Focusing On Fear Street - Cat

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

 

Book # 45 of the original Fear Street series

Published May 1997

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

 

 

This cover is about the closest that an original cover by Bill Schmidt has gotten to rivaling the German cover art with its simplistic yet effective style. A woman with cat-like eyes holds a very mean looking cat with the same green eyes against a reddish-brown background with the book title in that same green. The feline and the cat-like woman look realistic but it also looks like a movie poster and even if there is nothing in the background the detail is wonderful so I like it. Sadly, only Germany has any different take on the cover art because other countries trying their hand would be interesting. The first is the original and the second is from an omnibus collection of Cat with Bad Moonlight but it fits better for the first title more.

 

 

 

The eyes of a cat peak out of the darkness with scratches on the door and a small puddle of blood on the ground while in the second, a black cat is on the stone wall of a cemetery looking like a staple of Halloween. Black cats are bad luck to some but the cat in the book is silver-gray with a black diamond on its forehead but the stereotype is fine for the atmosphere and the detail of both covers is gorgeous!

 

Taglines: On the front is "C-A-T spells murder" Oh my goodness this has to be the cheesiest one yet! because it's just so *erupts in laughter* On the back is "The cat came back..." I like it because it reminds me of the best thing ever:

 



 

Back to business now with the blurb. It gets the point of the story across to us and well it does sound interesting.

 

The First Line: "I never liked cats."

 

 

 

The prologue is being narrated by our main character, Martin "Marty" Harper. He tells us that he is allergic to cats and also confesses that it's mostly because they look so evil when they stare at you...he's just not a cat person. He may not like them but he admits that he never meant to kill that cat and we find ourselves getting a flashback to how this whole mess began.

 

I always thought the woman on the cover looked like actress Melinda Clarke...anyone agree?



 

A cat found its way into the gym at Shadyside High and has been staying under the bleachers, people giving it food and water and of course, the girls of the school love it. The ones who don't are the basketball team as the feline disrupts their practices by running out on to the court and tripping the players...it happens so often chasing the cat is part of practice in itself. On this particular day, Marty and his two friends, Dwayne Clark and Barry Allen, are being ridden pretty hard by their coach and I guess it's just being tough. Marty knows that he and his buddies are the best players on the team since they've been playing basketball since they were kids and he admits it's kind of hard not to get a big ego because of it.

 

Marty describes Barry as looking like "Superman on TV"...sounds good to me. Love Dean Cain ;)



 

Gayle Edgerton and Riki Crawford, two girls who are friends of Marty's, come by the gym to do a story on the "Three Musketeers" as the guys are called for the school paper. Gayle is the reporter and Riki the photographer, who just so happens to have gone out with Marty a few times and is still hung up on him, but they get interrupted when the cat shows up. The guys chase it for awhile until it disappears but when it shows up again, it trips Marty and he lands on his knee...badly

 

Dwayne wears Hawaiian shirts for good luck...Tommy Bahama or Hilfiger?



 

The nurse says it's just a sprain but Coach Griffin benches Marty to keep him from screwing up the leg even more and Marty is not happy. He told his friends he already had a basketball scholarship but he may have jumped the gun as another person is being considered as well but if he can't play, Marty knows he might not get it...and it's all that darn cat's fault.

 

This Darn Cat was the worst cat of 1997 IMHO



 

When he sees it, all Marty can see is red and the guys give chase again to trap the cat on the bleachers which makes Marty's knee even more painful as he grabs the cat. This is not a nice kitty it bites and scratches at Marty but I have to admit it might just be out of fear but the blood in his eyes and his knee buckling almost causes Marty to fall. Reaching out to grab Dwayne's hand, Marty lets go of the cat to see it tumble down the bleachers and fall on the ground with a sickening crack.

 

 

Art credit Casey Weldon



 

Gayle and Riki accuse Marty of throwing the cat off the bleachers with real intent to kill it but Marty admits it was just an accident. Barry and Dwayne are not as remorseful and have no tact saying that the cat was just a nuisance but Gayle is not amused...she is steaming mad. Riki is more shocked but still not happy with what Marty has done even when he pleads with her and Marty seems truly sorry even if he was angry with the cat. Barry and Dwayne say more awful things about the dead cat that send Gayle over the edge and it makes Marty angry how she won't even listen to him.

 



 

The next day, Marty arrives to school and gets hateful glares from a lot of girls and even one student's mom and his female homeroom teacher! Gayle works fast at getting the news about Marty killing the cat all around town that even Dwayne's little sister won't talk to him and it just so happens that Gayle is president of the Animal Rights Club at school. She also has put up a poster about a rally to stop cruelty to animals with not only pictures of said abuse but also one of MARTY for his killing of the cat.

