instantly wants to
know what's in it and begins to flip through the pages. She tells
him about Slash but says she doesn't know his real name. They talk a
little more about the psychic and then Will leaves.
Suddenly, Mira, Clarissa and Debra are
at one of the clubs Justine mentioned in her diary. I don't know if
it's the same day or another day entirely. Stine doesn't bother to
tell us. Clarissa is nervous because they don't have very good fake
IDs. The bouncer doesn't even look at them, however, and they get
into the club easily. Their goal is to find Slash and talk to him but
I don't know how they think they're going to accomplish this. It's
not like the people in the club are going to be wearing name tags or
anything. This seems like a poorly thought out plan.
Clarissa ditches her friends nearly
immediately to go to the bathroom. On her way back there she's
accosted by a creepy guy with tiny daggers through his eyebrows. She
immediately assumes this is Slash and freaks the fuck out. Luckily
Will appears out of nowhere to save the day. He scares the other guy
off and then tells Clarissa she and her friends need to go home
because its much too dangerous for them there and they're never going
to find Slash this way.
It's the next evening and Clarissa is
waiting with a pizza for her parents to come home with Aaron. Stine
finally bothers to tell us that Aaron is five-years-old and small for
his age. He seems scared when he gets to the house and I can't blame
him. His entire world has changed. He's been in the system for
years because he has behavior problems stemming from watching his
parents get murdered. They were tied up and thrown into the river
and now he's deathly afraid of water.
Clarissa takes him upstairs to see his
new room and suddenly he's channeling Justine too. 👻GhostJustine👻 says
that it's too late and there's been another murder. Aaron passes out
before he can say anything else and Clarissa frantically calls for
her dad. Her dad explains that Aaron has low blood sugar problems
and he'll be fine once he gets some dinner.
Clarissa is worried that Debra and/or
Mira might be dead so she calls Debra's house. Debra answers the
phone and tells Clarissa that she had a very interesting conversation
with Eddie that afternoon. Before she can reveal any details, she
suddenly starts screaming at someone and the line goes dead.
Clarissa runs over to her house and finds Debra dead at the bottom of
the stairs. I'd gasp and lol at this but it seems to be real.
RIP Debra.
Also, 👻GhostJustine👻 is a bit premature with her pronouncements, don't you think? She announced Debra's death before it even happened. Get a grip on your fucking story, Stine.
Clarissa tries to convince the police
that Debra was murdered but they aren't having it. She produces
Renata for evidence and the officer gives Renata a call. Renata
denies knowing Justine or Clarissa and claims she's never spoken to
either of them. The officer pretty much dismisses Clarissa entirely
based on the fact she's been in a mental health clinic and she
eventually gives up and goes home.
When she gets home she decides to call
Eddie to find out what he told Debra before she died. Eddie is
hesitant to tell her but eventually does. Justine had gone out with
Will a few times before she died. Clarissa is stunned. She
immediately assumes Will is Slash but he could easily be Strummer
since he is definitely in a band.
Odds that Will is Slash: 45%
Odds that Will is Strummer: 55%
Mira comes over and the girls talk
about the possibility that Will could be Slash. Mira doesn't think
it's possible. She's known him for two years and doesn't think he
could hurt anyone. She decides to email him and ask him what he was
up to the night Debra died. She logs into her email account on
Clarissa's computer and sends the message from there. Then she
leaves. I thought this was going to be significant but Stine just completely forgets it ever happened. Sigh.
DO BETTER!
After she's gone, Clarissa gets the
required spooky call. It's nothing but static but she's convinced
Justine is trying to communicate with her. She sees a glowing light
by the stairs and goes to investigate. Suddenly hands push her from
behind and she goes falling down the stairs. She feels her bones
break and her neck snap and then she feels her life slipping away
from her.
{{GASP}}
LOLZ
It was a dream of course. But when she
wakes up, Will is standing over her bed. She starts to scream and he
covers her mouth with his hand. He doesn't release her until she
promises not to alert her parents. She asks what he's doing there
and he says he heard about Debra and came to comfort her. She
accuses him of dating Justine and he admits he did. He says that
they dated and then Justine broke up with him and “ripped his heart
out”. He “got a little crazy” after that and did some light
stalking but he didn't kill her. Clarissa doesn't believe him and
knows in her heart that he's Slash. There's just one small problem
with this, Clarissa. Your sister never actually dated Slash.
Remember, he made the crack about her dating everyone but him.
She dated Strummer. Clarissa accuses him outright of killing
Justine and Debra and he denies both. She screams at him to get out
and he does but tells her she's going to regret accusing him this
way.
