Okeh guys I'm hoping
to get back into posting regularly now and to help inspire me I've chosen
another Nightmare Hall that I've just purchased!
Again our main
character has a stupid name (it's Parrie....) and the front cover opens up to
reveal a girl shining her torch at a tree that another girl is hiding behind!
Idk which one is
Parrie but they're fashion is super 90s, with both wearing a business shirt
under a large grandpa jumper. Cute. So smart and casual!
Let's get into it!
Roll call!
Parrie - nice (which
means boring) and a huge sheep.
Lil - is obviously an
athlete bc they all have bad manners apparently.
Mallory - parrie's
doppelgänger. Except with longer hair and pierced ears.
Carol - she's referred
to as "the tall dark girl" until she mentions her name. I'm assuming
that means she's black. She's super tall too apparently!! And super intense!
Grace - the Asian one
with super short hair. Yay for diversity!
Jean - she has icy
blue eyes and icy blonde hair. One of these things is mentioned every time she
is.
Ok so the book starts
with a prologue and I can't deal already. It's so cheesy and great that I need
to share some of it.
"And it was true.
Sadly true. Frighteningly true. Deliciously true. People could be controlled.
People would do whatever you told them to do. They'd rather go along with the
crown then look foolish. Fit in rather than stand out and risk the possibility
of embarrassment.
They'd die before
they'd let someone else think they were stupid.
Which made them really
stupid.
Really, really stupid.
So stupid they
deserved to die."
So true about the
sheep part and I love how the truth is both edible and delicious.
Seems like the moral
of this story is that stupid people deserve to die, and I'm down with that! We
don't know who the prologue is about tho. Waaah.
Anyway our first
Proper chapter begins with an introduction to Parrie Moore, who describes her
appearance as "nice" and basically drills into us that she's
absolutely BORING. And also a huge sheep.
Ok so she deserves to
die already apparently.
It's a few days into
the school year and she's a freshman, all down on herself bc the rest of her
friends went to State while she's here at Salem. And bc she has no personality
she doesn't know what she's going to do bc it's going to be SOOOOOOOO hard to
make new friends. She decides to head down to the quad where there's a little
tea party going on for all the girls who live in the building to mingle after
some consideration, bc after all "what will it do? Kill me?"
Oh Parrie. I'm sure
that's where this book is headed!
There she meets the
rest of the girls who don't know anyone either before this, and Parrie as well
as me are shocked to find that she is able to befriend them quite easily!
After some awkward
chatter, Carol (the tall, dark one!) dares Lil (the soccer player!) to switch
the sugar and salt around on the table where all the tea is without getting
caught.
These girls are
baaaaaaaad news I can already tell!
Lil takes the dare and
Parrie simply can't believe she's going to do it!
The girls watch on
dramatically as Lil actually does this super dangerous dare, and she completes
it without being caught!
It's super hilarious
when everyone realises what's happened and the girls can't stop laughing bc
it's just such a funny prank you know? Finally they stop and tall, dark Carol
asks if they want to play the REAL truth or dare, which does sound kind of fun.
Basically each girl
writes down their deepest darkest secret on a bit of paper, as in like full on
like murder or something, writes their name on it, puts it in a box, locks it,
seals the key in an envelope, and signs their name over the seal so that it
will be obvious if tampered with.
Then they all write a
dare and each draw one randomly. If they fail their dare the rest of the girls
get to read their secret!
Sounds super fun I'm
excited to see what happens!
The girls all agree to
it even though Parrie thinks Carol is super weird. But what if she doesn't make
any more friends?!?
I think it's obvious
that it was Carol talking in the prologue, surely. But who knows I'm usually
wrong about this stuff!
Anyway the girls meet
the next day in Carol's room to set up and start the game, but before that
Parrie heads to Grace's so they can Jess over together! We learn that Grace
loves animals and wants to be a vet! You go girl! They briefly mention how
weird and potentially untrustworthy Carol is before heading over, where the
rest of the girls sit in a circle around a small metal coffin (for the truths)
and a green vase (for the dares). Lil is dressed all in red including red Lycra
tights and I couldn't be less turned on thinking about what that might look
like.
After another shout
out to Jean's ice blond hair and mention what the other girls are wearing, they
each write their truth out and place it in the box, lock it, seal the key in
the envelope, and sign it before writing out a dare each. The truths are pretty
intense judging by each girls reaction as they write them but I'm sure we'll
get to that later in the book!
