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greergreer's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
manwithanagenda's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
A. Bates has done it again. There are so few books of this genre and period that are interesting. The plot's resolution - and whole...genesis, really - leave a LOT to be desired, but our lead makes up for it. I'm likely off-base here, but I've read so many of these since Covid-19 began that the barest sign of cogent thought in a protagonist gets me excited.
Kelly is NOT like other girls. She wears her father's old timey hat everywhere and she's a mechanic. Engines make sense to her in a way that people never will. After her parent's divorce, he's been away. He has no time for her sister Susan, who is her mother's frilly daughter, but wants Kelly to follow after him. Kelly has become good at what she does and even advertises to other students and the faculty as a mechanic to earn money for school.
High school is almost over, though, and Kelly has a problem. Finals Week. She has test anxiety and rarely does well under pressure. Last year she famously had a meltdown during English. Her best friend Talia assures her that she'll be fine, her acceptance at a mechanics program isn't contingent on high grades. She just has to pass and graduate. Talia wants to get in to the same school as her boyfriend Jeff.
Her personal life is a little complicated thanks to an ex-boyfriend, who she dumped because of his anger issues, now showing interest in her sister but angling to talk to her, too. Tad, the Big Man on Campus, is suddenly showing interest which Kelly can't quite believe.
As Finals Week approaches Kelly starts to become victim to pranks. Innocent enough, at first, however inconvenient, but egged cars and missing textbooks turn into something more deadly. Can Kelly handle the pressure?
I liked this solely because of how Kelly handles the romantic plot-lines. Too often in Point Horror books we're expected to go along with the suspicious, jealous boy being an acceptable love interest - even a reward - for getting through the novel alive. Girls marginalize themselves to go along with what the boys expect and we're supposed to think this is normal. Kelly stands up for herself right up to the end of the book. I can't think of this happening in ANY other title. That includes ~150 odd 'Fear Streets', 20 'Nightmare Halls', and umpteen standalone Point Horror books among others. That's enough to keep this one high on my personal list, despite some serious deficiencies in plot and choice of villain.
Kelly is NOT like other girls. She wears her father's old timey hat everywhere and she's a mechanic. Engines make sense to her in a way that people never will. After her parent's divorce, he's been away. He has no time for her sister Susan, who is her mother's frilly daughter, but wants Kelly to follow after him. Kelly has become good at what she does and even advertises to other students and the faculty as a mechanic to earn money for school.
High school is almost over, though, and Kelly has a problem. Finals Week. She has test anxiety and rarely does well under pressure. Last year she famously had a meltdown during English. Her best friend Talia assures her that she'll be fine, her acceptance at a mechanics program isn't contingent on high grades. She just has to pass and graduate. Talia wants to get in to the same school as her boyfriend Jeff.
Her personal life is a little complicated thanks to an ex-boyfriend, who she dumped because of his anger issues, now showing interest in her sister but angling to talk to her, too. Tad, the Big Man on Campus, is suddenly showing interest which Kelly can't quite believe.
As Finals Week approaches Kelly starts to become victim to pranks. Innocent enough, at first, however inconvenient, but egged cars and missing textbooks turn into something more deadly. Can Kelly handle the pressure?
I liked this solely because of how Kelly handles the romantic plot-lines. Too often in Point Horror books we're expected to go along with the suspicious, jealous boy being an acceptable love interest - even a reward - for getting through the novel alive. Girls marginalize themselves to go along with what the boys expect and we're supposed to think this is normal. Kelly stands up for herself right up to the end of the book. I can't think of this happening in ANY other title. That includes ~150 odd 'Fear Streets', 20 'Nightmare Halls', and umpteen standalone Point Horror books among others. That's enough to keep this one high on my personal list, despite some serious deficiencies in plot and choice of villain.
odrib's review
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Domestic abuse
dtaylorbooks's review
5.0
While not scary FINAL EXAM turned out to be one of my favorite reads from this summer mainly because I liked the characters, especially Kelly since she’s a mechanic and, for the most part, actually makes some really sound decisions that I could get behind.
The set-up for the panic about final exams doesn’t make a whole ton of sense to me. In this story everyone’s seniors and for some reason their finals will affect college to a serious extent. When I was in school really nothing beyond junior year was counted toward your college transcripts. That’s why a lot of people took a far easier course load their senior year because they could just kind of scoot on by. So I really wasn’t on board with the exam panic because it didn’t make sense to me. Maybe they did things differently before my time and maybe it’s done differently now but to me it would have made more sense had Kelly been a junior to have that level of panic (not to mention that number of exams) about finals.