 



 

Now Gayle says she saw what she saw with her own eyes but apparently not as I for one truly think Marty didn't do it on purpose. Even if the story is from his point of view, it was either drop the cat or both the cat and Marty could have fallen and DIED. Not all cats land on their feet but neither do most humans and the cat could have survived in that scenario but Marty most certainly would not have.

 

Back to the story from my little tangent, so...

 

Coach Griffin approaches Marty about the incident, listens to Marty's side of the story, and tells him that if he wants to play in next week's game he will have to go Student Court because basically the Animal Rights Club is putting him on trial for the cat's murder. Marty knows that if word gets to the school where he's hoping to get the scholarship from he most certainly will not get it and agrees.

 

The next day, Barry and Dwayne actually stand up for Marty (better than the other day) as witnesses and none of the boys are treating this as a joke but Gayle says that Marty was part of the teasing and that they even swung it around. I have no idea what this chick's problem is but Dwayne only held the cat's dead body by the tail and then they tossed it in a garbage can...they didn't skin it and throw the pelt at you!

 

After deliberating for fifteen minutes, the jury finds Marty not guilty of murdering the cat but guilty of cruelty to animals. His sentence is to do thirty hours of community service at the animal shelter which seems fair considering even if all he did was chase it with the intent of taking it to the shelter but fate went a little differently. Marty, on the other hand, even tells Coach Griffin that he was cruel to the cat and deserves to serve the full thirty hours when he says he'll try to get Marty's sentence reduced so he can rest up his knee.

 

It's mentioned several times that Marty has a dog named Teddy who is a Shar Pei so here you go!



 

For awhile, things go back to normal as if nothing ever happened except for Gayle and Riki being kind of jerky to Marty still. Riki's attitude is more towards Marty being flirty towards other girls and learning from Gayle that Marty lied about a date he broke off with Riki claiming he was sick. Okay so that might actually be the only jerky thing Marty has intentionally done but he doesn't deserve all this hate. When Marty begins his community service at the animal shelter is when things actually start to get kind of weird. The animals at the shelter start barking and hissing around Marty and well earlier he thought he saw the dead cat back underneath the bleachers and Barry did get attacked and scratched by a similar looking cat but that couldn't be possible...could it?

 

Marty keeps seeing cats following him...hearing them hiss on the phone late at night and long evil yowls...is he cracking up or did a cat just walk over his grave?

 

 



 

 

Body Count: Cats have nine lives...two humans lose their own.

 

 

MY TAKE: Cat is a really good Fear Street book...probably one of my favorites. It has a likeable male lead character in Marty, some actually good red herrings once you pay attention, and those twists...wow! The actual twist reveal is pretty easy to spot by some throw away lines but it is presented with something actually outside of the box that you don't really see in Fear Street books as most are actually more murder-mystery stories. The ending is again something out of Twilight Zone or Tales From The Crypt which is purr-fectly fine with me... I recommend you check this one me-out.

 

 

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

 

 

Seems Marty is a real ladies man and that he likes going out to the movies...many good choices this certain time of year!

 

 

 

Did you get my last little joke with the final movie? See the actress was in the 1982 remake of Cat People...so you know...it's funny.

 

 

Okay then so how about some music?

 

 



 

 

NEXT BLOG: We're going to dial it backward a little bit and talk about the first sequel to a Fear Street book that wasn't a Super Chiller or part of a trilogy. Time to call back for Wrong Number 2 

 

Focusing On Fear Street: The Perfect Date

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

 

 

Book #37 in the Fear Street Series

Published April 1996

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

 

 

A foggy night, a couple in the moonlight...both of them look so happy except for the girl holding a knife in her hands! Fun Fact: the young man who posed for this illustration is R.L. Stine's son, Matt. Handsome looking guy but Brady in the book has curly hair so just that one little detail and the rest is perfect. Rosha looks like she does in the book, the details of the lighting reflecting the moonlight and even though it's simple it's nice looking. The 2008 reprint cover however...

 

 

This is just boring! Again with that negative filter and a rose...just no real thought put into it. I've seen those covers with just one object in focus and they look so much better than this! There is another cover that I found which is either a US or UK edition with a much better cover than this one.

