Stephenie Meyer Is Here to Ruin Everything Good About Your Childhood — jezebel.com

If you were a fan of easy-to-read horror and suspense during the halcyon days of your middle school youth, you will be devastated to learn that "Head Mary Sue" Stephenie Meyer has decided to go where no one invited her: Down the dark hall of producing films based on the work of Lois Duncan. God help us all. The Hollywood Reporter finds that Meyer has been tapped to produce Duncan's Down a Dark Hall. Here's the thing (and yes, I take my vintage YA very seriously), Lois Duncan was, for many of us, our first entree into the world of thrillers, previously a category of books open only to adult cousins who carried Richie Tankersley Cusick paperbacks in their back pockets (Help Wanted was a trip, right?). Duncan eased younger readers into the world of black magic, the witness protection program, creepy boarding schools full of brilliant students with dark secrets and the classic morality tale Killing Mr. Griffin, which made me completely rethink my plan of kidnapping my geometry teacher until he gave me that fucking C I wanted. (I got that C, by the way, because I killed a very large spider in class once, so that's good.) To have Stephenie Meyer stick her sparkly little vampire hands into any of Duncan's work is not just a blow to the work, it's a blow to Lois Duncan's credibility! It's worse than that TV remake of Don't Look Behind You that I taped and watched religiously. Why? Because unlike Meyer, Duncan understands pacing, character development and story structure. (She also knows how to edit, but that's a whole other story.)

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