Into the Pit (Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights #1) by Scott Cawthon

Into the Pit (Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights #1) Reviews

• 
  Andie Cranford

  I think this book is about as well-written as the Goosebumps books, but I couldn’t help but notice that this book is horribly negative towards its teen girl protagonists. I would definitely hesitate to give these stories to girls.
  
  The first story has a young boy protagonist and the narrative is sympathetic towards him. The last two stories have teen girl protagonists.
  
  The stories are viciously judgmental towards them for wanting things many girls that age want—to be pretty and to have a boyfriend.
  
  The punishments they face are many, many degrees more violent and extreme than the ones faced by the male protagonist. I hope as this series continues, the writers evaluate the messages they are promoting.
• 
  Briar's Reviews

  I finally managed to pick up Fazbear Frights after watching so many Game Theory videos listening to MatPat chat about this series. I have loved the video games and lore since the original Five Nights at Freddy's came out (yeah, I'm an OG - it's been a fun and wild ride), so it was a natural fit to pick up this series. It took a while, but I managed to pick up a copy on my Kobo (FINALLY...). And then it took me a while to get into this book.
  
  I'm going to keep my review short and sweet, but will post all of my thoughts on my blog. This book was... not exactly a winner for me.
  
  Into the Pit - Oswald's story - was the best of the three. The start isn't the best, but once you get going it's pretty fun! The lore from the video games made me smile even if they aren't supposed to be directly connected. This story got about a 4/5 from me.
  
  Sarah's story was the middle book with the middle rating. The self esteem issues our new friend Sarah has made me sad and I really wish it wouldn't have been the main plot of the story. The animatronic and creepy nature of the story was SO COOL but was overpowered by the fat phobia and female self esteem issues. Seriously, so sad. 3/5 for story but downgraded to 2/5 for the harsh treatment of female beauty standards.
  
  Millie's story... was super lacking for me. It just didn't sit well with me and I was bored to tears. We should have gone out with a bang, but we didn't. 1/5. I just didn't enjoy the "how can we die" monologue over and over and over... It felt dull, but that's not my type of horror.
  
  And then the epilogue. This is an interesting one because, from my understanding, each book is going to have another piece of this story and keep continuing until the last book of the Fazbear Frights series. Super cool though, but honestly... I'm not going to binge all of these books in a row, so I'd bet some serious money (if I had any...) that I'm going to forget to go back and re-read all of the epilogues. Maybe I will... but I doubt it. Cool marketing technique though. It might get a few more people binging the books. Maybe.
  
  Overall... It's okay. Not the best, but still a pretty good start. I'm going to slowly work my way through this series since I'm a FNAF nerd, but I'm not in a real big rush. But I am impressed we're basically getting a Goosebumps/Fear Street anthology series from FNAF. I LOVED Goosebumps as a kid, so seeing an adult guilty pleasure of mine trying their own spin on the horror anthology? Super cool. I dig it.
  
  Two out of five stars.
• 
  Carly

  “I know you like Poe because he’s dark and spooky, and it’s easy to romanticize death when you’re young and it’s so far away. But Poe didn’t write about death because he thought it was romantic. He wrote about it because he lost so many of the people he loved. You’ve never experienced that kind of loss, Millie. It...changes you.”
  
  “Oh, but that really takes action, doesn’t it?” The voice said. “Changing a life for the better, especially when the world is such a mean, rotten place?”
  
  I loved these FNAF short stories! So well written. I loved getting to see more pieces of the lore start to be revealed. They were quick but with just enough description to make me truly interested in the characters. Haunting! Loved it. Can’t wait for the next ones!
• 
  Christina Pilkington

  My daughter and I read this collection of three novella aloud together right before bed. She's a big FNAF fan- has read the main trilogy of books and played the games- and she wanted to share these stories with me.
  
  They remind me a bit of Goosebumps books, but all three have some connection to the FNAF world. I was pleasnetly surprised how much I enjoyed reading these stories! A time traveling ball pit in a pizza parlor? I've never seen that before? And the classic themes of wanting to belong and fit in work well with the horror elements in these stories.
  
