Return to X-Isle (Point Horror) [Paperback]

Peter Lerangis (Author)

Book Description

Series: Point Horror

Check in and die...The hooded figure wielding a scythe is still at large on the glamorous east coast resort of Essex Island, but will he claim another victim? Erica, Anna, Martin and Carter are walking a knife edge, not knowing when or where the killer will strike next...

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Hippo/Scholastic (May 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0439968003
• ISBN-13: 978-0439968003
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,996,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars "Figures rise out of the loam, stiff like hatchlings. They approach, shrouded in fog, on unsteady legs.", September 3, 2010

By 

Mark Louis Baumgart (Michigan, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return to X-Isle (Point Horror) (Paperback)

******THERE WILL BE SPOILERS******


I picked up this second book in the X-Isle series in a close-out bin in a bargain bookstore for a few dollars, and seeing that I try never to read books out of order, I decided to get a hold of the first book in this series. You can find my review of that book here X-Isle (Point Horror).

Carter Hale, Anna Karpathos, Erica Patterson, Martin Hsu, Henry Finney, Rachel Cominsky, and Sam Fanelli were the new recruits, picked for their social standings and looks, as staff for the newly opened Spinnaker Lodge. They had to deal with their own lies about themselves, and with a spree killer knocking off the adults that are running, financing, and promoting the new Spinnaker Lodge on Essex Island. A killer who was also terrorizing the new recruits. This time around things are changing in this second book in this series. While in the first book our main characters had to deal with a spree killer, this time the killer seems to be of a supernatural nature. The two main problems of the first novel were that the characters were pretty standard stuff, and that the novel itself had no ending. Just as you thought that the novel's killer was caught, somebody else is murdered, and then the novel just ENDS.

It's up to the survivors, Sam Fanelli was killed in the first novel, to discover who is behind the new series of murders. This time around, the deaths and events on Essex Island definitely have a supernatural explanation. It seems that those that died in the first novel have risen and are now walking. They are revenants, and under the control of somebody else, and this somebody is now looking for a sacred relic that may have the power to destroy the world. One character even becomes involved in a time slip, and there is another spectral creature, in the first book it was a hound or dog, and in the second it suddenly becomes a "panther" (?).

Essex Island is where the Native Indian tribe Madekonset were pretty much slaughtered long ago, with the rest driven off the island into exile. In "Return To X-Isle" we are introduced to a new character, Jim Redriver, a Native American of the Madekonset tribe. He has travelled from Pequot Island, where the tribe now resides, to find a sacred Indian relic, the same relic that the murderer behind the Essex Island deaths is looking for. As they look for the relic, the teen-agers have to not only deal with the killer, but with the fact that their dark secrets are just getting worse.

The problems that were found in the first novel are basically the same problems that are to be found here. The characters, except for one or two, are standard issue, and pretty much paper thin. They are never really developed. The novel is pretty bland, reading more like a novelization of a tv movie than an original work. But the main problem with the first novel is what is wrong with this novel. THERE IS NO ENDING!!!

We get to the end of this story and find that the relic still hasn't been found, the killer still hasn't been discovered, how this person raised the dead to walk is never solved, and none of the main character's problems are ever resolved. We are just left hanging. I hate that. Even if this novel is part of a series, each novel should be able to stand on its own. And this one doesn't. It won't make any sense if you haven't read the first one, and even if you did, several plot lines are just dropped. For example, they supposedly caught the killer in the first book, yet no mention is made of this person in the second novel.

However, the big thing is that this novel doesn't say that it is a serial novel, and that you will have to read each succeeding one to get more of the story, in this case there will be no third bite at the apple as there simply was NO third book ever published to finish the story. After this book, either Scholastic Books decided to cancel the series, or Lerangis just got bored and decided not to write one. And this is why this novel gets only one star. Yes, "Return To X-Isle" had a familiar plot, but it WAS getting more interesting, and I would have liked to have seen where it had ended.

But in the end why would anybody want to read only half a novel? Avoid. Reading this will only lead to frustration, maybe Lerangis will someday publish the last of the story, but since this was published long ago, I doubt that we will ever see it, and even if we do, publishing this story as is was is just a shifty thing to do.

Scholastic Point published three other series: "Demon", "The Dark" and "The Unseen". I wonder if they were published like this, but I wouldn't waste my time finding out.