Focusing On Fear Street: What Holly Heard

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

 

Book #34 in the Fear Street Series

Published January 1996

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

 

 

A faded picture but still very clear with detail that I guess is supposed to be Holly Silva hearing a secret between Mei Kamata and her boyfriend Noah Brennan. Holly has her lucky blue scarf but Holly in the book has curly hair with bangs so that's one detail left to artist Bill Schmidt I guess. Mei looks the way she is described but this guy looks more like Jed Holman, the boyfriend of Holly's friend Miriam Maryles, than Noah. Jed is a basketball player with a maroon and white Shadyside High jacket while Noah is described as having long, shaggy black hair and earrings in his ears. Not trying to nitpick so much but also blue lockers when your school colors are maroon red and white? Now that I think about it my middle school colors were gold and purple and we had teal lockers so I guess it can slide. Besides that, I like this cover it looks more realistic in the art style.

 

Let's look at the French cover:

 



 

A terrified girl backed into a corner by an unknown crazy person with a hammer. This does happen in the book and the detail in that fish clenching the hammer is great and throws off suspicion as to just who in our cast of characters is about to do this girl harm. She looks a little young but I suppose the artist who illustrates these French covers figures since they are for young adults it works I guess?

 

Finally two different German covers the first is the original and the second is a reprint with only the key art: no titles at all which is always a real treat to find!

 

 

 

The first cover is very book accurate and very spoiler filled if you know that Holly always carries a blue scarf for luck. Brown hair, facedown with the scarf about her neck, hands clenched from clawing at her attacker and spilled paint. It's simple yet ominous. The second one has a girl on a phone looking toward us the readers as in the background, a dark figure stands in the doorway. The character of Ruth Carver, another of Holly and Miriam's friends, is the blonde in the bunch so I'm not sure if this is supposed to be her but the dark atmosphere is creepy and ominous and as always makes me adore these German covers.

Taglines: On the front: "It was too shocking to tell..." which is pretty simple and okay. On the back: "Do you want to hear a secret?" again it's pretty simple and goes into the blurb about the plot. It only spoils that someone is going to die and well the title itself already makes Holly a prime target doesn't it?

The First Line: "Guess what I just heard!"

Holly runs up to her friends, Miriam and Ruth, with the latest dose of gossip. Miriam is always open to hearing it while Ruth is not and it's kind of a surprise that the three girls are friends being just so different. So Holly dishes the dirt that Mei Kamata and her mother have been having huge fights over Mei going out with Noah Brennan, a boy from the poor side of town while both of Mei's parents are doctors and they are rich and want more for their daughter. Holly says Mei is thinking of running away from home and hoping that may cause the couple to break up.

 

 

Ruth suggests that Holly only hopes this will happen because she has a huge crush on bad boy Noah even though Holly has been dating her neighbor, Gary Foster. Miriam thinks Ruth is being protective like a sister but to me and anyone else it should be obvious that Ruth like-likes Gary. When Noah shows up, Holly flirts with him like crazy but the minute Mei shows up, he straight up ignores Holly and goes off with Mei who even flips her hair in Holly's face...ouch.

 

 That night, Mei is throwing a party and Miriam goes with Ruth, her cousin Patrick and her boyfriend Jed and run into Holly with Gary. Holly shows up in a very slinky dress to try and grab Noah's attention, totally ignoring Gary, and when the band blows out the breaker causing the lights to go off...she decided to wrap her arms around Noah in the dark.

 

 

 

The next night before the basketball game, Holly arrives at Ruth's and tells the girls that some of Noah's friends crashed the party, reeking of beer, which ended the party and caused Mei and her mom to get in a huge fight forbidding her daughter from ever seeing him again. This sounds good to Holly but Ruth can't stand it and decides not to go with them to the game where both Gary and Jed are playing. 

In the second plot line of the story, Miriam notices that her boyfriend, Jed Holman, has been acting different lately. Sometimes he's sweet and normal but other times he is stressed out about getting a basketball scholarship to the point where he is downright angry...and violent. At the game, he begins strangling one of the visiting team's players and punching him, which the whole gym witnesses.

 

After the game, Miriam goes to talk with Jed and he is violently poking her and almost breaks her hand and arm before the anger fades away. Jed is genuinely sorry and Miriam forgives him but says she won't tolerate him laying a hand on her like that again but Ruth and Holly think Jed needs help and Holly even tells Miriam she will try and find out what is going on with him.

 

This is not  going to be as tragic as this story but I'm getting that same vibe...

 

 The secret Holly learns seems to be that she overheard Mei and Noah at the game, Mei furious at her mom for making them break up and says she could just kill her mom...to which Noah mentions that might not be a bad idea. It shakes Holly up but Miriam and Ruth don't take her seriously as we can all admit we have said that about someone from time to time. However when Mei's mother ends up dead by falling down the stairs and breaking her neck...Holly believes it was no accident and is sure that Mei had Noah take care of her mother like they planned and that they know she heard them plotting.

