There's The Girl With The Blog: Blackmail

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

Book# 30

Published April 1995

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

That is one fierce expression on Lily's face...I'm assuming anger? Lily's hair is described as black in the book but a dark kind of brown here. She is lunging forward to strangle her teacher, Mr. Reiner, and I think he's supposed to be scared but it's more like a "whoa!" kind of face. I like how his tie is flying backward over his shoulder and those papers falling on the floor. Also, I believe Lily is wearing some Laura Ashley...so the 1990s. Plus, Mr. Reiner looks like Andy Dick...kinda. I like the green, yellow and mahogany brown colors to make an interesting cover

There aren't a lot of different versions of Final Grade cover art around the world but as always Germany has some nice art. The first is the original and the second I believe is from an omnibus collection:

I think that is supposed to be a zip up pencil case or notebook with a rose, sort of broken and wilting, and splattered with some blood. The second is just a looming and ominous looking school building but the atmosphere of both is very creepy and mysterious...A+

Taglines: On the front: "Will Lily get an A in murder?" and on the back: "Everyone thinks she killed her teacher." I like the front but hello spoilers on the back! And the blurb even spoils that there will be another death before we even open it...bogus! I guess you have no choice to read it once that happens.

The First Line: "Lily Bancroft smoothed back her thick black hair and forced herself to take a deep breath."

Lily is stressing majorly about getting a B on her honors social science paper and question her teacher, Mr. Reiner, as to why it was not an A hen she didn't get anything wrong. The handsome, young teacher says he suspects more of honor students and that Lily didn't put in the effort. This makes her have a little fantasy of strangling him to death and it kind of weirds Lily out.

Her older sisters, Melinda and Becky, were valedictorians and Lily wants to be one too and get the Shadyside Honors Scholarship. Her best friend Julie Prince and her boyfriend Alex Crofts think she's taking it a little too serious and it also doesn't help that they use to date and when they are all together it is awkward to add to Lily's stress.

Her mother had a stroke and Lily has to work at her uncle's drugstore to help out, also knowing she'll need money to help even if she gets the scholarship. When she misses the bus to the other side of town, Lily accepts a ride from Julie's cousin, Graham, in his Porsche and we learn they don't really get along very well as they compete for the best grades since middle school and Graham is just as competitive and driven.

It may not be sea-green but damn some of these Shadyside kids are stinking rich!

Lily's night doesn't get better when a guy comes into her uncle's pharmacy and tries to rob the place, pulling a gun on her and Uncle Bob but her uncle pulls out a pistol to scare him off. An employee of Bob's, Rick Campbell, tries to go after the guy but loses him...he's a macho kind of guy. He hits on Lily but she tells him she has a boyfriend and Alex meets Lily on her way home to walk her to her door...so sweet.

Lily stays up real late to get her loads of homework done (a little talk with Dad putting no pressure on her really about how proud he is and that Lily does more than what she is capable of) and receives a call from a mystery man with stalker dialogue and it creeps her out.

Lily heads to Reiner's classroom the next day to try and talk to him about doing some extra work to raise her grade and finds the teacher dead on the floor. So after the funeral, everyone starts to act weird around Lily and well you know it's in the freaking synopsis on the back of the book!

Anyway, Lily believes it was just an accident because Reiner was thinking about fixing a faulty light fixture in his classroom and must have had a very bad fall standing on his desk to do so. Perhaps that's all it really is...until the mysterious voice calls again

"I know all about you, Lily," the voice whispered. "And I know you got what you wanted...didn't you?"

Lily has another run in with Rick at work and his pestering her for a date makes Lily snap at him but they end the conversation on amiable terms. Leaving work, Lily heads over to the newspaper printing press where Graham's dad lets the school paper print their literary magazine and she almost gets crushed by the large rolls of paper used in the press!

Side note: I use to work at a printing company and those machines are nothing to mess with!

Was this another accident or coincidence? Lily and Graham are going head to head for valedictorian...is he behind this to rattle her nerves or is someone else out to ruin Lily's life? The teacher she hated had an awful accident but what happens next is much more tragic...

Halfway through this one all of your theories go out the window and it's just a matter of what happens next and how will it end. The ending is okay not really happy and no real lesson to speak of is learned.

Body Count: Mr. Reiner for sure, one possible and another definite in a very gruesome manner that still sticks with me all these years later.

Cameo Time!: Lisa Blume from The New Girl meets up with Lily before she discovers Mr. Reiner and let's just say I don't remember Lisa being such a gossip! I know she's the editor of the school paper but man I didn't know they had a gossip rag.

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

Lily goes to see a movie and it's suppose to be some romantic movie with Winona Ryder...so is it Reality Bites or The Age of Innocence at this behind the times movie theater?

Personally I'm thinking a horror movie is more appropriate for this situation than any romance or comedy laughs. Actually I have two in mind:

Here are a few songs that seem almost fitting to me...twisted romance depending on how you look at it:

NEXT BLOG: Have you ever wondered how your life could be Switched upside down by forces beyond your control? Oh boy...we tackle a personal fave ;)

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

Book #17 in the Fear Street series

Published April of 1993

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

The girl on the cover is our main heroine, Carter Phillips, either receiving or making a call in terror. A menacing young man is looking in through the window, which is either the reason Carter is on the phone or she has yet to notice him. Awesome cover with lots of pale yellow shading.

I have this copy but I found a different piece of US cover art that is again simple but not as great as the artwork shown above:

Now of course I love the artwork on the German publications! They are always bleak and simple in the concept but always so well illustrated:

The color scheme of course isn't bleak in color but an overturned chair, scattered papers on the desk and floor...that is creepy enough. Who was sitting in the chair and just why is the studious person no longer at their desk?