  Overall, I'd recommend reading this collection if you are familiar with the FNAF world. I think you'd appreciate them much more than if you just approach them blind.
• 
  Olivia West

  This was a great book. It has 3 story's in it. The first one is about a kid named Oswald who just wants a funner summer. I think the lesson for that one is be grateful for what you have. He gets into some trouble on his way through summer. The second one, is about a girl named Sarah who wants to be pretty. She finds a doll, fixes it up, and it grants her wishes. I think the lesson for this one is always be yourself. The last one, is about a girl named Millie. She wishes to dissapear off the Earth. I think the lesson for this one is be careful for what you wish for. There is a voice who offers to grant her wish, but she then realizes; she doesn't want to leave, she wants to live her life. It kind of leaves you at a cliff hanger at the end if she lives or not.
• 
  Justyouraveragereader

  It wasn't as scary as I wanted thought the last story was a little creepy..
• 
  Anomaly

  First things first: this isn't a book I'd have picked for myself, nor did I even know it existed until I decided to let my library app choose a book for me. I outright hate FNAF as a game, but I enjoy the energy Markiplier brings to playing it and I have a friend who's basically obsessed with MatPat's theories on the lore, so I'm still familiar with it. Not enough to pick a book based on this world, but hey I decided to stick with what the library app chose, so here we are - and I'm one book closer to my 2020 reading goal, so that's a win regardless.
  
  This book, however, is not a win itself. It's average at best, but frankly a bit less due to having a very Knockoff Goosebumps feel to the juvenile writing style... and the disproportionately cruel way the female characters with very common real life problems were treated compared to the male character who had similarly realistic issues yet was a complete brat about them. That just doesn't settle well with me.
  
  Into the Pit - ★★★☆☆
  
  Holy crap, did I ever hate the main character!
  
  The story begins with a sympathetic take on Oswald: he's sad and lonely and miserable now that his family is facing financial hardship and his best friend has moved away. His mother is trying very hard to help him and his father has taken a low-paying job - the only thing available - to make ends meet. Oz being sad makes sense. Even being upset does, because everything is falling apart around him, but by the second third-to-quarter of the story this kid loses all sympathy by turning into an ungrateful, little monster.
  
  Oh, his parents try to give him movie nights and have fun with him even though they can't afford to go out? Horrible! His friend has vacations at beaches and he should, too! Oh, his parents still let him have a daily slice of takeout pizza? How dare they not give him a dollar more so he can have a different flavour! Oh, his dad wastes fuel and time to drop Oz off at the library and pick him up all the time? Clearly that means his dad is 'throwing him away' every day and expending zero effort! Time to hide in a ball pit and force Dad to come find him to teach that terrible parent a lesson!
  
  It's disgusting and infuriating. The kid's parents are genuinely trying and he doesn't care because he can't have every single thing he wants anymore. So he finds a way out, seemingly magically rewarded for his behaviour... until things go very, very wrong.
  
  And let me tell you: seeing things go wrong for Oswald piqued my interest, even though the events were as crazy and nonsensical as reading a Goosebumps book. Seeing this ingrate learn a valuable lesson the hard way was completely worth the middlegrade level writing and complete absurdity of a magical, giant bunny everyone (except Oz) thinks is a real human. But, y'know. There was still a magical, giant, evil bunny which may very well be Zipper the Bunny Day mascot from Animal Crossing: New Horizons turned evil by the backlash from villagers all around the globe. Actually, that would have been horrifying. This... wasn't.
  
  I did like the time travel element and the general concept of Oz coming to terms with life being unfair while learning to appreciate what he already has, which made this entertaining enough to classify as average. But honestly that's about all I find worth saying about this one.
  
  To Be Beautiful - ★★☆☆☆
  
  Sarah is a pudgy girl with plain hair and a flat chest who dreams of attaining supermodel beauty. Like most average girls her age, she hates her body and feels ugly. And, like many unfortunate girls who are ridiculed for not being supermodels, she starves herself on a 'low carb diet' in hopes of losing weight.
  
  She isn't an ingrate. She isn't a bad person, though of course she's human enough to make bad choices and say things that aren't perfectly nice when she's upset. She's just a sad, young girl who - like many of us did at her age - wants to meet her own goal of ideal beauty and wants to feel good in her own skin. Her best friend berates and judges her for this, and the narrative seems to think her friend is correct - which is made explicitly clear during the horrific outcome of Sarah's tale.
  
  Oz in the previous story was a worse person and he got a happy ending. Sarah did not; she got an ending filled with unfathomable betrayal. As a woman who was once just like Sarah and still suffers self-image issues, I'm disgusted by the ending of this story. I'm infuriated by how the author chose to handle Sarah's tale. And honestly, I also felt a little uncomfortable with some of the wording for Sarah's thoughts about herself.
  
