Petrified [Mass Market Paperback]

Joseph Locke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1992

Six years after they had gone their separate ways, Leslie, Erika, Lynda, and Bret return to their favorite hangout, the old Waxhouse museum, for a reunion, never suspecting that someone in the museum is watching their every move.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Four high school seniors keep the pact they made six years earlier by reuniting in the town they all moved away from. The friends are hoping that Karin Potter, a shy outcast once included in their group, will join them, until Mrs. Potter, Karin's strange, embittered mother, tells them that her daughter has committed suicide. The four are devastated by the news, yet are soon faced with a more immediate concern: after breaking into the now-abandoned Waxhouse, a favorite childhood hangout, they must escape from a maniac who is lurking in the building and has sealed its exits. A grisly murder is followed by a near-fatality as Locke ( Kill the Teacher's Pet ) depicts the madness of the criminally insane. Unfortunately, little happens until the novel's midpoint, and except for the impulsive Bret, there's not much character delineation among the friends. The resolution also sidesteps credibility (an alive, albeit weakened, Karin breaks down a padlocked door), but horror story aficionados may forgive these shortcomings. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Grade 8-10-- A lackluster, farfetched, gratuitously violent thriller. Best friends Erika, Bret, Lynda, and Leslie, all of whom are moving away from town for various reasons, meet together for one last visit to their favorite hangout, a wax museum called the Waxhouse. They make plans for a reunion, to be held during Christmas vacation of their senior year in high school. Six years later, they discover the Waxhouse closed with its windows boarded. They break in, only to find themselves locked in and stalked by a maniacal adversary. Readers are led through stilted, unimaginative prose to the graphic, stabbing death of one of the girls. That four teenage girls would pry boards off a window and break into a cold, dirty, unlit, ghostly manor to eat junk food and gossip, when they could be in a warm, motel room, requires too much suspension of disbelief (even if their parents did allow the unchaperoned, cross-country trip). Stick to Christopher Pike's and R. L. Stine's books, where evil also lurks, but plots and characters are better developed.
- Alice Casey Smith, Chappaqua Library,
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 13 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Starfire (January 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553296574
• ISBN-13: 978-0553296570
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,531,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book!, January 24, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Petrified (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was awesome! I really liked it. It was very suspensful. Four girls move away from their hometown and make a pact to return to their favorite hangout in six years. When they get to the Waxhouse it is boarded up and they break the window to get in. The girls are frightened by the wax figures in the dark. When the figures keep on being moved the girls know someone is in the house with them. They try to get out but someone has put pad locks on all the doors. Someone who wants to hurt the girls.