The Third Evil

Well hello Ancient Evil that likes to jump around other people. Let's see where you are today.

The third book in the "Fear Street" Cheerleaders series by R.L. Stine is a wild ride. Stine gives us some real horror moments in this one. We also get some of the origin (slightly) of the ancient evil that resided in Sarah Fear and is now tormenting Corky.

"Third Evil" opens with Corky thinking back on things that have happened to her and her friends on the Shadyside cheerleading squad over the past year. Corky's sister Bobbi is dead and so is her boyfriend Chip. There's a new freshman that is on the squad, Hannah, who is bugging the crap out of Corky and Kimmy. Corky still of course misses her sister and starts to have strange dreams about her. show more Something is going on which leads Corky to believe that she didn't really get rid of the Ancient Evil and that it is back again wrecking havoc on the squad and others.

Corky was great in this one. I honestly felt for her. No spoilers, but what Corky was prepared to do was honestly brave and I liked how it tied into Sarah Fear. I think that the other cheerleaders have their own little niche in this series and it was good to see Kimmy and the others again.

The writing at times does grab you and it's crazy to me that R. L. Stine was graphic at times about the murders that went on in the past and what the Ancient Evil wanted to do to people. There are some gross scenes too with cockroaches and snakes. The flow of the book was great and I got through this one rather quickly.

The setting of Shadyside will continue to amuse me cause that whole town has to be built on a Hellmouth.

There's a fourth book in the series that I already heard is a letdown, so will see about reading it one day. This was a great book to end the series on and will have to say that I don't know why Stine thought it needed one more book.

I read this for "Fear Street" square. show less

So I'm not sure if Stine meant for this to be JUST a trilogy. The next book, THE NEW EVIL, came out 2 years later (in 1994) and was a Super Chiller. For anyone not up on their teen pulp series like Sweet Valley High, Fear Street and Nancy Drew - special editions periodically came out that were (for the most part) longer and sometimes either geared towards a 'holiday' or 'mystery' theme. In the case of Fear Street specials, they tended to be extensions of Stine's multi-book stories (like Cheerleaders or Silent Night) or the genesis of the prequel "Sagas" books depicting the history of the Fear Family, Shadyside's formation and the various supernatural things that happened.

Anyhow I'm not sure if he meant to wrap it up here or not. Unlike show more Books 1&2, the ending is happy and there's no "Evil Lives" moments.

Meanwhile for the book itself, it makes sense that the person possessed this time is Corky (that would be a spoiler if Stine didn't make it super obvious). Though I vaguely remember laying odds on it being her little brother Sean when I read this two and half decades ago.

I mentioned this in one if my updates, but all three books take place between October and April of the same school year. That means 3 really awful deaths happen, two on school grounds and one on a school trip, yet Shadyside High doesn't produce trauma counselors? Clearly Shadyside and Sunnydale are kissing cousins.

Interestingly we go to a Cheerleading retreat for spring break and like amateur detective shows, the fun follows our gals. Hannah is an annoying addition to the squad that makes little sense (she's added to replace someone graduating at the end of the school year but they kick the senior girl off the squad mid-year before a big competition? Which brings me to a different point, is it normal to have seniors not be at least co-captain? Far as I could tell there wasn't a "junior varsity" and "varsity" squad at the school? So was Megan the only senior on the squad? Corky says she's 16, so presumably Bobbi was 17 unless they were Irish twins?

We did get confirmation that Corky's house is only a block away from the cemetary.

Anyhow it was a solid tie-up to the trilogy, now onto the next books! show less

A lot better than the other two surprisingly. This one didn't jump around as much because they were kind of all together in a camp and then home. There were also no annoying cliffhanger chapters and toned down on the !!! dialogue a bit. Since it was wrapping it up with a backstory the plot was a bit more solid/interesting as well

In this third book, the evil has returned and Corky and Kimmy, our valiant cheerleaders, are hot on it's trail. Who has been possessed this time? When will it strike?

This book was pretty good. I enjoy the way these teens take on evil. There are a few twists this time that make it possible to fight the evil better. And the body count is a lot lower. I'm going to miss the Shadyside cheerleaders, what's left of them anyway.

Possible Spoiler alert:

Corky was the obvious person to be possessed by "the evil"- she was the only one in the room with Kimmy. This book is the second time people drown and are later revived. I note that when this book ends the evil doesn't just leave, it dies - so how is it magically revived in the next book?

Corky is tormented night after night by dreams of her dead sister, Bobbi. What terrifying message is Bobbi trying to tell her? When the evil begins again-more horrible, more gruesome than ever-Corky knows it is up to her to learn the century-old secrets and destroy the evil spirit's power for good. But so many have died already-will Corky be next?