 

Holly is now afraid for her life...but will another secret be the real reason she meets her end and can Miriam prove who silenced the Queen of Gossip for good?

 

 

 

Body Count: Poor Mrs. Kamata :( and then of course Holly which isn't that big of a spoiler...the title doomed her from the start. There are also two more casualties of a non-human variety and it's pretty gruesome...I still remember it vividly.

 

What Holly Heard is a pretty intense book with everything that is going on and you have a good amount of characters that could be responsible for the main death at the center of the plot. It was hard not to spoil the death but again...it's not hard to figure it out. I didn't see the ending coming and the actual ending is one of those cheesy ones that you could imagine ending it on a freeze frame with a laugh track. I'm not particularly fond of those kind of endings and with this one, it doesn't fit and should have been more bittersweet. It's an okay read … not that bad *shrug*

 

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

 

Since this is such a heavy subject matter kind of book why don't we lighten up the mood...maybe? Mei had a band called The Dustmites playing at her party so when they weren't perhaps these jams were on the radio or playing at the DJ booth...

 

 

NEXT BLOG:  We come face to face with The Face





Focusing On Fear Street - First Date

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET

Book #16 in the Fear Street series

Published: May of 1992

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

As far as riveting covers go this is not one of them but yet again very nicely drawn with a guy about ready to strangle a poor unsuspecting girl on her first date. I think the girl is supposed to be blissfully happy but she looks kind of dead in those eyes. Now that I come to think about it why do the girl and guy look so familiar to me? Answer: not sure but I'll ponder it some more. When 2005 rolled around, this one of the dozen Fear Street books re-released with new covers and well we get this one:

 

Um yeah...just as riveting as the original...not! A girl putting on lip liner because it's her first date with a purple saturated cover is not going to have guys adding this one to their collection and it looks like a really bad teen cover. The only strong points I like are the fact that who ever illustrated it put a lot of good detail in the girl's lips and that little tagline: "It may be her last..." is a perfect one. As always I can find a pretty good German edition cover for the Fear Street books and this one is a good kind of dark cover:

Points go out to this one because it actually has an illustration of an actual book event and it is just so ominous! The only detail I don't like is that the boy and girl look really young to me and that just kind of creeps me out...

Taglines: "That's when he kills them." This one appears on the front just underneath the title so it kind of fits together because yes on the first date is when he kills them so you know exactly what you can expect to happen on the other hand the back one "Dying For A Date" is just a really bad pun like you aren't even trying now are you, tagline writer? I hope R.L. didn't have a hand in these if so he should really know better...

The First Line: "We can't see out and no one see in." she said, snuggling against his shoulder.

Oh sounds like we started on something really heavy which might be enough to get you hooked in! So a girl and a boy named Joe are parking but something is kind off about this guy who is very anxious and definitely not that interested in making out. He suggests they go for a walk but as they do he drops his wallet and the girl casually picks it up to see that his driver's license states his name to be Lonnie Mayes...uh oh! So Lonnie-Joe makes up some lame excuse, the girl seems to buy it but still asks too many questions and next we are told by our omnipotent narrator that he comes back from the cliff edge...alone. So apparently he has killed other girls before and his next stop just happens to be good old Shadyside: the apparent murder capital of the world which seems to be right up his alley.

Now I remember! It's been mentioned Scott Weinger (Steve from Full House and voice of Aladdin) kinda looks like the guy on the cover! Beware the nice ones indeed!

Our focus then turns to our main character, fifteen-year old Chelsea Richards who hasn't lived in town long. She seems to be an average girl with normal complaints about hating her life, doesn't have a dating life and only has one friend named Nina. Her mother suggests that maybe if she wore lipstick and lost some weight (wow really Moms?) she might actually get a date. It seems that ignoring Mom's advice is a good idea because suddenly there is a new boy at school named Will that Chelsea develops a crush on and then a guy named Tim Sparks comes into the diner owned by Chelsea's father where she works as a waitress.

If Chelsea's mom isn't careful she'll give her daughter a complex like the show Growing Pains did to Tracey Gold who I always thought was pretty and kind of looks like the girl on the cover...

He takes an interest in Chelsea and asks her out to a movie but before she can answer this kind of tough looking guy her dad interrupts their conversation and Sparks (as he tells everyone to call him) angrily bolts. Not long after Sparks leaves, some young thugs try to rob the restaurant and end up hitting Chelsea's dad over the head with a pipe so when he gets taken to the hospital poor Chelsea calls Nina to come stay with her and I feel her pain as a third wheel when Nina decides to bring her boyfriend Doug with her so they can make out (some friend you got yourself there, Chels!)

