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Mar. 13th, 2021 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Books you read when you were eight, but don’t remember because they’re not Animorphs:
(This doesn’t count those of you who were eight in 1980.)
Fear Street: Goosebumps with gore. The best ones didn’t have monsters, just humans being terrible to each other. The Fier family’s backstory was weird and unnecessary.
Christopher Pike: low-quality Fear Street. I liked the one where the main characters mistook Pan for Satan.
Graveyard School: Goosebumps with an ongoing plot. I liked how it had evil and it had monsters, and the monsters were afraid of the evil too.
Eerie, Indiana: okay, was trying to be Goosebumps just a thing back then?
Replica: main character was a supergenius. Author had no idea how to write a supergenius.
The Nine Lives of Chloe King: Mary Sue garbage with sexy catgirls. Broke my developing young brain when Chloe speculated about how many breasts a fully transformed catgirl has.
Violet Eyes: people called this Mary Sue garbage, but I thought it was pretty good at giving its programmed-to-be-perfect characters actual weaknesses.
Jane Yolen: did anyone else notice the TF fetish?
Pete Hautman: the most insightful writer here. Or sometimes Chris Crutcher. It varied.
John Bellairs: the most compulsively readable writer here.
Garth Nix: really wanted to be the best writer here.
Samurai Girl: everyone forgot about this by the time book 3 came out, and I have no idea why.
The Unicorn Chronicles: everyone forgot about this because book 3 took nine years to come out.
Scorpion Shards: every major character in this series is scum or dies, and the worst scumbag is the one whose androgynous aesthetic I actually like.
Sweet Valley High: my generation’s Millie the Model. I only read this when the author got bored and ripped off Fear Street for four books.
Extreme Zone: how many different evil conspiracies can one series have?
2099: Fear the Year: I never read these, but “don’t get too attached to them. They won’t live long” is pretty metal as far as series taglines go.
T-witches: I never even watched Charmed, and I still got the impression this was a Charmed ripoff. Terrible, terrible title.
Fire-us: I liked the part where they tried to recreate the Ten Commandments and came up with “just say no to drugs.”
Valdemar: I only read the one about the guy who burns to death because he wants to fuck a horse.
What do you remember from when you were bored and eight?
(This doesn’t count those of you who were eight in 1980.)
Fear Street: Goosebumps with gore. The best ones didn’t have monsters, just humans being terrible to each other. The Fier family’s backstory was weird and unnecessary.
Christopher Pike: low-quality Fear Street. I liked the one where the main characters mistook Pan for Satan.
Graveyard School: Goosebumps with an ongoing plot. I liked how it had evil and it had monsters, and the monsters were afraid of the evil too.
Eerie, Indiana: okay, was trying to be Goosebumps just a thing back then?
Replica: main character was a supergenius. Author had no idea how to write a supergenius.
The Nine Lives of Chloe King: Mary Sue garbage with sexy catgirls. Broke my developing young brain when Chloe speculated about how many breasts a fully transformed catgirl has.
Violet Eyes: people called this Mary Sue garbage, but I thought it was pretty good at giving its programmed-to-be-perfect characters actual weaknesses.
Jane Yolen: did anyone else notice the TF fetish?
Pete Hautman: the most insightful writer here. Or sometimes Chris Crutcher. It varied.
John Bellairs: the most compulsively readable writer here.
Garth Nix: really wanted to be the best writer here.
Samurai Girl: everyone forgot about this by the time book 3 came out, and I have no idea why.
The Unicorn Chronicles: everyone forgot about this because book 3 took nine years to come out.
Scorpion Shards: every major character in this series is scum or dies, and the worst scumbag is the one whose androgynous aesthetic I actually like.
Sweet Valley High: my generation’s Millie the Model. I only read this when the author got bored and ripped off Fear Street for four books.
Extreme Zone: how many different evil conspiracies can one series have?
2099: Fear the Year: I never read these, but “don’t get too attached to them. They won’t live long” is pretty metal as far as series taglines go.
T-witches: I never even watched Charmed, and I still got the impression this was a Charmed ripoff. Terrible, terrible title.
Fire-us: I liked the part where they tried to recreate the Ten Commandments and came up with “just say no to drugs.”
Valdemar: I only read the one about the guy who burns to death because he wants to fuck a horse.
What do you remember from when you were bored and eight?
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Date: 2021-03-14 01:59 am (UTC)39 Clues: I remember literally nothing about this series other than the incest.
The True Meaning of Smekday: I'm still pissed about that movie adaptation.
Touching Spirit Bear: This was basically the first "adult" book I remember reading, and I can remember hiding it a bunch of different places because I was terrified that if my mother caught it, I would be punished. I remember being Very Scandalized at the swearing! and drugs!, but I felt better after finishing it, like I'd purged something from my soul.
The Mysterious Benedict Society: Probably the best book on this list. I remember thinking it was really similar to Lemony Snicket when I read it.