Retro YA: Broken Hearts by R.L.Stine

Do you remember when paperbacks were $4.99? Do you remember when $20 would buy four books (or a week’s worth of groceries)? Now, with inflation, it’s amazing how much we pay for books, and food, for that matter. Because everything used to be so affordable, my teen shelves quickly filled with favourites. I hadn’t yet developed an appreciation for literature and the classics, so I didn’t spend a great deal of time or money on Jane Eyre as a child. Instead, murder mysteries, teen horror, and Sweet Valley High were the order of the day. Over the years, garage sales and local charities have benefitted from my book hoarding of yesteryear. However, I still have much left over to sift through…

While visiting my mother earlier this month, I sorted several boxes of old books. As you can imagine, my collection of teen novels from junior high is embarrassingly extensive. In addition to a dozen boxes lying around my old room, there are piles of textbooks, anthologies, and dictionaries still accumulating dust. After several minutes of sorting, I came across a handful of Fear Street books, which I used to read like they were going out of style. So, for fun, I brought a few home. This “Super Chiller” was just as I remembered: cardboard characters, PG13 dialogue, painfully unpredictable plot. R.L.Stine was popular back in the 90s when teen horror was at the pinnacle of its success, before vamps were the bees knees.

The covers, which boast a lovely retro kitsch, are part of the fun too. Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing other retro YA finds from my old collections. You’ll notice that they all have pulp-inspired covers: images that are clearly drawn, exaggerated, and with a hint of 90s horror flair. And, let’s not forget the fashion! Scrunchies anyone? Pink denim jackets! It’s all coming back to me now.

Broken Hearts is, as you might expect, a fun but unrealistic read. People are wooden and don’t react to death or violence how readers might expect. All chapters end with appropriate nail-biting cliffhangers (blood curdling screams, etc.). The killer, on the other hand, is always a surprise. The last person you might expect usually comes out of nowhere during the final pages for a last-minute spook-and-reveal. This novel is no different.

When I re-read Broken Hearts, I couldn’t help but remember how I used to gobble up these stories whenever I had a chance: lunch, recess, even during class when the teacher was giving a lesson. A few times I was asked, in front of the whole class, to put away my book and pay attention. Ooops! But, totally worth it.

Publisher’s plot blurb:

There’s someone out there, someone who kills on Valentine’s day. Josie and Melissa are scared – especially when they receive threatening Valentines. Then the murders begin. Who is sending these horrible Valentines to the girls of Shadyside High? And who will be the next to die?

As you can tell, the formulaic storytelling doesn’t end with the prose. But, these write-by-numbers novellas are a part of my childhood, something I enjoyed very much. At the time, I took this stuff seriously. For me, they were pageturners! However, I did notice that the depth of character development has not changed immensely over the years. Although character maturity has doubled, I would venture to argue that their depth has not. Of course, I haven’t read every YA novel under the sun, so I’m looking forward to being proven wrong.