It's pretty nice looking with Brady and Rosha on a date as a girl with a scarred face follows behind them just like in the book. It's detailed and has more movement than the last cover and even the original cover. I could find many other countries except for Germany and Russia so I'll leave the German editions for last since I can always count on them to be spectacular. Let's see what Russia has to offer:

More illustrated than photorealistic but Brady does have curly hair and there is a girl with scars on her face that looks more like the girl described in the book. It's a little plain and would look better if we had more focus on Rosha than the scarred girl but it's okay. Looks more like a teen romance novel but I guess it works. The next two are of course German artwork: the first is the original and the second is from a bind-up/omnibus in which The Perfect Date is included (the other story is one of the Silent Night books).

A raven ( I'm going with raven...it's more haunting) sitting on a headstone in a cemetery with a rose under its talons as more soar in the sunset. It's okay and eerie but I like the second one better because it fits with the story more. The ground is covered in ice and snow with a broken sled and a rose covered in frost with a trail of blood upon the snow. It's beautiful and chilling (no pun intended) at the same time and probably my favorite.

Taglines: On the front: "Dream date...or nightmare?" It's okay I guess. On the back: "Perfect...perfectly evil." As good as the one on the front and the blurb has the basic plot and no spoilers. Speaking of not spoiling anything, we can actually start with the prologue's first line.

The First Line: "Brady Karlin squinted his brown eyes against the sun's glare and let out a long, piercing whistle." 

Brady and his girlfriend Sharon Noles are out enjoying the three feet of snow dumped on Shadyside by going sledding. Sharon wants to go down the kiddie hill but Brady insists that they go down Miller Hill which is much more steep like a ski slope with trees and thorny bushes. Out of the three male protagonists as a lead character so far (Cory from The New Girl and Bobby from Double Date) Brady is in-between. He's got the right mix of Cory's stupidity and Bobby's jerkiness. As you can imagine the worst happens and Sharon's face ends up being mangled by the thorns and the metal sled runners, dying from the blood loss. That's just the prologue so we are in for a good story right?



The following winter, we join Brady at Pete's Pizza with his best friend, Jon Davis. The other boy is anxious to know what Brady found about a girl named Lisa that he likes and of course, Lisa likes Brady instead. They never mention the girl's last name but if it's the only Lisa I know of from these Fear Street books then it may be Cory Brooks' ex Lisa Blume and she must have a thing for curly-haired boys.

Brady tries to convince Jon that maybe he should hook up with the girl at the pizza counter but when Jon says she's not his type, Brady says he'll totally go out with her. Jon can't believe Brady would want any other girl when he already has a girlfriend, Allie. It's pretty clear that Jon is jealous of all the attention Brady seems to get from other girls and of course, he's a better guy than Brady because the jerky guy always needs a friend who is more noble. When a girl enters the pizza joint and sits down, Brady most certainly falls head over heels for her. Jon admits the blonde girl is nice looking but Brady insists that she's perfect and goes over to talk to her despite Jon's doubts and of course, mentioning Allie.

Brady sits down and introduces himself and the girl tells him her name is Rosha Nelson. Brady is a complete smitten mess and Rosha goes on about how it has to be fate with them meeting and everything seems to go well until Rosha spills her scalding hot coffee on Brady's hand! Brady plays it off as nothing and agrees to gout with Rosha on Saturday...totally gone and I have to say that I love when we have teenage boys as the main character in these Fear Street books.

Brady blows off Allie the next day at school with lame excuses about having to babysit a non-existent cousin on Saturday instead of going with her to the basketball game and having to study just so he can think about Rosha...wow...he's just so obsessed with her to some rather jerky levels. So Saturday arrives and Brady meets Rosha at the mall but then they go to Waynesbridge to see a movie so Brady won't run into any of Allie's friends ( that sounds more realistic for the boys I knew in high school...cowards). While heading to the car, Brady sees a girl with a horribly scarred face watching him and Rosha, which creeps him out, and can't imagine why she's staring at him so intently. What scares a teenage boy more is having his date ask if she can drive his father's car.

 

 

Brady borrowed his dad's car to impress Rosha but knows his father would kill him if anything happens to it but Brady, being a dumb and stupid boy in love, lets her. Rosha is a speed demon behind the wheel and in the winter weather, she hits a patch of ice and crashes the car into a parked car, smashing the windshield and knocking Brady out. When he comes to, Rosha is begging him to switch places as she doesn't have a driver's license and Brady well...what do you think he does? When the police show up, Rosha is gone and they take Brady to the emergency room.



