Mr. Popularity (Horror High, #1) by Nicholas Adams

Mr. Popularity (Horror High, #1) Reviews

• 
  Tara

  4.5 stars. Pure pulpy goodness.
• 
  Courtney Gruenholz

  Even though I have read other Horror High books, this is the first one in the series.
  
  What a way to start!
  
  The only thing that kept me from giving this book 5 stars was a little excessive animal cruelty and the way it was handled.
  
  As enigmatic and vague as that "incident" is made...everything else was a good kind of bonkers.
  
  I'm not saying this deserves a Pulitzer, I know it's cheesy teen pulp but it was in my wheelhouse of horror and suspense with a little psychological terror thrown in.
  
  Brad Forrester is rich. His dad gives him 500 dollars for a straight A report card. He drives a 280ZX and is good-looking. He's Mr. Popularity, sure to win King of the Junior Prom, get into any school he wants.
  
  Tall, Dark and Handsome...emphasis on "Dark"
  
  Brad hears voices...one tells him to do evil things and the other is the voice of a girl he killed...it begs him to stop. He loved her but then she turned on him.
  
  Brad can turn on the charm to get any girl he wants and now he has his sights set on Cassie Arthur.
  
  She's beautiful, just the girl Brad needs, and Cassie is hopelessly crushing on him. Meanwhile, Cassie has another admirer.
  
  Jake Taylor is cute but he isn't handsome like Brad, he isn't rich...he saved money to get his '79 Chevy even halfway running. He's on the track team and good in auto shop, works as a busboy to help out his widowed mother and he's nice and all but in the friend zone.
  
  Cassie catches a ride with Brad after having Jake get her to the bus stop in time. Despite a horrific accident on the way to school, Brad gets out of trouble with the police and easily gets Cassie on his side as well. At school, Brad and Jake fight over a parking space and Brad can see clearly that Jake is embarrassed to be seen as a wimp in Cassie's eyes.
  
  The voice tells Brad he needs to get rid of Jake before he tries to take his girl so now Jake is the one that needs to be killed to please the voice in his head even as the other one begs him not to do this.
  
  Jake knows Brad is out to get him, can tell he's crazy, but no one will listen to him...especially Cassie. Jake doesn't care if his time is up but he won't let Brad hurt Cassie...he'll find a way to break the hold he has over her.
  
  Brad loves Cassie and she loves Brad but soon, the darkness as black as the panther he keeps as his pet, is going to strike out its claws. Maybe Cassie will be different and the demons in Brad's head can be tamed by love or will they beg for more blood?
  
  You already know that it can't be good when there is still more story left when you reach the part where the blurb on the back not so subtly spoiled that part. The craziness till that point gets amped up to eleven in ways I can't describe without spoiling so much!
  
  We get a reveal that truly shocked me and it was like some sort of neo noir and believe me when we're talking about a teenage boy owning a freaking panther as a pet I was getting some serious Cat People vibes (a little of both the original and remake in parts)
  
  The ending was tragically melancholy but also slightly hopeful. For such a weird story to have that kind of ending and then knowing it was just the first taste...amazing.
  
  I recommend it and the rest of the Horror High books if you get around to reading them. As for me, four down and four more to go...
• 
  Cameron Chaney

  Hmmm...okay. When I first started this book, I wasn't really enjoying it. Yes, it's very similar to a Fear Street or Point Horror book, but with choppier prose and worse dialogue. Now, I'm not really looking for great writing when I read a book like this, and Fear Street definitely isn't the shining example of great literature, but those books were incredibly breezy and well-paced, carrying the reader from scene to bloody scene with ease. Mr. Popularity, however, read like a jumbled mess. It took me a while to get used to the writing style, and after the villain of the story runs over a little dog with his car 30 pages in, I was thinking I was going to hate the book.
  
  It picked up though, and I actually really liked the last half of the book. A psychotic teenage boy with a pet panther? Sign me up! No, this isn't a good book, but the last half gave me all the trashy horror I was wanting, so I ended up digging it overall. I'll definitely continue on with the Horror High series.
• 
  J.D.

  Cassie is so excited that Brad, the most popular boy at school, is interested in her that she fails to notice the red flags when it comes to his strange behavior.
  
  Her friend Jake isn't fooled by Brad's innocent act, but no one will believe him.
  By the time Cassie sees the real Brad it might already be too late to escape.
  
  A typical 90's teen horror read with a cool idea and some Fear Street / point horror vibes.
  
  The writing was basic and the dialogue was not the best. There was a lot of name stating during conversations which is a pet peeve of mine when overdone.
  
  While it's not the best writing, it brought back nostalgic feelings of reading all those short horror stories as a teen.
  
• 
  Ineke

  Utterly annoyed by the changing POV throughout the chapters.
• 
  D.L.

  Interesting but very dark for a teen book. Trigger warning for 2 animal deaths.
• 
  Sue Willson

  I DID NOT EXPECT THAT
• 
  Renee Zamora

  Nerd Daily Reading Challenge ~2020~
  48. Two word title
• 
  Sarah Elizabeth

  Okay.
  
  * Cassie wants to go out with the most popular boy in the Junior year - Brad.
  * Jake likes Cassie but realises that she likes Brad.
  * Brad has problems. He has a nice car and money, but he hears voices in his head, and he killed a girl called Alice and buried her on his parents property not that long ago.
  * Brad realises that Jake wants Cassie and even though he doesn't really seem to want Cassie himself, he knows that he can't let Jake take her from him, and the voices tell him to take care of the problem.
  * Brad runs a dog over in the street, he argues with Jake over a parking space, he sets Jakes's sleeve on fire in chemistry, he tries to run him off the road. Every time the sheriff seems to be on Brad's side, and taking bribes.
  * Eventually Brad tries to kill Cassie but ends up going off the cliff himself. Cassie and Jake go to the sheriff, but he doesn't believe them. Brad survives and kidnaps Cassie's sister. Jake and Cassie go to Brad's house to try and get Andrea back. It turns out that Brad's dad killed the girl that Brad buried. Brad's dad is killed by a panther, but shoots the panther and kills it. Brad ends up going to a mental hospital and Cassie and Jake get to go home, and possibly date in the future.
• 
  Jennifer

  What can I say?
  Well, somewhere along the line I guessed that it was the father who was the murder.
  I did like how Jake and Cassie didn't just jump into each others' arms at the end; everyone was realistically traumatized.
  I didn't like the omnipotent point of view or the sudden breaks that had no place. With the point of view constantly changing between characters from paragraph to paragraph, there was no point to the breaks, especially since the scene doesn't change a bit across them. Their worse than commercial breaks.
• 
  Shannon

  Okay, this is from my childhood, and I still have the paperback on the bottom shelf of my bookcase. I can't quiet remember the plot, but boy, this book gave me chills as a kid. I always loved horror EVERYTHING and this was one of my first books, beside Goosebumps, that I bought with my very own money from my paper route. One of these days, I will read it again, as I did on so many nights when I was younger. I think I must have read it a dozen times, though I can only assume the real number is close to six.
  
  Please, this 90's horror children's book is a must read, even if just for humor.