Then they draw the
dares, which I'll mention as they do them instead of slapping it all here where
you'll forget. Parrie reckons this week is gonna be a killer! And I hope she
dies.
It's later in the week
now, and Grace, Lil and Parrie are all together as Parrie is about to complete
her dare, which is to sneak into the boy's dorm and steal a pare of undies.
Yum, my kind of dare!!
Grace's was to ask out
the hot guy in her class, which she already did and he said yes! Yay!
There's a typo in the
book bc it calls Lil Liz instead, but whatever. Her dare was to wear a formal
dress for the whole day and she's glad the day is nearly over bc it's Jean's
dress and it's too short she reckons! And way too pink. (You mean it's not ice
blue like its owner's eyes?).
Parrie is one of the
last to complete her dare, and apparently by the end of the night everyone
should be done!
The boys of the dorm
are all at a dorm meeting apparently so it shouldn't be too hard for Parrie to
succeed in nabbing a jock strap or something.
She manages to sneak
into an unlocked room and finds an underwear, but gets caught by the room's
owner, Bryan who's tall and handsome and athletic. Yum.
Parrie actually says
"good grief" before she tells him what she's doing and next thing you
know, we cut to Lil and Grace outside who watch as Parrie strolls past them
with Bryan, holding a pair of underwear. They reckon he's a baaaaaaaad boy too.
Yummmmmmmmmm.
We get no mention of
the others girls doing their dares so I'll just say what they are!
Mallory has to sing
everything for a whole day. Jean can't talk for a whole day. And Carol has to
eat garlic for every meal for a whole day without brushing her teeth.
They're all pretty
lame I thought they were gonna be super intense dangerous dares or something.
Oh well.
Later in the week
Mallory, Grace, Parrie and Lil go to see a horror movie and afterwards discuss
revenge. Walking past Nightmare Hall, Grace mentions that surely Giselle (the
girl who died there in the first book!) will come back for revenge. Ghosts,
cooooool. Then she gets all weird and super intense before snapping back to
normal. Weirddddddd.
The next morning
Parrie is awakened by a phone call from a mysterious person saying "I dare
you to tell the truth... or pay the consequences." She hangs up and then
Bryan calls and they make a date for the weekend, which they both have a lot of
ideas for ;);););).
They're gonna make
love I just know it!
Later that day the
girls are all hanging out to celebrate the end of the game when Carol convinces
them all the play again after a little fight with Jean.
Parrie wonders who
could have made the phone call earlier, bc surely it had to be one of them as
know one else knows!
Pretty sure you told
Bryan, Parrie!
Parrie also does a lot
of talking and moving that she doesn't realise. The book is full of things like
"she heard herself say" and "she realised she was" etc.
It's super annoying. But other than Parrie seeming like she's got social
anxiety, I'm liking this book so far! Which is good after the last few
trainwrecks I've suffered!
The next chapter opens
with Parrie and Bryan's date and all he talks about is Truth or Dare, and if
Parrie likes playing, does she want to play more, etc etc. He's annoying and
probably the bad guy.
The next day Parrie
and Grace are sitting on the steps of a building as 2 girls talk about the
stink bomb that went off in one of their science classes, and Grace and Parrie
realise that Carol completed her dare.
Lil has also completed
hers, which was to put hair dye in someone's shampoo. It ended up being a girl
from the swim team whose hair is now green due to the chlorine reacting to it!
They discuss everyone
else's dares:
Parrie's is to wear
nothing but a raincoat over her nightgown all day.
Mallory hast to find
her way back from Bottomless Lake in the woods in the dark the next night.
Grace has to let the
air out of the retired tyres of a professor's TBird, which he's in love with.
And Jean has to answer
an ad from the personals column from the paper.
The next evening as
Parrie has dinner in the cafeteria with Lil, Grace and Mallory, Mallory freaks
out about her dare. She REAAAAALLLY doesn't want to do it. But Grace and Lil
are all "then tell the truth" and Mallory storms off, mocking what
Grace said earlier about fear being human nature and that it won't kill
Mallory. Basically it seems like a
warning to Grace, who is suppose to do her dare tonight too.
Later that night,
Grace has been gone for 3 hours when Parrie goes to visit her dorm room only to
find that she's not back yet. Uh oh. She should be back by now considering the
professor lives a 15 minute walk away.