  Also? No, you don't have to bleach hair before using platinum hair "dye" - the whole point is that a platinum kit bleaches and tones it for you. And, no, the smell from hair lightening products doesn't magically become overwhelming only after rinsed, especially in a small, closed space like a bathroom. And, no, you don't follow a botched bleach-and-dye job with a colour removal and more dye the same day, unless you want your hair to fall out by the handfuls. And for good measure? No, it's not okay to call green hair dye ugly and Martian-like, especially when your target audience is very likely to include young girls who want to experiment with hair dye just like the character being shamed and punished for seeking a change of hair.
  
  I just have a lot of grouchy emotions about how this tale seems to have a very vicious moral aimed at teens with self-image issues, eating disorders, and depression. While reading it, I thought perhaps the message would be a positive one about shallow people not being worthwhile and true friends accepting the real you, but nope. Seems to be more about how anyone who tries to change to make themselves feel more attractive is actually a worthless pile of trash who doesn't deserve to live. I sincerely hope that's just my ability to relate to Sarah making me feel disrespected and not the actual moral of this story.
  
  Oh, and to add insult to injury, the magic element makes absolutely zero sense. Even less than a giant, yellow bunny everyone ignores. I'm not surprised, given these are FNAF stories, but I'm still annoyed.
  
  Count the Ways - ★★☆☆☆
  
  Hoo boy, this tale is something else. From the very beginning, it launches into berating a teenage girl for having a goth aesthetic and dark interests. And I don't mean subtly, either. I mean Freddy Freakin' Fazbear is given a human voice, with which he taunts and belittles the girl, Millie, in a cruel and condescending manner, insisting that because she was always so obsessed with death now she must die to "have her dream date with Death."
  
  It's brutal. "Goth girl taunted and forced to choose her own method of being murdered while being gaslighted about how it's what she always wanted when she's clearly saying she wants to live" level brutal. What is this, Saw installment one thousand?! I know FNAF can be brutal itself, but it feels a lot different in this context than in a silly game with subpar graphics.
  
  I felt physically ill reading this one. It made me uneasy. The way the bear spoke to Millie felt very much like real life bullies who abuse teens or tell depressed and suicidal victims to just go ahead and kill themselves etc. All this, and her only "crime" is being a melodramatic teenager who's a little creepy and unhappy with her lot in life. Ouch. Why so cruel to the female characters?!
  
  Anyway, Millie isn't the nicest of kids, but she has reasons when she acts out. Her parents went to a completely different country for the sake of 'adventure' and she was left behind with her grandfather. He's a loving and accepting person who is a magnificent gem, but that doesn't stop Millie from feeling unhappy. She has her heart broken, so she acts mean toward the other girl incolved. Her fascination with death and the goth aesthetic is a bit intense, but... well, who can't relate to the goth phase, really? I know I had one that spanned from late elementary school into sophomore year of high school.
  
  There isn't much more to this one, either. It just shows flashbacks to explain how Millie came to be in the animatronic bear's clutches and the problems which led to her emotional low, interspersed with the 'present time' wherein she's being forced to choose a method of death. I think it's trying to be profound, but it very much isn't.
  
  In fact, the voice taunting Millie sounds more like a deranged, adult man than... well, a sentiment animatronic bear. He has the kind of knowledge only a human should and taunts her in a very human-sounding way. Maybe I'm just missing something from the lore and it's a demon or other humanoid spirit, but I can't imagine if I were watching Markiplier sit there while one of the game characters gave long-winded monologues about how the player character deserved to die. It would not be fun to watch, just as this was not fun to read.
  
  If the obnoxious demon-bear Jigsaw stand-in were removed and this were a story about a teenage girl coming to terms with life and realizing she wanted to live and treat others better, I'd have enjoyed it. Grandpa is a delight and Dylan is a great character. Millie, while flawed, feels realistic and likable due to the empathy she inspires. But nope, gotta have the awkward FNAF angle...
  
  ... and an infuriatingly open-ended conclusion.
  
  Untitled Epilogue - ★☆☆☆☆
  
  A brief, overly dense, and boring foray into what appears to be setting up the next book. It details a detective being handed what amounts to an X-File case over the strange demise of Sarah from story two. Also, his family life sucks, apparently.
  
  Nothing more to say about this one.
  
  Overall ★★★☆☆
  
  These stories feel very much like middlegrade writing, as I've already mentioned, but I cannot fathom handing this book to a child between 11 and 14 years of age - especially if they're a girl. It's uncomfortable that I can relate to having been like both of the female characters in this collection and they both get brutally murdered as twisted punishment for being like me. How will actual kids who read this feel, especially when they see themselves in Sarah or Millie?
  
  I'm not saying that horror which makes readers uncomfortable is inherently bad. I'm just saying: the implied target audience based on the writing style is too young for this content. But, hey, if a kid is already into FNAF, perhaps they're used to stuff like this. Who knows?
  
