Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || PinterestCaroline B. Cooney was one of my favorite authors in middle grade. I devoured all of the Point Horror books with rapacious greed, but Cooney, with her melodramatic, bodice-ripper-like prose, and her Gothic stories with strong, but flawed heroines, really spoke to me. There was an odd poetry to her writing that wasn't present in that of R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike, and she had the craziest ideas.THE STRANGER is a lot like TWILIGHT... i

I read this book for the first time in like 1997. I loved it at the time, but didn't reread it because it was too sad for me.Last month I just remembered this story and the strong emotional response I had to reading it. I thought I might've been overreacting to the book because I was like 8, lol. I wanted to find it and see whether my fond memory of the book was deserved or too enthusiastic.After reading this again, as a grown-ass woman, I think I enjoyed it even more than I did the first time!

This book is about a girl who falls instantly in love with a dude who happens to be a rock. A literal rock. And yet it's still a better love story than Twilight.

From the moment Nicoletta first sets eyes on Jethro she is instantly drawn to him, but this strange new student is no ordinary boy.I couldn’t recall reading this one before, it’s quite different to most of the other Point Horrors as it has more of a supernatural fantasy element.I can definitely see why people would compare it to Twilight - I think I would have remembered this one.I felt that Nicoletta was one of the better Point Horror heroines, the romantic elements just felt too out of step wi...

I remember reading some Caroline B. Cooney when I was a kid and it was cool to go back and read some of her work as an adult. The writing is good. It's a bit more complex than typical young adult novels from this time, also hardly has any cliche chapter endings lol. Cooney is a good writer and she knows how to convey emotion and the teenage angst on the page quite well. The story is not necessarily a thriller or horror story. It's more of a fantasy romance but surprisingly, I enjoyed it and fou

Talking? thought Nicoletta. I am trying to be heard through hundreds of years of abandonment, and through thousands of tons of rock. I am screaming! I am screaming for the soul of a boy who loved me.This may, in fact, be my favorite book ever. But it's the one I can't admit to people when they ask what my favorite book is, because it's so gushy and juvenile and embarrassing. Love it all the same, in all its ridiculous angsty teenage glory. (And you can really tell, 'cause my copy is falling apar...

The writing was really great, but I didn't enjoy this much. All the drama stemmed from the heroine's dumb decision. Plus she and the love interest barely spoke. Meh.

Picked this book up many moons ago. It was the first book I ever read without a happy ending, and it had a profound effect upon me, and still influences me. Because it occupies such a holy grail place in my mind, I'm not sure whether it's objectively good or bad. It's kind of a light summer read. Bit spooky, probably meant for pre-teens. Something odd about this book is its similarity to Twilight. I read this book long before ever reading Twilight; it's much older. And the first time I read Twil...

When I picked this up off my shelves I remembered nothing about it. But I rated it 4 stars...Hmm that didn't feel right so I took it up again. This is a mild paranormal-style mystery. At first I though a more horrific aspect but not really. I expected one thing with Jethro based on the cover and description and instead I felt so bad for him. Crappiest living situation ever! I do love a good curse novel and I think that is why I rated high. And if I was still in middle/high school I would likely

What fresh hell is this? Sweet baby Jesus, I don't even know where to start. A young girl falls in love with a piece of a cave. I guess this is what people read before the Strange Addictions show on TLC.

Review originally posted on Tsundokuholic.Pre-Reread ThoughtsYou’re probably asking yourself why, after despising every book of hers I’ve re-read, I’m doing ANOTHER Caroline B. Cooney re-read. It’s because I’m desperate to find one gem I will still love as an adult from the author I loved as a kid.I don’t recall too much about this one…I think a girl falls in love with a weird new boy, The Stranger, at school and it turns out he’s supernatural. I know, totally Twilight. Really praying the girl i...

Such lyrical, achy prose for YA horror. Cooney was a gift. I wish I'd read more of her as a preteen.

Reminds me of: Twilight. Only it was a billion times better. Also, NCIS. The name Jethro reminds me of only one man. "It was probably just a practical joke" moment: Nope"You probably just imagined it" moment: She tried to convince herself. To be fair, it was so weird I would have probably thought I'd imagined it too. Or that someone had slipped me an LSD brownie. If those are a thing.Innocent victims?: I'm all for hunting to eat meat. Kinder than some farming methods. Trophy hunters are douches...

The Stranger is about Nicoletta who falls for a mysterious boy called Jethro who turns out to be quite unlike all the other boys at school. I really enjoyed the set-up to this story, Nicoletta's character and her situation. The story does develop into something a bit more fairy-tale that I generally like but it was still quite an enjoyable read. Cooney's writing is always unique and interesting.

The main reason I didn't like this book is because it kind of reminded me of Twilight. There are no vampires or werewolves though, just a boy who is cursed into being a... Well, I'm not really sure what he is. Anyway, the instantly obsessive feelings that Nicolette has for Jethro, are very like Bella's feelings toward Edward. Also, there is a love triangle, but that didn't bother me at all. The blurb led me to believe I was picking up a light YA horror with some romance, when really it is strict...