Don't ask me why but given her description I always imagined Nina looked kind of like early Christina Applegate and the way Kelly Bundy was before they changed the character into a dumb bimbo

So with her only friend being too self-absorbed in her own guy, Chelsea soon decides that the next time Sparks asks her out she'll accept but when he comes back all we get is an awkward silence scenario and when Sparks leaves he goes home and pulls a phone out of the wall because he didn't ask her out like he planned and we are also treated to a scene of the guy we know as Lonnie-Joe killing a poor kitten :( ! Lucking out with Sparks, Chelsea becomes over the moon happy when Will asks her to go out on a date and ends up taking her to the next town over and makes her promise not to tell anyone about their secret date. Secret dates, anger issues it seems that our first date serial killer is one of Chelsea's would be beaus but which one is it?

Now I could go into more detail but the book doesn't give us much of a twist and the big reveal of whether Sparks or Will is the homicidal killer is blown way early! When I first read it I have to admit I wasn't shocked at who the bad guy would be because they make the other one of the biggest red herrings I have ever seen! So if you have never read First Date, I won't spoil it for you and if you have well then you already know don't you? Sadly it's not the first or last time you have it so obviously spelled out for you just who the villain is in a Fear Street book...

Despite these annoying little niggles of detail, I enjoyed First Date because it does follow a real high school girl's thoughts. It may just be me but I can identify with Chelsea and even the description of her being short with curly brown hair and being a little chubby is kind of the way I was most of my school going years. I'm not sure how male readers may feel about this book but it has a decent plot worthy of a good horror flick or even a bad one depending on your taste that is ;)

Body Count: Candy, the girl in our semi-prologue and yet another poor little kitty :( The book is more of a thriller than a horror so if you were expecting gore sorry to burst your bubble *shrug*

Cameo Time!: Suki Thomas who happened to go out on a date with Justin Stiles from The Prom Queen is mentioned by Nina as talking with her boyfriend Doug at lunch. Suki seems to be the equivalent of the school slut and after reading this book, I think it serves Nina right for being such an awful friend to Chelsea. I've been there before girls who are way more worried about the boys they are dating than the friends they have in high school always have to learn the hard way.

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

When we first meet Sparks it is said that he is wearing a Metallic shirt to I guess emphasize how tough he is. In the early 90s is when Metallica was at its best (both my boyfriend and I can agree on that) so I'm guessing he's a big metal fan. You know what other metal band Sparks might like? Iron Maiden!

So in the book, it says that the movie Chelsea and Will go to see has both John Candy and both of the Quaid brothers, actors Dennis and Randy, in a sort of action-comedy thing. Hate to break it to you but there is no movie like that in existence R.L. just made it up! You know there were plenty of good real movies you could have sent them to, Mr. Stine if you wanted. Something action packed, roll on the floor hilarious or even romantic to see back in 1992 may not have been in one film but there were plenty of choices:

NEXT BLOG: Sometimes it's The Best Friend you've got to look out for...

Focusing On Fear Street - Halloween Party

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

Book #8 in the Fear Street Series

Published: September of 1990

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

Well first off let me say that this scene does NOT happen in the book but would be so awesome if it did! Being chased by a pumpkin-skull-ghost light through the Fear Street cemetery is our main heroine Niki in front of the Cameron mansion where the titular party takes place. Another disappointing thing about this otherwise great cover is the fact that in the book Niki's cape of her costume is NOT white...it's black. Another fact about this book before we get started is that I did not read this book until the time it was reprinted in 2005 but it did have this original cover and not this one:

A jack-o-lantern headed scarecrow is just not scary to me and compared to the above one it is so boring. I grew up with the Bill Schmidt cover art on my Fear Street paperbacks but I have to say I also am digging some of the foreign covers a lot looking for pics to spice up my blog. Mostly the German ones speaking of which:

Now that's a jack-o-lantern to be creeped out by...especially with the tipped over wine glass (this is a high school party so underage drinking is kind of forbidden...I like it!) sitting on black material which to me looks like Niki lost her cape...but why? *dun dun dun!* My third favorite cover is this Portuguese cover art because I kinda like the Gothic feel of it:

The three people on the cover I assume are Niki and her boyfriend Terry in the foreground and party hostess Justine Cameron in the back with the blond highlighted dark hair (Justine is blonde in the book). This cover is very mysterious and I like the jack-o-lantern being held by the skeletal hand...the horror-lover in me approves!

Taglines: "There's going to be an uninvited guest at this Halloween party on Fear Street..." on the front cover is a little long winded and not exactly accurate to the story (little spoiler for you so sorry!). The little tagline on the back "Invitation To Terror" is succinct enough.

The First Line: "The tombstone loomed gray in the moonlight, its edges eroded into irregular shapes."