  While glad this was a quick read, I also am very glad to be through with it. I highly doubt I'll read any more of the books in this series.
• 
  Emily Steiner

  I see why my students like this book! Overall it was fast paced, had important lessons, and definitely was creepy! I wasn’t totally thrilled with some of the characterization of our female leads compared to the male. Our female protagonists were very centered on beauty, thinness, and impressing boys. Not to mention both of them died while the male didn’t. It’s a good read for middle school, but perhaps not my first recommendation.
• 
  Daria

  Muszę przyznać, że bardzo dobrze bawiłam się, czytając tę książkę. Angielski jest tu prosty, więc nie musiałam intensywnie siedzieć z tłumaczem, jak się tego obawiałam. Każda z tych historii miejscami ma zadziwiająco… szokujące sceny i nie każda z nich kończy się szczęśliwie, a jedna właściwie zostawia nas ze znakiem zapytania.
  
  Każda z nich ma też jakiś tam morał, może oczywisty, może wręcz banalny i z pewnością pojawiający się wszędzie nie raz nie dwa, ale całkiem fajnie, że znalazło się na to miejsce. I przyznaję, że podobały mi się te 3 historie i pomysły na nie, a fakt, że to opowiadania, działa tylko na ich korzyść. Można się było uśmiechnąć i można się było przerazić.
  
  Into the pit – chłopiec z biednej rodziny, zmuszony do spędzenia samotnych wakacji, przesiaduje każdy dzień w pizzeri. Sfrustrowany monotonią, samotnością i traktowaniem jak paczka, którą się podrzuca i odbiera, postanawia trochę nastraszyć ojca i ukryć się w starym basenie z plastikowymi piłkami, żeby ten zaczął go szukać. Wówczas dzieje się coś dziwnego. Moje ulubione opowiadanie, bo w pewnej chwili dzieją się tam rzeczy, które mogą się wydawać absurdalne, ale jednocześnie są przerażające.
  
  To be beautiful – historia nastoletniej dziewczyny, która popada w obsesje na punkcie swojego wyglądu. Nie akceptuje siebie, a jej idolkami są jedne z najładniejszych dziewczyn w szkole, które nazywa The Beautifuls. Marzy, żeby być taka jak one i żeby chłopak, który wpadł jej w oko, zwrócił na nią uwagę. Pewnego dnia znajduje w samochodzie tajemniczą lalkę, a właściwie robota, która da jej tę szansę.
  
  Count the ways – znowu mamy nastoletnią dziewczynę Millie, która mieszka u swojego dziadka podczas gdy jej rodzice podróżują po świecie. Millie ma nietypowe zainteresowania, bo interesuje się… śmiercią. Ubiera się na czarno, jest nieszczęśliwa i często opryskliwa. Obserwujemy historie z dwóch linii czasowych, gdy na jednej Millie zaczyna poważnie myśleć nad sobą, a na drugiej jak do tego doszło.
• 
  Tilda

  I had mild expectations for this book, my coworker recommended it to me so I decided to buy it. This review is going to be split into three different sections for all three mini stories and a conclusion at the end.
  
  Into the pit: the atmosphere for this one was really good. It managed to be unsettling in a way that made great world building and didn’t seem like it was trying too hard. A lot of horror authors try so hard to make their world creepy that it isn’t anymore, but Scott and Elley made the town our protagonist Oswald lives in feel the perfect balance of realistic and unsettling. But things started to fall apart with the time traveling. You see, Oswald goes to this pizza diner every day and one day he decided to hide in a closed off ball pit to prank his dad, but when he comes back up he’s in the 80s. It sounds interesting but Oswald’s reaction to it is confusing and doesn’t feel real at all. Anyway bla bla bla Oswald survives and has a happy ending yay.
  
  To be beautiful: our protagonist, Sarah wants to be beautiful, she finds an old rundown animatronic and takes it home and cleans it up. The doll, named Elanour comes to life and wants to grant her a wish in thanks. Sarah wishes to be pretty. Elanour slowly grants her this wish every day, but Sarah has to wear the necklace Elanour made for her and can never take it off. Sarah is clearly mentally ill with the way she treats beauty and most definitely has body dysmorphia and an eating disorder of some kind. My problem is that the story treats her problem like they’re ridiculous and silly and ungrateful. And as someone with bdd myself it was really sad to see how they punished her character for her struggles.
  
