Fear Street Super Chiller: Goodnight Kiss by R.L. Stine

Fear Street Super Chiller: Goodnight Kiss

By R.L. Stine

216 pages

Published by Pocket Books (1992)

Reading R.L. Stine really transported me back to more than 20 years, when I was still in school and addicted to consuming the popular teen series of that yesteryear: Fear Street, Spooksville, Sweet Valley, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the evergreen Nancy Drew series – just to name a few. Those were the days before the existence of Harry Potter / The Princess Diaries / Geronimo Stilton / Ever After High / etc., mind you!

I have really forgotten the feel of R.L. Stine’s books, until I got my hands on Goodnight Kiss a few days ago. The spooky subject in this novel were vampires, and it was not until I started reading that I realized that I had also forgotten about vampires supposed to be bloodthirsty, selfish and merciless creatures. I guess I had read too much paranormal romance that I had begun to think vampires being sexy, romantic and gentlemanly! 😅

Back to this novel, Goodnight Kiss featured two “teenaged” vampires (because they appeared in the form of teenagers) named Jessica and Gabri Martins. It all began when the two accidentally went out on a blind date, hoping that the other was a human being so they could drink their date’s blood. When they discovered that they had dated among the same species, they would not stop bickering about it. Both of them were so resentful towards the other because they were both very hungry, very thirsty for blood, and the mistake had been a waste of time.

In the end, Jessica and Gabri agreed to challenge each other to find a human victim, seduce them, and turn their victim into a vampire, too. A human will be turned into a vampire if their blood had been sucked three times (not necessarily at consecutive nights). The key was to drink the human blood just enough: just right to quench the vampire’s thirst, but not too much either, for that will kill the human.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Jessica and Gabri both picked their target among the beach-goers in the summer seaside town of Sandy Hollow. To make the challenge more difficult, both Jessica and Gabri agreed that the other will choose a victim for them. Gabri picked an introverted boy named Todd for Jessica, hoping that she will have a hard time approaching her victim. While Jessica chose for Gabri a girl named April, who already had a boyfriend to make it hard for him.

But being vampires, both Jessica and Gabri really had no problems attracting their victims. Todd was helplessly lusting after the beautiful Jessica, while April – who already had problems with her boyfriend Matt – felt attracted towards the good-looking Gabri.

The problem began one night when Gabri purposefully created a commotion when Jessica was just about to drink Todd’s blood. Jessica was distracted and she accidentally drank too much of Todd’s blood – killing him on the spot.

Gabri was smug because Jessica had apparently lost the challenge, but she was not one to give up easily. Jessica was determined to target a new victim for herself: this time around, she turned to April’s boyfriend Matt.

But Matt, despite behaving like a jerk in April’s eyes, was able to think more clearly, particularly after Todd’s mysterious death. He suspected both Gabri and Jessica were vampires, and they were responsible for Todd’s death. Matt was able to fight the mind-controlling powers of Jessica to avoid her.

Unfortunately, Matt was not successful with convincing April to avoid Gabri. Naturally, April would not believe Matt’s seemingly tall tale about Gabri being a vampire. April continued going out with Gabri, until Gabri took her to a deserted island off the beach, apparently to take her blood.

Matt was determined to help April before she died tragically like Todd. He followed Gabri and April and found them on the deserted island. Matt attacked Gabri with a wooden oar, and the oar pierced through Gabri’s heart and killed him – a vampire’s death at the stakes. Jessica arrived then to attack Matt, but he was able to kill her too, by setting her up on fire – another way to kill a vampire. Matt was relieved that April had not been killed, although she looked obviously weakened: Gabri must have had her blood before Matt came to the rescue.

After the incident, Matt and April were back together again. I was just supposing that Goodnight Kiss was not that chilling after all, until I came to the last two pages: Gabri had actually managed to turn April into a vampire, and now she was hungry for Matt’s blood!

The End.