To most people, October 31 means Halloween. To Samantha Genetti, it’s her birthday. The protagonist of Halloween Party is turning seventeen soon, and her friends are throwing a masquerade to celebrate the occasion. In the meantime, Samantha quietly lives in fear after receiving a series of threatening notes from an unknown sender. Something dangerous awaits Samantha on her birthday, and if she’s not careful, she may not live to see her next one.

From the looks of the cover art and the sound of the blurb, Halloween Party is a teenage whodunit or slasher. To tell the truth, Wendy Corsi Staub’s 1994 book is not quite either of those things. There is definitely a mysterious person stalking the main character, but their method of torture is, for the most part, psychological. And for longer than she realizes, Samantha is toyed with and made to feel alone until the perpetrator moves in for the kill.

True to form, the trouble starts with an ominous note left in Samantha’s locker — “BEWARE.” The one-word warning doesn’t faze Samantha at first, only because she assumes her boyfriend’s jealous ex Pippa wrote the note. Her suspicion isn’t exactly uncalled for — Pippa has been such a pill since Wyatt Moran got a new steady — but blaming everything on the former girlfriend lulls Samantha into a false sense of security. Believing Pippa is guilty would mean there’s no real cause for alarm; it’s doubtful an everyday mean girl would follow through on her threats. More importantly, Samantha’s theory distracts her from the fact that someone else is out to get her. 

Halloween Party does the equivalent of the killer’s point of view in slasher movies; every so often, the story accesses the antagonist’s inner thoughts and shadows her actions. This happens enough to where readers start to feel like accomplices, seeing as they have no choice but to tag along with the villain. From silent calls to breaking and entering, Samantha’s enemy is utterly obsessed, and she’s only getting more unstable as the days go by. It’s actually been weeks since the stalker found the Genettis’ hidden house key outside, and instead of slitting her victim’s throat in her sleep, she decided to “stalk her prey first.”

That was before she’d found out how much more satisfying it would be to stalk her prey first.

Samantha’s (almost fatal) flaw of bottling up her problems is something she inherited from her father. Ever since wife and mother Marie Genetti walked out when Samantha was only two years old, Leo Genetti has shut out both his emotions and his daughter. Samantha now feels responsible for her father’s unhappiness, and she’s terrified of leaving him behind if she goes away to college. This absolute case of parentification consumes Samantha, causing her to lash out at Wyatt. “You’re not my flesh and blood,” Samantha spits at her boyfriend when feeling like she has to choose between her sense of obligation and her desires.

The villain’s long game is an especially detrimental one. She initially pokes only small holes in Samantha’s life, removing her complacency bit by bit before incidentally isolating her from all her loved ones. The book’s most patent themes of abandonment and solitude are hard to miss as Samantha comes undone. She dreads the thought of leaving her father behind, she’s still haunted by her mother’s sudden departure, and by keeping her problems to herself, Samantha feels utterly alone no matter who she’s with. The level of alienation happening here — self-inflicted or otherwise — is impressively executed, not to mention hard to stomach.

Making this whole tense situation worse is the timely revelation of Samantha’s parentage. Her stalker delivers the biggest surprise a hormonal and stressed out teen can receive; adoption papers confirm the Genettis aren’t Samantha’s biological parents. And as expected, this development immediately widens the emotional gap between Samantha and her father, as well as magnifies prior feelings of abandonment and rejection. In her mind, Samantha was abandoned by not just one, but two mothers.

Along with the news of her adoption, Samantha is told her biological mother was raped. This discovery plus the adoption papers can only mean the stalker is Samantha’s bio-mom, Ruth. Flashbacks near the book’s end reveal Ruth was only sixteen when she was attacked by a homeless man, who she saw to be the Devil himself. This, along with her devout upbringing, explains why the villain’s internal thoughts take on an intensely hellish tone. She sees Samantha as an affront to both the Bible and her own salvation, and the only “sound” course of action is destroying the spawn of the Devil.

She had been waiting for this night for the past eighteen years. Since before the Devil’s spawn was born… since it was growing evilly in the belly. It should have happened a long time ago.

Samantha has already been put through a lot in so little time. The adoption bombshell has left both her and her father sore and tired, but the real threat on Samantha’s life comes at the titular event. The dual-purpose bash is the most this book ever comes to feeling outwardly Halloweenish, and even then, Samantha and her friends are at the costume party for only a few chapters before everything hurriedly comes to a close. The theme is “good and bad guys,” and by dressing as a devil, Samantha unknowingly fuels the flames of her stalker’s pious frenzy. The ostensible killer, who is conveniently disguised as a robed executioner, comes close to killing Samantha until someone finally stops her. “Shut up, Mother! It’s over!” Ruth screams as she subdues the culprit.

Halloween Party does an estimable job of hiding the stalker’s real identity. Readers were led to believe Ruth was guilty all this time, but a last-minute switch pins the crimes on the biological grandmother, Lucinda. In the hospital, Ruth explains that her mother tried to kill Samantha when she was a baby; she claimed her granddaughter was the “Devil’s child.” In a bid to keep her safe, Samantha was then put up for adoption. Years later after Lucinda was misguidedly released from long-term psychiatric care, she resumed her “mission.” Had Lucinda not called Ruth days before the party, though, she might have actually succeeded.

This book was published under Kensington’s Z-Fave imprint, which was known for its more mature offerings of YA suspense. Many of Staub’s contemporaries tended to stay on the safer side of gateway horror, whereas Halloween Party leans toward the objectionable and unapologetic slasher movies of times past. There is no body count to speak of here, but the plot is grittier than usual, and Samantha’s stalker isn’t hellbent on adolescent jealousy or revenge. Staub also affords both her main characters equal detail and attention, ensuring no half of their tumultuous relationship comes across as underdeveloped.

When it seems like the book is ignoring its Halloween backdrop, Staub slowly but surely reveals the holiday’s significance. From an old superstition emerges a more unique story about children born on Halloween. The final product is certainly darker and more alarming than anticipated or suggested, but defying expectations, in this case, worked out for the best.

There was a time when the young-adult section of bookstores was overflowing with horror and suspense. These books were easily identified by their flashy fonts and garish cover art. This notable subgenre of YA fiction thrived in the ’80s, peaked in the ’90s, and then finally came to an end in the early ’00s. YA horror of this kind is indeed a thing of the past, but the stories live on at Buried in a Book. This recurring column reflects on the nostalgic novels still haunting readers decades later.