  Count the ways: the last story is about a goth girl named millie. She’s ungrateful and the most rude representation of a teenage girl I’ve ever seen. It seems the authors have never met a goth person before because she was painfully cliche. She constantly talked about death and wanted to die, would tear down “basic girls,” she goes on rants about things like how Christmas is just a distraction to hide the pain and death of the world several times and it made me want to tear my own eyes out. Not only that but she’s so painfully ungrateful and rude to everyone around her it was impossible to sympathise with her.
  
  Conclusion: I don’t like the way they wrote the girls. You may be thinking, but isn’t is so feminist of them to make two of the protagonists girls? Not really. Millie and Sarah are both punished for the things they wish for and are written to be horrible ungrateful people when Oswald’s wishes and problems are treated like they’re fair and valid. Not only that it’s weird to me that Millie and Sarah are both punished for the things they want while Oswald is the only one who survives and has a happy ending. He’s never taught to be more grateful or anything like what Millie and Sarah were told. If the authors wanted to be seen as woke for having two female protagonists they should have written them to be likeable and not brutally murder them while Oswald and his ugly cowlick get off scot free.
• 
  eme

  3.5
  That was actually better than I expected tbh (even tho I’ve heard that these are better than the main saga, the opinions about the saga are so abismal that I was kinda scared, but I was actually pleasantly surprised). It kinda felt like reading Goosebumps again, I can see these books becoming big in the middle grade horror genre.
  
  Into the pit (3 stars)
  This was the one that felt very fnafy. It connected well with the lore of the games (the whole afton getting into the bunny suit and being creepy) but was it’s own story at the same time. Not bad, but not the best either (and also the whole time traveling ball pit was kinda hilarious, and I would have liked it if the kid he befriends in the past was his father, although he might have been a victim maybe?)
  
  To be beautiful (3.5 stars)
  This one was... kinda better?? But it also really showed that it was written by a man. Idk, the whole self-negative thinking about being ugly was putting me off a bit, and it ended up being such a sad story in the end. Idk, kinda confused about how I feel about this story.
  
  Count the ways (3.5 stars)
  This one was the saddest one by far. The ending was so heartbreaking (no spoilers, I promise). But I kinda didn’t like the whole girls judging other girls just because they like being pretty (I guess we’re back at the whole I’m not like the other girls trope huh?) Its the kind of negativity we don’t need to keep in seeing in media (again, it really felt like it was written by a man, especially when you think about the difference in themes in Into the pit vs the other two stories, it makes you think, doesn’t it?).
• 
  Dylan

  I really liked this book it didn't bore me at all like some books do, I really like the way this book was made, 3 short horror stories all set in the Five Nights at Freddy's Universe, kinda like a short goosebumps book, but fnaf related. The first story is about a boy named Oswald, who lives in a rundown town, but one day during summer break, he finds out a very dark secret about the local pizza place in town. The second story is about a girl named Sarah who is very disgusted with herself when she looks in the mirror, she hates the way she looks and only has one friend, but one day while walking home, Sarah discovers something that can turn her life around. The third horror story is about a goth girl named Millie, she's always reading poems and fantasizing about death. But some very selfish moves ends up with Millie in prison, forced to chose the way she dies. Plus, it comes with a 4th story at the end, but it's not a complete story, it's kind of like a post credits scene for books, it tells the story of "the stitch wraith" a masked hooded figure who is evading police. At the end of every Fazbear Frights book, it tells part of the story, so when you read this your about 1/6 done with the story of the stitch wraith. I recommend this book if you love really big twists.
• 
  Konnor

  chilling 3 story novel!
• 
  szara

  3.5/5
  All three of the stories had both parts that I liked and parts that I didn't fully get into, but I enjoyed the horror elements a lot. And well, I'm always ready for some more FNAF content. What got me excited the most, though, was the promise of what's to come next at the very end. I'm really looking forward to more of Fazbear Frights right now.
• 
  Carlton

  Oswald is best story
• 
  mckenna ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ

  Okay, I know what you're thinking. Reading FNaF in 2020...but hear me out. Five Nights at Freddy's lore is a guilty pleasure that I don't mind admitting! Because while it is a little silly to think about enormous fuzzy robots shaped like cartoony animals chasing and eating kids somehow Scott Cawthon manages to make these books actually good? Like, surprisingly well written and at times actually chillingly good! But Scott Cawthon books wouldn't be complete without some weird twists that don't quite make sense but you have to let it go because as a whole Five Nights at Freddy's doesn't make sense. Fazbear Frights is the new FNaF book series and it looks like each novel is going to be split into three short stories, so let's dive right in!
  