The next day, Brady heads over to Allie's with Jon so that the group can study together as planned and of course, Allie is concerned with a dozen questions. Brady can't stand lying to Allie but still can't get up the nerve to just break things off with her as he is still on Rosha mode and has Jon try to distract Allie but then just ends up bailing. When Brady gets home, the police officer who came upon his accident arrives with the purse Rosha was carrying the night of the date, wedged up under the seat of the wrecked car. Brady lies saying it was his girlfriend's and tries to use it to find Rosha but the purse is completely empty! So Brady decides to call EVERYONE NAMED NELSON in the phone book to try and find Rosha as Allie calls to check up on him and then another girl calls telling Brady to stay away from Rosha!

 

 

This strange call doesn't stop Brady from going to stakeout St. Ann's, the private school Rosha said she went to trying to find her where he almost beats up a boy when he tells Brady he doesn't know any Rosha and Brady thinks he's lying! When Brady does come across Rosha and admits all the stuff he's done to try and find her at first she angrily tells Brady he's weird but then she acts like it's the sweetest thing and asks him to take her dancing this upcoming Saturday and they make out in his car.

 

 

So Brady again has to break off another date with Allie and then tells Jon about the girl with the scarred face who he saw at St. Ann's after receiving another call from her and then believing he sees her outside the weight room at school after he almost chokes to death dropping the weights on himself. Jon says it probably unnerves him because of what happened to Sharon and Brady finally puts those pieces together but can't help but still be all about Rosha. Too bad he's not putting all the pieces together fast enough because what happens next is going to cause Brady's world to crumble down beyond repair...

 



Body Count: In all fairness, beyond the definite death of Sharon in the prologue, I'm going to say that honestly there is no way I can tell you anything else this time...

Cameo Time!: Again more of a mention but the second date Brady breaks off with Allie is going to an ice-skating party held by Mei Kamata from What Holly Heard.

My Take: The Perfect Date is one of those Fear Streets that have a plot that seems very mundane when you think about it and read it for awhile. When it gets to the last few chapters, however, it gets absolutely bonkers! The first time I read it, I could almost tell where it was going but then it went even beyond that at the actual epilogue! We don't get a sitcom ending or even a sad, bittersweet end but an ending worthy of something right out of The Twilight Zone or even Tales From The Crypt. It's slow at first but worth the reading...a Top 10 recommendation!

 

 

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

Brady offers to take Rosha out to see a Brad Pitt flick and they end up watching some sort of horror movie with a happy ending instead. I don't know if it is the same film but Brad Pitt didn't do any horror film with a happy ending that I know of. If they needed to go and see a scary movie around this time, I know the perfect and only film worth seeing at this point in time.

 

 

 

 

There's also a lot of mentioning about going dancing and listening to music so here's a few selections that sound good to me: 

 

 

 

NEXT BLOG: Will you be ready to hear The Confession ?











Focusing On Fear Street: Switched

This is the one that started me on reading Fear Street. I didn't want to start on it first...waiting for the right time to discuss it. Now is that time...

 

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

 

Book# 31

Published May 1995

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

 

 

 

We have brunette Nicole Darwin and blonde Lucy Kramer, dressed in the same outfit and holding hands...a lightning bolt between them and electric bolts about the clasped hands. Nicole's face looks a little evil while Lucy looks a lot softer in her features...a great depiction of what we are about to find out within the books pages. Dark browns, reds and yellows provide a well balanced color palette to draw in your eye with a good use of shadow...one of my favorites and a memorable Fear Street cover.

 

In 2006 this was one of the books that got an update on the cover and well it's interesting...

 

 

 

 

I like that Nicole doesn't have to be white...it gives a nice contrast to the blonde Lucy but both of their eyes look a little off. It's okay but the re-issues don't compare to the original Bill Schmidt art work. So, of course, the German artwork is always so very good with the first being the original and the second from an omnibus collection in which Switched is collected.

 

 

 

A torn picture of Lucy and Nicole and a knife in a note written by Lucy and a cracked wall in the middle of the evil woods. Ominous, creepy imagery that is accurate to the book with only one critique...I wish the knife had blood to make it a lot more dark. Then there is the French cover:

 

 

 

Two girls jumping over a wall with either the full moon behind it or the glow of dark magic switching their bodies? The characters are always portrayed kind of young on these French covers but they have that creepy atmosphere so it works I guess. The last interesting cover I found was for a Greek edition:

 

 

 

This one is probably the most artistic with two conjoined women, one with an evil face the other with a helpless expression with some sort of evil root or tentacle wrapping about the body. It's sort of the comedy/tragedy masks in a more sinister turn.