Clarissa's parents come to see what the
commotion is and she tells them everything. She mentions calling
Renata from Justine's phone and they tell her that's impossible.
Justine had a private line and they cut off service when she died.
Sure enough, when she picks up the receiver there's no dial tone at
all. This freaks her right the fuck out. They take the phone with
them when they leave.
The next day, Mira makes plans to stay
the night with Clarissa. They're both a little worried they might be
next and figure they'll be okay if they stick together. They try to
call Renata from a pay phone but she says she can't connect with
Justine from there. They need to be in Justine's room using the
phone that Justine was on when she died because her spirit is tied to
it. The only problem with that is that Clarissa's parents took that phone.
She and Mira do a huge search of the
house after Clarissa's parents go to bed for the night and they
finally locate the phone in her dad's office. They take it back up
to Clarissa's room to make the call.
Wouldn't it be weird if Mira turned out
to be Slash?
Odds that Mira is the "bad guy": 50%
They call Renata but there's no answer.
Mira points out that it's almost one in the morning and Renata is
probably asleep. She suggests they just go to bed so they do.
About half an hour later, Mira wakes up Clarissa to tell her that
someone is climbing up the trellis to her room. Clarissa grabs the
Slash knife and holds it at Will as he comes in the window. He tells
her that he's just there to tell her something important but she
lunges at him anyway and he ends up falling to the ground below and
breaking a few bones.
We skip ahead some time and Clarissa is
back in the mental health clinic. Her counselor advises her to call
Will and apologize for knocking him out of her window so that she can
heal and move on. Why is no one caring about the fact he was
climbing into a girl's window after 1:00AM? That's a crime, y'all. Even if Will isn't the bad guy - and I'm leaning toward Mira more and more - he IS a creeper who climbs in windows and this behavior should not be ignored.
Clarissa calls him and he's pretty
understanding about the entire thing. He tells her that he wanted to
talk to her about Mira. Mira is obsessed with him and he really
thinks that she might have been the one to kill Justine. I'm be okay
with this since Mira is not in the yearbook and therefore does not
exist. If she's the killer, she can go back to not existing.
Clarissa doesn't believe him and thinks he's just trying to divert
suspicion.
Clarissa's parents come to visit her
along with Aaron and Mira. They leave Aaron in Mira's care to go do
some shopping for some reason instead of staying to visit with their
daughter. The three of them are making small talk when a phone
begins to ring in Mira's backpack. She says it's her cell but Aaron
digs it out to look and it's Justine's phone. The phone isn't hooked
up to anything but it's clearly ringing. Aaron picks up the receiver
and instantly starts channeling 👻GhostJustine👻. He only says two
words: “Believe it” and then the incident is over.
Clarissa asks why Mira has Justine's
phone and Mira says she didn't want Clarissa's dad to find it and
take it away again since it's the only way they have to contact
Renata. Then she and Aaron leave to go get some ice cream.
Odds of Mira being the killer (but
probably not Slash): 88%
Clarissa does some deep thinking after
Mira leaves and realizes she's probably the bad guy. She shimmies
out the window and down a drain pipe and then makes her escape. She
goes to Mira's house first and Mira's mom tells her that Mira took
Aaron to Fear Lake. Clarissa knows Aaron is terrified of water so
she goes running that way. When she gets there, Mira has Aaron out
in a boat. She asks Clarissa which one should go overboard first –
the kid or the phone? Mira eventually decides the phone should go
first and throws it into the lake.
Mira does her best impression of a
bad-guy-monologue and we learn that Will was right – Mira killed
Justine to eliminate her rival for Will's affection. It didn't work,
though, because Will ended up falling for Clarissa instead of Mira.
She killed Debra because Debra knew that she was obsessed with Will
and Mira figured it was only a matter of time before Debra figured
out that Mira had eliminated Justine.
After the run down, Mira throws Aaron
into the water. He can't swim so Clarissa goes in to rescue him.
Mira begins attacking her with the paddle. A very wishy-washy water
fight ensues at this point. Aaron is rescued by some random guy who
happened by. While Mira and Clarissa are still battling it out, the
police, the doctor from the clinic and Clarissa's parents arrive,
having been summoned by Mira's mom. The girls get to shore and Mira
sees that Aaron is dead {{GASP}} so she blames everything on Clarissa
and all the adults believe her even though she doesn't actually
exist. But then.....
LOLZ
Aaron comes to and tells everyone it
was Mira.
The book ends with Mira taking
Clarissa's place in the mental institution and Clarissa happily
dating Will who has forgiven her for breaking his poor bones but is probably continuing his troubling stalker behavior that no one seems to mind.
Poor Ty. He just lost his make out
buddy. He'll get over it, though, since she didn't even exist.
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