  Into the Pit: 2.5 stars
  
  " Half a dozen kids, none of them older than Oswald, their lifeless bodies propped into sitting positions, their legs stretched out in front of them. Some of them had their eyes closed as if asleep. Others' eyes were open, frozen in an empty, doll-like stare."
  
  The first short story in this collection was a bit of an odd one and I'm still unsure if it was the best start to a brand new series. Into the Pit follows Oswald, who is having the worst Summer ever. With his best friend moving far away and his parents having crazy work hours Oswald is looking at spending the Summer at the library and Jeff's Pizza, the gross pizzeria with the weird owner. But as time passes Jeff's doesn't seem so bad, all because of one reason. The ball pit with a big Do Not Enter sign. After a prank gone wrong Oswald dives into the pit but when he comes back out something is different. Suddenly Oswald finds himself in another time. 1985. Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Not wasting too much time worrying how this ball pit sent him into the past Oswald starts going to Freddy's every day and hanging out with his new friends from the past. But all too soon things go wrong, and it's all the yellow rabbit's fault. How will Oswald stop something that has already happened?
  
  This story was definitely unique, I could wrap my brain around the time traveling ball pit just fine but it was the last dozen or so pages that threw me off a bit. The yellow rabbit suddenly takes the place of Oswald's dad and nobody but him can see it? Like...what? Scott always adds parts to his story that just really don't make much sense and we never truly get an explanation, which is why this story is getting a pretty low rating. But even so, I did find myself enjoying the mystery behind this one!
  
  To Be Beautiful: 3.5 stars
  
  "Sarah looked at the floor. At first her brain couldn't even process what she saw. One bag contained a human leg, another a human arm. They were not the body parts of an adult, and they didn't appear to be the result of an accident. Blood pooled in the bottoms of the bags, but the limbs had been severed neatly, as if in a surgical amputation. Another bag, stuffed with bloody, snakelike entrails and what appeared to be a liver, slid from the cabinet's shelf and landed on the floor with a wet splat."
  
  This second story was a lot better and creepier than the first, which obviously made me happy! This story follows Sarah, a girl who hates her appearance more than anything. Every night she wishes to be beautiful like her classmates and the models who's pictures she hangs on her wall. After a series of mishaps, Sarah ends up finding a robot girl in a junkyard and decides to take her home. After cleaning her up and switching her on the robot springs to life and tells Sarah that she can grant her any wish she wants, as long as she wears the pendant the girl gives her and never takes it off. Sarah agrees and is promised to wake up each morning more beautiful than the night before, and to her surprise, it works! Suddenly Sarah has a spot at the popular table during lunch and a date with the boy of her dreams, but she soon realizes there is something not right about the robot she's brought home...
  
  This is the kind of tale I expect from FNaF! If this weren't based around characters seven years younger than me and clearly meant for a younger audience, therefore far less creepy than they could be, this would genuinely spook me when I was trying to sleep at night. Scott has a way of describing these characters and events in such a gruesome but somehow casual way and that's totally haunting! Being as this story revolved a lot around school and cliques most of this one was annoying teenage drama but the delivery of that twist was too good not to rate this well!
  
  Count the Ways: 5 stars
  
  ""Options of how to die. Exactly!" the voice in the darkness said. "You're catching on now, bright girl that you are. Now I'd call the first couple of options lazy choices. They don't require me to do anything but keep you here and let nature take its course. The advantage to these is that they're easy-peasy for me but not so easy for you. Slow, with lots of suffering, but who knows? That might appeal to your morbid sensibilities. Lots of opportunities for languishing. You like languishing.""
  
  So. Scary.
  
  Millie is a girl who thinks about dying almost all the time. She'll tell anyone who will listen how miserable she is. No friends. Family staying in another country. Living with her kooky old Grandpa. Millie hates happiness, she doesn't believe in it. That is until she meets Dylan. Dylan is like her, reads poetry and doesn't have many friends and he's the first person to pay any sort of attention to Millie. For the first time in her life Millie finds herself smiling, but soon that's all taken away. After a series of bad events, Millie tells her family she won't be participating in Christmas, and the only way to get out of it is to hide in her Grandpa's workshop. A robot he found and was fixing up happens to have a chest cavity large enough for a human to crawl inside. What could go wrong?
  
  Oh my god this story was incredible? Switching between past and present, Millie's normal life mixed with being inside the belly of the beast this story was perfectly crafted and terrifyingly executed! Inside the body of a robot Millie is ran through options of her demise because this is what she wanted, isn't it? All Millie talked about was death and now she's about to get her wish.
  