She doesn't know what to do or who to talk to, remembering that Carol
and Lil are taking Mallory to Bottomless Lake. Apparently they won't be back
yet either??? Weren't they just leaving Mallory there and coming home?? Oh well. And Jean is on her date from the personals so
she's not around either! Che disastro!
She goes to Jean's room anyway and is
surprised to see that she is home after all!
Jean doesn't seem too
bothered that Grace isn't back yet, until Parrie says she's gonna go to the
professor's house and see if she can find her!
Jean doesn't want her
to, but eventually decides to go with her, where they find that Grace is locked
in the garage with the car running inside, and she'll probably die from Carno
monoxide poisoning. Oh no!!
They manage to break a
window so Grace can hand a screwdriver out, (despite Jean not really seeming
that interested in saving Grace) and they break open the lock just as the
lights go on inside the professor's house.
The girls quickly skedaddle
out of there!
As they walk back to
campus Grace tells them that she'd done 2 of the tyres when someone came in, so
she'd hid. The person then turned on the car and left, locking all the car
doors as well as the garage door. Grace couldn't escape!
The discuss who it
could have been, since no one knew she was their except the group of girls.
Grace reckons it can't have been Parrie or Jean since they came to rescue her,
and Jean responds by suggesting maybe they were in on it together, or maybe one
of them is using the other as a cover!
Very suss Jean!
Anyway the next day
Grace is surprised to see the Professor's TBird in its usual spot completely
intact!
Carol congratulates
her on being a hero before telling her about another meeting that night in her room.
Oh yay another round!
Again the girls play
another round. I guess their truths are too intense to allow anyone to read!
The new dares are:
Lil had to steal
someone's midterm paper as they went to hand it in.
Jean had to follow an
unpopular resident advisor home and scare her.
Carol had to borrow
the quad's cat that lives with the RA, and lock it in the room of a girl who's
afraid of cats. Brutal lol.
Mallory had to replace
birthday chocolates with chocolate laxatives.
Grace had to mix up
all the clothes on the busiest laundry night of the week.
And Parrie had to
spend a night in Nightmare Hall!!!! Spooooky!
Parrie is super scared
of this one.
Sometime later (no
idea when bc this book just jumps from scene to scene without mentioning if
it's the same night or 2 days later or whatever), Parrie and Grace join athlete
Lil on a run around the track. As Lil speeds ahead, Grace suggests that Lil is
an insane gamer, planting a seed in Parrie's head that Lil is behind all the
scary things that have happened!
But really it makes me
think that it's Grace, and she locked herself in the garage and hotwired the
car knowing that Parrie would come looking for her.
That night Parrie also
has a nightmare about Lil convincing her to come for a run again but speeding
ahead, while Parrie is chased by a skinless, bloody skeleton. This scene is
pretty cool and would work well in a movie I reckon!!
Anyway that night it's
time for Parrie to spend the night at Nightmare Hall, which is convenient empty
on account of a storm damaging the roof, so all the residents are living
elsewhere temporarily.
The group of girls
walk down to Nightmare Hall, with Jean being her usual icy blue eyed, ice
blonde haired "queen of mean" as Parrie puts it, informing Parrie
that she must stay on the top floor, and come to a certain window and flash a
her flashlight every hour on the hour, while the rest of the girls take turns
watching the house to see that she doesn't escape.
After exploring the
house for a bit a being surprised to find that the house isn't spooky and
covered in cobwebs (she thought this even though she knows people live
there?????) Parrie is startled by the sound of the stairs creaking.
Someone is inside the
house with her!!!!!!
But it's just our good
pal Jean the Queen of Mean! Who is not even that mean really so idk why Parrie
thinks she is.
Well she's dressed as
a ghost (literally a white sheet) and trying to scare Parrie so I guess she is
a bit mean.
Parrie ends up scaring
her instead, and soon enough a real ghost shows up!! As Jean makes a run for
it, Parrie passes out, convinced they're both about to die!
As day breaks, the
rest of the girls arrive to find Jean and Parrie passed out, Jean's head
bleeding at the back! After coming up with a fake story as to why they were
inside, I'm pretty sure an ambulance is called bc next thing I know it's 10pm
and Parrie is in her room on the phone to Grace! Jean is only concussed and
should wake up soon (when did they realise that sleeping with a concussion is
dangerous? Not in the 90s I guess?), and Grace tells Parrie that Carol wants
another meeting the next night, which Parrie refuses, suspecting Carol or foul play
since it's her game and her rules!