So. We Have: - An Angsty Teen Girl Who Recently Went Through A Major Life Change- A Mysterious & Handsome Boy With A Tragic Past Who Appears to be Hiding Something (whom the Angsty Girl is both attracted to and repelled by)- A Normal, Boy-Next-Door Type Who Likes Angsty Girl Despite Her Attraction to Dark Scary BoyOH. MY. EFFING. GOD. !!!!!This book is freaking TWILIGHT!!!!So. We Have Nicoletta. or Nikki. It's the start of a new school year and Nikki's life is falling apart. She was recently

Sheesh, this was bad. It was like an even worse version of Twilight, and that's saying something. Characters have no depth and the story/curse wasn't even very interesting. In the meantime, you're stuck reading about teenage "love" between a girl and a "monster" she just laid eyes on. I honestly couldn't care less what happened to any of them by the end of the book. Too bad because I like thriller and horror and young adult fiction too, but this was a bad combination of all of them.

I love CBC; she is perhaps my favourite Point Horror author, and the central conceit of this—girl falls in love with rock—is as enjoyably nuts as the rest of her plots. But there's no real story and the book itself was quite boring. I'm sorry, CBC. Forgive me!I read this for our podcast Teenage Scream, which dissects the best (and worst) of 90s Teen Horror.https://soundcloud.com/teenagescream

an amazing and surprising romance filled with wonder and the doubtless fact that love can transced every barrier. love it!

Mmmm. This wasn’t for me. A podcast I listen to said they were gonna read this so I decided to check it out. I didn’t want to know anything going in so I went in knowing absolutely nothing. I assumed Anne-Louise was the eponymous “stranger” and that she was going to be a killer or something. I was wrong. Very wrong. Paranormal romance isn’t really my stomping ground which is a major reason I didn’t like this. But I want to dive into the reasons I disliked it:1. Insta-Love. How did Nicoletta fall...

Okay, I usually don't DNF books. And if I do it's because I just loose interest in the book and have a stack of six others waiting to be read, but this one I have an issue with.The first book I have ever given up on in the 2nd chapter. Nicolette came off as a stupid cliché character and the events were just full of creepy and weird stuff. Girl follows strange guy into forest and when she touches him his hand feels cold, in-human! First off, don't follow a random guy into the forest idiot. And um...

It’s weird, when I was a teenager I absolutely loved this book, I think I was in awe of their love. I couldn’t wait to reread it. But now... I thought Nicoletta was a selfish brat. I actually wanted to slap her because of it. She caused everything that happened. She was selfish with Christo and especially Jethro. Screaming in hospital fgs! Honestly, what a stupid girl! If she had just told Christo she wasn’t interested in him, she would have been free to see Jethro without worrying about him bei...

2.5 stars rounded up to 3I found this book a bit disappointing because it had a good premise, but needed either more length or less plot in order to really be satisfying. The characters meet on page 20, immediately fall in love for no reason, and the rest of the book only makes any sense if they are in love, but we have no real reason to believe that they are so it's hard to feel emotionally engaged. I was disappointed, because it is different from a lot of teen supernatural romance and predates...

While I remember having this book as a tween, I didn't remember a thing about it as I set about reading it as an adult, 25 years later. What an unexpected little find, it was! Cooney's work is never the lazy 'best friend did it' staple of this genre and time and this sad, fairytalesque story was no exception. It is unusual (for the time it was written, at least) evocative and beautifully written in places. Cooney's powers of description conjure a winter wonderland that is both enchanting and dis...

This book was different than I thought it would be. Yet some of that is my fault as I went in with some thought of what was going to happen and had no basis for that. It was an interesting story and did draw me in. I wasn't sure what was going to happen and there was things I was not expecting. Some parts kept you on the edge and then there was sad and happy parts. I don't really know how I want to describe this book. There was times I was like ahh the author is going this way, then nope didn't

The stranger by Caroline B. Cooney is filled with young, teenage love. When Nicoletta is let go by her music teacher she fears that her life is over. So she takes Art appreciation and notices a mysterious boy she has never seen before in class. But he is not like other guys, withdrawn, mysterious. She decides to follow him one day and makes discoveries that change her life forever. I usually don't like romance. I'm not quite sure why. Subtle romance rather than full blown out there is okay. This...

A mysterious boy in Nicoletta's class intrigues her so she follows him afterschool.One never knows what we will find and she definitely finds out more about him then she bargained for.She falls for him and wants to help him out of his current situation but all seem perilous.I won't give the ending away but I think the moral of the story is we never know what life will show us when our eyes are "really" open.

It was actually somewhere between 3.5 and 4. Umm, the novel started off very well. It was exciting and thrilling. But as the pages turned on, it got a little drab. I dunno what went wrong but Nicoletta got crazier, and the climax sounded all muddled up.So it was a nice read, and I am glad it ended quickly, though the end could have been written differently.

I LOVE Caroline B. Cooney's writing style! I don't even know how to explain it, but it just pulls me into the story and I can't stop reading. This is sort of a re-imagining of Beauty and the Beast. I found it compelling and heart-wrenching. The insta-love is a bit silly, but it was so beautifully written that I found it easy to overlook.

Not even gonna lie, I thought this book was gonna be about mole people or something.Too bad it was just about a girl who is obsessed with a monster dude and falls in love with him way too quickly.Ending was also anticlimactic.