  The scariest part of this story is by far the end, Millie's family is starting to worry where she is but decide that she can come back when she stops being a brat. Her Christmas gifts are all in a pile for her while she chooses decapitation as her end. Literal shivers. This was a perfect end to the first book!
  
  It was this last story that made me rate the first Fazbear Frights a four! This book is an extremely quick read and a splendid addition to the FNaF lore. And the couple bonus pages at the end where we learn about Stitchwraith left me so excited for the next book! I'm glad all the other books seem to be releasing this year as it would be sort of a pain to have to wait so long for such short stories. While these books were definitely watered down horror and had cringe fourteen year old moments I would recommend this book to anybody looking for more digging into the world of Five Nights at Freddy's.
• 
  Jennifer

  Read this book because it meant a lot to a student - boy was I NOT the target audience for this…
• 
  Marco

  Fazbear Frights #1 is a collection of 3 short stories not directly connected to the main Freddy's Pizza Place but in the same universes where killer animatronics exist
  
  Into the Pit: super creepy and really interesting, 5/5
  
  To Be Beautiful: slow at first but good once it gets going and very sad/creepy ending, 4/5
  
  Count the Ways: kinda sad ending. I wish there was more of a reveal but this one was kinda a "main character needs to realize the consequences of her actions story" so I understand why they kept it open ended, 4/5
• 
  Hidekisohma

  
  
  This was more of a palette cleanser after reading a bloated romance novel and it was literally something i punched out in a day.
  
  The question is, was it good? Well....it was...okay?
  
  So this book is really 3 mini stories in one and they kinda read like goosebump stories. Although at times, it definitely gets a bit dark for a Y novel. The first story ends happily. the second does not and the third is left purposely ambiguous. so like... 1 1/2 happy 1 1/2 sad?
  
  It's impossible to review it as one, as its three stories, so i'll go per story
  
  Story one is about a kid who is grumpy that his parents are poor. he time travels through a ballpit in a pizza place to the 1980's (As you do) and meets up with what i ASSUME is springtrap and has to escape from him and save his dad. All in all, this was definitely the best of the 3 although the main character took the fact that he time traveled quite easily. He treated time travel basically like he found an extra cookie in his lunch. kind of like an "oh. i time traveled. neat" There was some exciting action, although i wasn't a fan of how adult the 5th grader sounded and acted. he sounded like he was at LEAST freshman in high school and made him sound older beyond his years. not a fan of that. overall though, i enjoyed this one the most with a 3.5/5 rounded up to a 4.
  
  Story 2's story has been done to death. it's basically a monkey's paw cautionary tale of "be careful what you wish for" girl rescues an animatronic from the dump which i ASSUME is like a svelt, pretty version of circus baby. girl doesn't like her body and wishes for a better body. throughout the story she gets prettier and prettier thanks to eleanor (the animatronic). She gets more an more shallow and ditches her old friend and then eventually she becomes animatronic pieces and dies, as eleanor betrayed her. The end. This actually caught me off guard as the first story ended with a happy ending so i assumed this one would too. Nope. Girl who wants to be pretty dies a stupid ridiculous death. This one was boring as it was just about her whinging about wanting to be pretty, becoming a jerk, then dying. I guess the moral's supposed to be "Be happy with who you are" but it's such a slap in the face of "HEY! HERE'S THE MORAL!" that it's kind of insulting, even to people of this age range that the book is made for. 2/5
  
  The final story is about a goth girl who, being obsessed with death ends up in the stomach cavity of who i ASSUME to be fun time freddy from the way they described him. They keep flipping between the present and the past of the goth girl being a jerk to is quite possibly the nicest grandpa in the world (like seriously i wish my grandpa had been this nice). Actually, i'm going to pause this review a minute to talk about this grandpa. he volunteers to take her in after her parents go to saudia arabia, he cares about her, is concerned when he sees her upset, tries to talk to her about her problems, offers to take her places, when he learns she's a vegetarian IMMEDIATELY changes what he cooks to make her happy, brings her cookies and does basically everything he can to make her happy. And the girl (millie) is such a jerk to him it actually got me a bit mad.
  Okay, mini-rant over. So yeah, a boy at school talks to her but then she finds out he has a girlfriend and wants to die.
  So this whole time the animatronic has been offering her ways to die while inside him which is REALLY disturbing for a kids book. She admits she doesn't really want to die and has just been saying it because she was sad. She eventually chooses decapitation as she tries to use this as a chance to escape by ducking down low and escaping right after. we don't find out what happens though because after the blade comes through the story ends. so it's left ambiguous. which is kind of annoying.
  This was definitely the most morbid out of the 3 and the least pleasant to have to read. It wasn't BAD, just depressing and annoying at times. I give it the same score as story 2. a 2/5. The girl was annoying, the ending didn't really exist, and it was just unpleasant to read at times.
  