I also found a Spanish edition with some interesting cover art:

Again our heroine on the phone with a shadow not looming outside but within her own house! Is she calling for help or has she just now noticed a stranger bent on doing her harm?

Taglines: On the front "Now she has to pay..." and on the back we have "No way out!" These are not very riveting *yawn* but reading the blurb on the back might make me interested in reading it.

The First Line: "The first time Carter Phillips thought about cheating, it was a joke."

So it seems that Carter has considered cheating before and no not on her boyfriend Dan Mason...but on anything involving math, her worst subject. She took a Math Achievement test and got a 570 (don't ask me if that's good I don't remember what I got for a score but seeing as Math is not my best subject...I don't think I even got that!) and that didn't sit well with Daddy.

Carter's father is a judge and an alumni of Princeton who of course wants his little princess to follow in his footsteps. Did I mention Carter is blonde and quite wealthy as she lives in the richest neighborhood of Shadyside? Her father wants Carter to retake the test and get a higher score while her mother is always running off to all sorts of fundraisers and other rich people activities and I don't think she could care either way. Carter doesn't seem to be as much a snob as people would believe and she even jokes that Dan could take the test for her which he doesn't seem to think she would do. When Dan leaves their date of shakes at the local hangout, Carter is told by a young man that he'll do it.

We now meet Adam Messner, he's from the wrong side of the tracks but a whiz at math. He isn't the All-American type like Dan but with his long black hair he's mysterious and different so Carter takes him up on the offer. He asks for a date in return even though he has a girlfriend named Sheila and it also means Carter has to blow off her already planned date with Danny Boy. The day of the test arrives and everything goes without a hitch so the rich girl goes with the poor boy from Fear Street to some place called the Underground where they dance and then kiss in Adam's beat up Mustang.

Well that wasn't so bad! Wait...Adam wants to meet her at the country club to play tennis tomorrow? What for another date? Oh no what has Carter gotten herself into now? Adam does indeed show up and he also shows up one of the preppy, snobby guys which impresses Carter but she still has to explain to her friend Jill why someone like Adam got in their ritzy country club anyway.

So of course Adam wants more dates and Carter is also threatened by Sheila (remember Adam's girlfriend?) to stay away from her man or she will put Little Miss Rich Girl in her place. Carter handles herself pretty well until Adam gets a little too handsy and then things just go from bad to worse...the real Adam starts to surface and he isn't as nice as he seems. Soon a car starts following Carter around town with the intent to mow her down and she even finds a heart in her tennis bag! (That is so gross! It's not a human heart thank God but whatever animal had to be sacrificed for that...I don't wanna know!)

The straw that really breaks Carter's back is when she has to have Jill accompany her on a date with Adam and his buddy Ray and they take them to some dive bar. It's not the bar itself but when all of the guys get a little too rough with the girls where Jill is in hysterics and Adam doesn't even have any intention of helping...what a creepo! Carter and Jill make it out okay but the next day Adam has the gall to now just outright blackmail Carter for money or he'll tell her daddy what they did. In desperation, Carter has to pawn of her jewelry and even though I'm sure she has plenty to spare but when she has to pawn of the earrings her father gave her for "passing" the test a second time with a 730 is what is really sad.

He was genuinely proud of her and even though I wish I could spend $3,000 on a pair of diamond earrings (not my speculation it's what Carter believes) it really is heartbreaking to part with a gift of a father's love just to pay some loser off. Being pushed to the edge, Carter is even beginning to have thoughts about just killing Adam to get him out of the way and when the police show up to her house one night to tell her that he has been shot dead...will Carter really finally have no way out and have to pay for something she didn't do?

I wouldn't say The Cheater is one of my favorite Fear Street books but it is a good read with some nice twists along the way but nothing too shocking. It has of course one of those cheesy endings about learning lessons but the characters aren't too obnoxious so you don't roll your eyes out of meanness.

Body Count: Of course I let it slip that Adam Messner bites the dust but does anyone else? In a word no unless you count whatever animal had to lose its heart to squick out Carter. As the words "warm" and "sticky" come to mind I'm guessing it wasn't from a butcher shop...*shivers in disgust*

Cameo Time!: No cameos this time around as the plot basically goes around a main and central cast of characters.

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

So it is mentioned that one of Carter and Adam's "dates" is going to see some horror movie that is more silly than scary with less than stellar effects. Now two movies come to mind and I guess it depends on your taste which one you think it would be. Either way it's still giving me the impression that the movie theater in Shadyside plays movies months after their original wide release. It's not that far fetched as I have been to theaters like that in very small towns and budget theaters where you get charged more for the concession than the tickets. Anyway it's a toss up between Leprechaun or Army of Darkness but I'm going more toward Leprechaun than AOD because well I love The Evil Dead series and have never seen the latter film except for a few clips when people talk about horror films but with the more absurdity of the sequels that's the winner.

Now if they had went to something released more around April, even though it wasn't a romantic date, there are a few choices I personally I would have rather seen (besides Army of Darkness that is).

Dan rents a few movies to watch over at Carter's house for one of their actual romantic dates seeing as they really are a couple. The choices are Batman Returns and Wayne's World which Carter picks the latter as she really isn't in the mood for comedy with the situation she happens to be going through. I like Wayne's World but I would have gone with her choice regardless...Batman Returns never gets enough love.

I'm not really sure what kind of club Adam and Carter went to for dancing but Adam's vibe kind of makes me think he was more of a rock kind of guy you know like Aerosmith or Def Leppard. Maybe a Cranberries fan...or something like Lenny Kravitz or Radiohead? Looking for something a little more upbeat then how about some Spin Doctors?