 

Taglines: On the front: "A mind is a terrible thing to lose." On the back: "She traded places with a killer...". The blurb on the back has a nice buildup as to what we can expect: Lucy did something awful and is using Nicole's body to escape. The only thing is it talks about a cabin being the place where you body swap when in the book...it's a wall. A minus for that but the taglines are good and I'm intrigued.

 

The First Line: "My name is Nicole Darwin and I am a loser."

 

Very nice and chipper isn't it? Nicole seems to be a hard person to read. She seems to like the way she looks and cries if she breaks a nail but doesn't seem to enjoy her life very much right now. Nicole feels smothered by her parents' over protectiveness and her mother thinks she should smile more and she's wearing black clothes...sounds like late 1990s emo to me.

 

Nicole on the cover reminds me of an evil Kimberly Hart like in the Turbo movie when she was possessed...am I wrong?

 

Her teacher has called her in because Nicole didn't feel like writing her biology paper and now, even though he'll let her turn it in Monday, Nicole has to cancel a date with her boyfriend, David. Things only go from bad to worse as David breaks up with her instead and Nicole is feeling even more depressed feeling her life spinning out of control. Meeting her best friend since preschool Lucy outside, Nicole learns that Lucy isn't having a good time either and she has a suggestion for Nicole that may help:

 

"Let's switch bodies."

 

Well that sure was unexpected...a movie night might have been more conventional to me. Anyway, Nicole doesn't seem to be against it until her and Lucy head into the creepy Fear Street woods which would and should make anyone from Shadyside reconsider doing anything there.

 

 

 

Lucy tells Nicole that the old caretaker of the cemetery told Lucy's Grandfather about a wall in the middle of the woods where evil people would take unsuspecting victims to switch bodies and get away with doing horrible...terrible crimes. Against their will, these poor people would be forced to jump over the wall and have their lives taken from them by the dark arts (we'll get more into that as my book reviews continue...) but this instance is all mutual between the two girls.

 

Also is it just me or does Lucy on the cover look totally like Phoebe with that scrunchie?

 

Lucy's parents fight more than Nicole's "boring" parents so she has more freedom despite being ignored and Nicole is also kind of curious to what it would be like to date Luce's boyfriend, Kent Borden. Once they land on the other side of The Changing Wall, Nicole is amazed to stare back at her own face and body, looking down to see herself wearing Lucy's clothes and both girls agree when they get tired of living in each other's shoes for awhile...they'll switch back.

 

This is like a horror version of Freaky Friday if either the mom or the daughter were secretly evil...

 

When Nicole gets home to Lucy's house, her giddiness is soon turned into horror and finding Mr. and Mrs. Kramer murdered, violently in cold blood. Nicole has to tell Lucy what has happened but returns to her house to find nobody home and decides that Kent is the only one she can turn to. Once at his home, Nicole blurts out everything that happened and he surprisingly believes her but soon...she hears Kent on the phone with a police officer!

 

Feeling betrayed by Kent, Nicole runs off and decides to go back to Lucy's to clean up and then continue to try and find her best friend...but finds something even more terrible in her wake. All of Lucy's clothes are gone and a large, bloody knife is pinning down a note: a confession to murder. Nicole is now in the body of a killer and willingly gave her own body over to the one person she always thought she could trust. Nicole has to prove she isn't Lucy but will anybody believe her...or will Nicole have to face even more terror as Lucy seems to be covering her tracks with even more grisly murders?

 

Giving anyone else the same vibes or is it just me?

 

Body Count: Technically...I can't tell you as is my way but four out of five stars.

 

For anyone who has read Switched, like I have, I never saw that ending coming when I first read it and it has to be the most tragic. It also has some of the most disturbing images of kills ever described and they have stayed with me...not enough to give me nightmares but you just mention this book or show me the cover, I can vividly picture those scenes. I was about to turn twelve when Switched came out and in middle school so this was my first taste of what Fear Street had to offer...and I've been hooked ever since. This is in my Top 5 favorite Fear Street books if not my number one (it's so hard to choose though!) and I recommend it to anyone who has yet to read it.

 

 



 

 

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

 

 

When dealing with a bad breakup, grab your best gal pal and go see a movie:

 

 

 

Or maybe go out dancing in the club if that's more your scene. If not it never hurts to just drive around and listen to some of your favorite jams. Anything is better than heading out to the Fear Street Woods!

 



 

 

NEXT BLOG: Well the 4th of July weekend is long past but pretty soon school will be back in session. If you thought high school was hell...a College Weekend is no walk in the park either.