  Then there's 5 pages of a cop reading over a report about there being a guy in a mask as Sarah (girl from book 2) is missing. Didn't really care.
  
  All in all, it was all right. It honestly seemed like an attempt to do a goosebumps like mini anthology, just a tad darker at times. It really isn't super FNAF relevant perSAY, but some of the characters are there. If you're looking for lore, this is not the place to find it. if you're looking for a quick read where kids are in peril....i mean, this definitely fits that qualification in spades. when it all boils down it, i give it a 2.5/5 rounded up to a 3.
• 
  Calm

  Going into this book, I just expected the usual “oh no an animatronic is on a killing spree!” But it was so much more than that.
  
  Spoilers!
  
  
  For into the pit, I had been spoiled on the ending, but the level of detail put into the book is absolutely incredible. I didn’t expect the twist of spring bonnie taking the place of his dad and accidentally hanging himself at the end. 10/10
  
  For to be beautiful, I had also been spoiled on, but the level of sadness I felt for Sarah was really unexpected. It was just absolutely incredible storytelling and the creepiness along with the level of suspense was fantastic. The last couple lines of the story nearly brought me to tears. (Maybe I’m thinking to much about it lol) 10/10
  
  Now for count the ways, I had no idea what I was getting into. All I knew is that she got decapitated at the end. To find out that she’s an emo girl that longed for death was really shocking to me, especially with having a very loving family. However, the ending actually did bring me to tears. Again, the level of detail was amazing. 10/10
  
  Last thing, I noticed that all the stories had a common theme. Being happy with what you have. These stories aren’t just little horror stories about animatronics. These are stories about people who want to be different, and learn the hard way to accept who they are and what they have. And that, in my opinion, is what makes this book incredible. Fantastic job Scott!
• 
  Al Pagnotta

  ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!
  
  This book is a compilation of three short stories each set somewhere in the Five Nights at Freddy's canon. Each centers on a child that feels dissatisfied in some section of their life, and how tangling themselves with Animatronics and pizzerias gets them exactly what they want, but maybe not in the way they expect and sometimes with a prince higher then they're willing to pay.
  
  The first story, Into the Pit was a bit of a let down, and I expected a lot more about the actual Bite of 87' or 83' as that's what I thought it was about? However it wasn't, though it was still pretty good and I really enjoyed it.
  
  I've always love Circus baby, so the second story, to be beautiful, was really really good to me. It was a lot darker than the first, and it held a very deep message aside from the whole don't trust an animatronic thing that you get from the whole fnaf universe.
  
  The final story however, definitely was the best. It was told beautifully, it had dark tones that were weighted neatly with the light ones. The foreshadowing was incredible, but also just the set up that made you long for good when you could so blatantly see the bad. Millie is a character I was aware of prior because she was said to posses FT Freddy in some area of canon, and I love this story just for that!
  
  All in all, if you love fnaf, read these books. If you don't but you like scary stories, things with sad or bad endings, deep meanings, and quick reads. Still read it.
• 
  emily_oriley

  You know what, when I finished the first story, I was ready to just chuck this book. But I’m glad I didn’t. I am so glad the other stories didn’t match that first one.
  
  Seriously, skip Oswald’s story. It is so awful. If you’re a theorist, maybe read a summary. Yes I am suggest a SUMMARY instead of a 60 page story - it’s THAT bad. Or hell, just watch The Game Theorist’s video and skip to the end - he’ll tell you all the important stuff.
  
  The other two stories were surprisingly good. Like Goosebumps good. Some parts dragged and I’m a little disappointed they made the characters so unlikable but I do understand why. And having the last story go back and forth between present and flashback was a nice effect.
  
  So, yeah, two out of three, worth the read and it is a very short read - total time reading was maybe an hour - which is also a good thing since these storylines would wear thin pretty quickly. And so so so so SO much better than Silver Eyes.
• 
  The Grimm Lady

  It reminded me of the old fairytales from my home country. The boy who didn't appreciate what he has almost lost his father , the girl who wanted to be more beautiful gets tricked and gets her body stolen by a robot and the girl who romanticised death gets killed.
  Not bad , but still I felt like they were bland , probably written for very young teens and lacking that horror element that everyone says they have.
  If you're looking for FNAF lore elements there aren't any .
• 
  River

  Es war spannend und hat mich gut unterhalten.