Fairly simple start as our aforementioned heroine Niki  Meyer and her boyfriend Terry Ryan head through the cemetery on Fear Street to reach the mansion where new transfer student Justine Cameron lives. See she's having an intimate Halloween Party that only a small few were invited to and this is where we get a larger cast than my past two Fear Street books. Also invited is friendly yet overweight Trisha McCormick, practical joker dweeb Ricky Schorr, linebacker Murphy Carter, basketball player David Sommers, the loose Angela Martiner, science whiz Les Whittle and Niki's ex-boyfriend and Terry's ex-best bud Alex Beale.

It's a grab bag of Shadyside High's cliques and that's exactly what happens the factions get divided in a prank war between the jocks (Alex, David and Murphy) and the wimps (Ricky, Les and Terry) even before the party happens! I guess Angela is on the jock team and Trisha is definitely on the wimp team but Niki doesn't chose sides because even though Alex is her ex she's above all the high school bullshit and is madly in love with Terry. Terry acknowledges that Niki is special and I hope it's the romantic in him and not the obvious because Niki is hearing-impaired (she is deaf but is an amazing lip reader that she doesn't sign or use a cochlear...pardon I watch a lot of Switched At Birth on ABCFamily...)

Terry calls Niki Funny Face so I assume it's because she looks like Audrey Hepburn after the film she starred in called Funny Face right?

Anyway, the night of the Halloween Party arrives and we have Terry as a 50s greaser, Niki as a medieval carnival reveler, Murphy as a zombie, Trisha as a 50s cheerleader, David as a basketball player who uses a human skull (how original *yawn*), Les as a skeleton, Ricky as a frog (by far the most creative with long-johns and diving flippers) Alex as some Silver Surfer knock-off, Angela as a biker chick and Justine as Elvira but blond. The party goes on with the normal tunes for dancing, a buffet of pizza and worldly cuisine, sodas and of course the prank war continues. Okay so maybe the front tagline wasn't that off because some party crashers (uninvited guests) do show up making a big Animal House kind of entrance on motorcycles.

These two guys are Bobby McCorey and Marty Danforth, the biggest bullies in school getting back at Justine for not inviting them to her Halloween Bash. Clearly drunk, these jerks begin destroying decorations, picking on the guests and even take to harassing Justine's Uncle Philip, the party's chaperone. Terry and David stand up to the bullies and they soon leave with threats to be back and even though they suggest letting the police know, Justine refuses and declares the party is still on! Soon, everyone is divided on a treasure hunt about the mansion and soon the pranks turn real, the house is swallowed in darkness and Les' dead body is found with a knife in his chest! Things get even worse when Philip and Niki end up missing and the guests realize they are trapped with a murderer as the rain pours outside! With a killer about it's safe to say the party is officially over...and the killer's fun has just begun.

As I am talking about all my Fear Street books, I realize that sometimes the endings and twists are pretty easy to discover. Even now you can probably guess who the killer might be but if you don't I definitely won't spoil it for you. Halloween Party to me is one of the better Fear Street books even if it has a kind of predictable plot and one that turns up a lot in later books and maybe even in earlier ones I have yet to read. I really like the characters of Terry and Niki mostly because Terry is a brave guy who stands up to bullies and loves Niki so genuinely.

Niki is one of the better Fear Street heroines because she is very mature for her age, doesn't take sides in fights, has a fun personality and cares about everyone...even her jerk of an ex, Alex. Okay so Alex is not that bad but he just has way too much arrogance that reminds me of all the awful guys I had the pleasure of going to school with but he gets better as the book goes along. My other favorite character is Ricky because he reminds me of the other guys I went to school with that were not jerks but funny and even dorky guys who were nice and the kind of guys I had lunch periods with.

Body Count: Poor Les is the only casualty of our cast :(

Cameo Time!: Jade Smith and Deena Martinson from The Wrong Number get mentioned being buddies of Niki's not invited to Justine's party and Lisa Blume of The New Girl is still trying to get the big scoop mostly on the exclusivity of the guest list for the same reason as the rest of the unlucky ones who didn't receive invitations...more like the lucky ones, eh? Also, Bobby McCorey just so happens to be one of the guys Chuck Martinson got in fights with in The Wrong Number so he's still bad ass as ever for all the wrong reasons.

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

One song played at the party has the lyrics "Pump up the jam" repeating over and over again and the only song I know like that is "Pump Up The Jam" by the group Technotronic so points for a nice early 90s dance song!

For ambiance, Justine has the film Bride of Frankenstein playing on her big-screen TV during the party and Terry sits down to watch a little bit of it. Good film it is something to be watched around Halloween or anytime for that matter.

So far in reading, Terry and Niki have to be my favorite couple so far. So to celebrate their loving relationship I have the perfect song for them from around this time. Not a popular release but another song from my favorite band of all-time:

NEXT TIME: We get to see what living on Fear Street is like with The Stepsister