Way to go Parrie, show
some back bone!
The next day she find
Bryan and tells him everything, and he comforts her.
Then there's a
paragraph break, and the book stops using names and refers to just a boy
walking a girl back to her dorm. They confirm that they'll see eachother on the
weekend, in 2 days, before she goes inside. She doesn't see him stop smiling
and cross his arms, still staring after her intensely.
Bc this happens right
after the Parrie and Bryan conversation, I guess it's trying to make it seems
like the unnamed boy and girl is them two. But I feel like it's Bryan and
someone else.... whoever is behind all this drama probably!! (Note from the
future: it is Parrie and Bryan and it's to make him a red herring.
Pointlesssssss).
Parrie later goes to
visit Jean in the infirmary to confirm that Jean remembers the ghost, which
Jean scoffs at and is all like "oh yes, I remember the ghost!" And
then stops talking. So Jean knows something about who it really was I guess??
And then later still,
Parrie of course goes to the meeting with the girls and is convinced to play
one more game bc she doesn't want her secret getting out and Carol reckons
they'll figure out who's behind all the bad things happening this round! We're
nearing the end of the book so I think Carol is right!
The girls meet again
the next night, each write down a location, and one is drawn from the vase. It
says "Lookout Point" and this is where the last game of truth or dare
will be played! So the girls head there and each write a dare and draw as
usual. Lil goes first, and her dare is to tell the truth! Love that one.
So she starts telling
her secret from the truth box.
Ten years ago she went
to a summer camp and was part of a clique with 3 other girls. Another girl,
Jennifer, tried too hard and was super annoying and wanted to be in the little
club with Lil and her friends, so they made up an initiation that was way too
scary for anyone to do: jumping from the high dive into the lake at midnight!
They decide that it's
too much, but Lil's cabin mate hears the conversation and the next morning,
Jennifer is found dead in the lake. Apparently she'd hit her head slipping off
the high dive and drowned. Lil and the others got the blame, and it followed Lil
around everywhere bc people heard her talking about the initiation.
And then all of a
sudden Mallory lunges at Parrie and drags her to the edge of the cliff!
It turns out SHE was
Lil's bunkmate who told Jennifer about the imitation and causing her death! And
not only was Lil at the camp, but Carol, Grace, and Jean were too and they were
all members of the club, but they excluded Mallory too who didn't seem to care
that much!
They all kept in touch
(except with Mallory of course) and happened to all come to Salem U by fate,
and when Lil spotted Mallory she knew it was their chance to get the truth!!!
Bc it had been 10
years, all the really had to do was give different names and pretend they'd
never met eachother, and Mallory didn't seem to notice! (If anyone's interested
their names are really Carolyn, Sarah Grace, Jillian and Jeanetta!) After
planting the seeds to unhinge Mallory into telling the truth, they thought she
started to catch on but they weren't too sure, so they kept playing! Mallory
had caught on, and she was behind all the accidents so she could keep her
secret! Parrie was just a pawn really, brought into the group on the day to
further portray that they were all strangers.
But Mallory is so
unhinged now that she thinks Parrie was at the camp too!
Finally Parrie manages
to knock Mallory off her, sending her over the side of the cliff! But it's ok
cos Parrie grabs her, and Bryan, who had apparently followed her, comes and
saves Mallory from falling!
Later that night the
other girls come to see Parrie. The dean and Mallory's parents will sort her
out, so that's cleared up, but they're super sorry for using Parrie like they
did!
They'd each written
"lookout point" on their papers and folded it a certain way so they'd
know for sure it would get chosen, and I'm assuming this was bc being so high
would further bring back memories for Mallory as there's no actual reason given
for this.
There's kind of the
parallel theme of Jennifer wanting to fit in so bad and dying bc of it and
Parrie wanting to fit in so bad and being a sheep and almost dying for it,
which is kind of cool I guess. The book ends with Parrie telling Grace that
she'd like to be her friend, but she's not sure about the other girls, and then
she gets a phone call from Bryan.
And that's the end!
So I did really like
this one even though nothing really happened! It was short and sweet, the
characters weren't too annoying, and Parrie had some depth to her at least!
7 bloody skeletons on
a running track out of 10!
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