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What is this book? (scary teen novel from the 70s/80s)


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I thought it was Lois Duncan, but I didn't see it in the list of her books when I searched. It was about kids who make a prank call late at night, but the person they call thinks it's her daughter on the line and ends up getting killed in a car accident going out to find her. Then the kids have to keep the secret about what they did. It was kind of in the "I Know What You Did Last Summer" vein.

 

Does anyone recognize it? It's fluttering around the edge of my memory, but I just can't call it up!

 

TIA :D

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It sounds oh so familiar but... No I can't recall the name or anything sorry. Now it is gonna drive me crazy though LOL

 

I know!!! Someone has to know it though--I think it was pretty mainstream. I'd look at the Stump the Bookseller site, but the only keywords I can remember are way too generic.

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Just Dial a Number - Edith Maxwell

 

I havent read it in years and years, but knew exactly where it was b/c I just unpacked it!

 

Yay! I was helpful!:D

 

YES!!!! Thank you, it really was going to drive me nuts :lol: Now I'm off to see if my library has it, along with Stranger With My Face and Down a Dark Hall--two other books that I had forgotten all about and loved as a teen!

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Yep, that's the one! Thanks!

 

Yikes! Why would you want to re-read this? You just reminded me of Lois Duncan's Summer of Fear, which terrified me as a girl! (I still won't go to sleep in a bed that doesn't have at least one side pushed up against a wall....)

 

:lol: I loved that stuff as a teen. I remember reading Stephen King's It over the course of two or three looooong nights in high school, finishing up at around 3 a.m., and then being afraid to turn my light off so I could go to sleep to get up for school the next day! Now I can't handle the grown-up-level scary stuff, but the YA level scary stuff is just the right amount of scary :D

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Yep, that's the one! Thanks!

 

 

 

:lol: I loved that stuff as a teen. I remember reading Stephen King's It over the course of two or three looooong nights in high school, finishing up at around 3 a.m., and then being afraid to turn my light off so I could go to sleep to get up for school the next day! Now I can't handle the grown-up-level scary stuff, but the YA level scary stuff is just the right amount of scary :D

 

When my older DS was about 11, (I think) he read the John Bellairs books. He said they really scared him but he couldn't stop reading them.

 

I wonder if it is a developmental thing?

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When my older DS was about 11, (I think) he read the John Bellairs books. He said they really scared him but he couldn't stop reading them.

 

I wonder if it is a developmental thing?

 

Seriously, those are some scary books! My DD8 started asking for scary stories last year, so I immediately thought of the John Bellairs books. I got The House with a Clock in Its Walls to do as a readaloud, and then she decided she wasn't ready, so I went ahead and re-read it myself...in the semi-dark, sitting at the end of DD5's bed after she fell asleep :eek: Totally freaked myself out :lol:

 

I was probably about that age when I read them too, and DD8 is dipping a toe in those waters now. DD5 will probably never like them--she's much more sensitive!

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