The New Boy

By: R. L. Stine

Narrated by: C. J. Critt

Length: 3 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

There's a new boy at Shadyside High School, and he's stolen the hearts of all the girls. Good-looking, athletic Ross Gabriel is the kind of guy that every girl wants to date - including best friends Janie, Eve, and Faith. They've even made a bet on which one of them he'll go out with first. Ross dates a lot of girls - and one by one, they're all murdered. It looks like going out with Ross means flirting with a gruesome and horrifying fate. So when Ross asks Janie out, she isn't sure what she should do. Will her dream date turn into a nightmare? When it comes to writing nerve-jangling thrillers for today's young people, R.L. Stine is the master. With true-to-life teenage characters and clever, hair-raising plots, his best-selling books have captured the imagination of young people across the nation and attracted thousands of reluctant readers to library bookshelves.

©1994 Parachute Press, LLC (P)1995 Recorded Books, LLC

Short & Sweet

Great book! The story line is very thrilling and keeps you guessing. Love the fear street series.

Good story

The story was good and I loved the ending. Great mystery for all ages! I felt like the narrator was slow with reading the story but overall enjoyed the story.

So much fun to listen to!

I loved the Fear Street books as a teen and getting to re-experience them as an adult is just as fun. It brings back so many good memories of being curled up safe in my bed while I scared myself late into the night. I thought this story line was really good and actually one of the more believable ones. I had guessed who the killer was earlier on but I did have times I doubted my choice. Give it a listen and I’m sure you’ll have fun, too!

The twist in the end

Very interesting and captivating. Kept the listener on their feet and interested in the story line. Definitely recommend

weird reverb on an okay story

The story itself is fine. I remember as a 12 to 14 year old loving Fear Street. It was great to practice reading and I enjoyed the scares. As an adult who enjoys thrillers it is a little flatter and predictable but I'm not the primary audience. At least the solution to who was committing the crime made sense, how they did it made sense, and why they did it made sense. The clues were well set up and the thrills worked. It helps that the main character is set up as an overly sincere and credulous person. You see why she thinks the way she does and comes to her conclusions even as you think she's being a bit foolish.

The story though is very much stuck in its era. No real internet, cordless phones are noted, and some of this tension would be changed with internet access (not removed but different). so I don't think it can transition into modern tweens and teens readers. I also think the group dynamics would be different. I do like at the end how Janie asserts herself.

I think C.J. Critt is doing the best she can to act the roll but this isn't an easy lift. She has a sometimes flat voice for tense scenes that doesn't work. I like C.J. Critt but I think she had a struggle here. I really dislike how she says "huh" in this book and any reader of R.L. Stine knows how much he loves that exclamation.

The problem is the audio quality is extremely poor with a strange reverb in most of the book making it sound like an odd delayed echo. I think this undermines C.J. Critt's voice acting and the story. I don't know if it can be cleaned up but it really hurts the overall work.