So there was a period of time from about 1989-1996 where I was deep into reading YA books. I was also starting to branch out into adult books but the majority of my reading was YA. YA in the 90s was different from today's YA. Back then only pre-teens and teens read YA. Now it is widely accepted for adults to read YA. But once you hit a certain age it was creepy to be seen in the YA section of the bookstore/library. I lived for authors like R.L. Stein, Christopher Pike, Diane Hoh, L.J. Smith, and the Queen of my favorite horror with romance was Richie Tankersley Cusick. Fatal Secrets is about Ryan and her recently deceased sister Marissa. Ryan is haunted by the day that her sister fell through the ice. In fact she begins to see and feel things that has her starting to think she is going crazy. Is Marissa back from the dead or is someone trying to find out the secret that Marissa told her moments before she died?
Ok so this was one of my all time favorite books when I was a teen. I'm pretty sure I read it at least 20 times. This and her other book Teachers Pet were read so many times I had long lost the covers to the books. Yesterday my son went back to school and feeling the nostalgia of a time gone by I decided to pick up the book. It has probably been about 20 years since I last read this book. The book hasn't changed but apparently as an adult I have.
I still enjoyed parts of the book. The relationship between Jinx and Ryan still is as goofy smile inducing as it ever was. Quite honestly that was always my favorite parts of the book. I mean the interaction between the two of them. I always imagined Jinx to look like Christian Slater (still do apparently).
What did change for me now is the aggravation over the adults; specifically Ryan's mother. Now as a mother I can't imagine going through the loss of a child but her reaction and the way she ignored her other daughter bothered the heck out of me. I'd be holding my remaining "baby" all the tighter. I'd be more paranoid about her going out. Instead, Ryan's mother practically forgets she exists till (spoiler) she thinks Ryan tried to kill herself.
The best thing is that I thought I remembered everything in the book. But NOOOPE. I forgot who one of the bad guys was. And quite frankly it surprised me and it was nice to get that little twist at the end.
When I was a teen this was a 10 out of 5 stars. But now as an adult it lands probably more at a 3 1/2 out of 5 but for nostalgia reasons alone I'm bumping it up to 4 out of 5 stars
I loved her books as a tween and teen. I still own all of the books I read by her at that time. I am sure I read this one because the cover looks so familiar. My first 2 books that I read by her were Trick or Treat and April Fools. As a tween, I read one of them while my parents were at a neighbors houae 3 doors done playing cards. I scared myself so bad that I called down there! Now, I want to reread her books.
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