I really liked Kelly as a character. She stood on her own, did things her own way and wasn’t really too concerned about what others thought about her. She didn’t really have any antagonistic relationships beyond the one with her sister and people looked to her for car advice because she’d built a reputation for herself as a good mechanic. It all seemed so NORMAL. I don’t get that even now in YA, this very easy, basic school situation where it’s not total hell and someone’s just existing through it. She becomes suspicious when the popular boy takes an interest in her because she’s not his type (based on his cheerleader-chasing reputation) and that amplifies when bad things start happening to her because she doesn’t really know him. And the end . . . LOVED THE END when it came to their relationship. It just shot insta-love in the foot and settled the relationship at a far more reasonable level. Loved it. Aside from the horror aspect FINAL EXAM is just so grounded and relatable for me that it really resonated just from that respect.
As for the story itself it was just okay. It had a moment where I really thought I was going to get a sappy, everyone hug ending despite the number of pages I still had left at that moment but I got a bigger bang than that, thank god. It was a challenge trying to figure out who was doing these things to Kelly because the way the author approached the situation, everyone was a reasonable suspect. It literally could have been anyone and it was set up so succinctly I can’t help but admire it. The situation with Danny, her ex-boyfriend, I could have lived without but he was another body to throw suspicion into the mix so I get why he was there. Still, not a fan of his character.
Overall I think FINAL EXAM is one of the best cheesy old school YA horror books I’ve read simply because it felt the most realistic for me. From the characters to their personalities and even many of the scenarios that played out, I could buy a lot of it. I wouldn’t really consider it scary because the only scary thing that did happen was at the end, everything else could just be considered pranks and weren’t anything at all terrifying, so that dampened it down a little. But aside from that it was a well-constructed book with some solid characters and I really liked reading it.
4.5
The set-up for the panic about final exams doesn’t make a whole ton of sense to me. In this story everyone’s seniors and for some reason their finals will affect college to a serious extent. When I was in school really nothing beyond junior year was counted toward your college transcripts. That’s why a lot of people took a far easier course load their senior year because they could just kind of scoot on by. So I really wasn’t on board with the exam panic because it didn’t make sense to me. Maybe they did things differently before my time and maybe it’s done differently now but to me it would have made more sense had Kelly been a junior to have that level of panic (not to mention that number of exams) about finals.
I really liked Kelly as a character. She stood on her own, did things her own way and wasn’t really too concerned about what others thought about her. She didn’t really have any antagonistic relationships beyond the one with her sister and people looked to her for car advice because she’d built a reputation for herself as a good mechanic. It all seemed so NORMAL. I don’t get that even now in YA, this very easy, basic school situation where it’s not total hell and someone’s just existing through it. She becomes suspicious when the popular boy takes an interest in her because she’s not his type (based on his cheerleader-chasing reputation) and that amplifies when bad things start happening to her because she doesn’t really know him. And the end . . . LOVED THE END when it came to their relationship. It just shot insta-love in the foot and settled the relationship at a far more reasonable level. Loved it. Aside from the horror aspect FINAL EXAM is just so grounded and relatable for me that it really resonated just from that respect.
As for the story itself it was just okay. It had a moment where I really thought I was going to get a sappy, everyone hug ending despite the number of pages I still had left at that moment but I got a bigger bang than that, thank god. It was a challenge trying to figure out who was doing these things to Kelly because the way the author approached the situation, everyone was a reasonable suspect. It literally could have been anyone and it was set up so succinctly I can’t help but admire it. The situation with Danny, her ex-boyfriend, I could have lived without but he was another body to throw suspicion into the mix so I get why he was there. Still, not a fan of his character.
Overall I think FINAL EXAM is one of the best cheesy old school YA horror books I’ve read simply because it felt the most realistic for me. From the characters to their personalities and even many of the scenarios that played out, I could buy a lot of it. I wouldn’t really consider it scary because the only scary thing that did happen was at the end, everything else could just be considered pranks and weren’t anything at all terrifying, so that dampened it down a little. But aside from that it was a well-constructed book with some solid characters and I really liked reading it.
4.5
charlottesometimes's review
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
cmoo053's review
5.0
What a riveting read! Kelly is such a sympathetic protagonist. The mystery is compelling and keeps you guessing right until the last minute. The extended mechanical metaphor is clearly the work of a genius.
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