Focusing On Fear Street: Double Date

WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL

Book # 23 in the Fear Street Series

Published April of 1994

Cover Art by Bill Schmidt

Our male protagonist Bobby Newkirk sitting on a bench in the park with Samantha, one of the Wade twins, In the background her sister Bree looks on with a very unhappy look on her face. It's a nice detailed cover and set in bright daylight but not very scary. You could switch this out with a teen romance cover! Of course German editions always give us something dark and bleak on the covers and this time we get two! One is an original and one is a reprint:

The top cover has a scene which does happen in the book and the bottom one does involve a cabin in the woods both with a very bare yet terrifying concept. As always you can get a very nice cover for Brazil editions:

Still dark even with some bright hues and almost blank faces. One of the Wade twins leading Bobby into a cabin in the woods as the other watches on with maybe some sinister intentions. Got some midriffs and boobs on display for the male readers and certainly eye catching. The one from Russia is kind of cool too:

Looks more like an advert for a Nightmare On Elm Street film with the way the girl is clawing and ripping at the poor guy's shirt. This dude isn't Bobby...he's got dark hair! You'll learn quickly that Bobby is a blond pretty boy. Besides some flaws it still has horror elements and is creepy.

Taglines: On the front we have "Two's company. But three can be murder." and on the back we have "2 Cool 2 Live 4 Long". The one on the front is kind of clever if cheesy but the back one...oh boy! You'll know you are definitely reading a book from the 1990s with that one and if you are lucky enough to find a used copy that someone decided not to take the temporary tattoos from. My copy is a later Simon Pulse print but the original Archway Paperback had blue butterfly temp tattoos because they play an important part of the story with the twins! It was very cool but very 90s...radical!

The First Line: "Bobby Newkirk pressed against the locker door with one hand, squeezing Ronnie Mitchell into her locker."

This is how we meet our main character, ladies and gentlemen. Manhandling a poor girl into her locker with aggressive charm to get a kiss and admiring himself in her mirror. Bobby is blond, broad-shouldered and boorish. He may look like Mr. All-American but he is Mr. Arrogance who dumps and dates all the girls at Shadyside High like they are trends going out of style. Right now, he has cheerleader Ronnie eating out of one hand and fellow cheerleader Kimmy Bass eating out of the other. He once dumped a girl just because she spilled Coke in his car and when his friends pick up his scraps, Bobby kind of hopes to have them come running back to him.

Bobby is in a band with his friends Paul and Arnie and is the lead guitarist who loves his guitar as much as he loves himself but doesn't take it as seriously as Paul and he even thinks Arnie stinks on the drums and they constantly change their band name more than they practice...mainly because Bobby can't say no to going on a date with a girl just to string her on. One day, the Wade twins interrupt band practice looking for the music teacher and Bobby is taken with shy Bree and sexy Samantha.

They just moved to Shadyside and are the only girls Bobby hasn't dated yet but he bets Paul and Arnie he can date both girls at the same time. In no time, Bobby is going out with both girls and finds that Bree is shy at first but she begins to fall for Bobby very easily. Samantha on the other hand is not shy but she may just be a little too wild for Bobby to handle driving his car recklessly without a license and even getting Bobby to steal her a bracelet from the mall after she five-finger discounts some earrings on one of their earlier dates!

Things get heavier when Sam tells Bobby he needs to drop Bree saying that she isn't right when she gets hurt and that she wants more time with Bobby...guess the twins were never taught to share their toys! Besides the trouble with the twins, Bobby finds that his perfect existence is falling apart in a disturbing manner after the tires on his car are slashed and he almost gets electrocuted to death by his own guitar! There's a way to tell the twins apart but soon not even that can help Bobby discover which twin is doing this to him...or could it be someone else? Bobby's friend Arnie is dating one of his old flings Melanie...could she be jealous enough or hate Bobby so much to kill him?

So the story is pretty much like a crazy Lifetime movie in the beginning but it has some good points where there are some characters that could be the real culprit besides the twins. There are a few twists and turns but when you get to the end it is just the best! Now this may just be me being a female but you can't help but liking karma biting someone in the ass! True it may seem a little harsh but it's not evil or malicious and as long as no one gets hurt fatally...you just have to see it for yourself without me spoiling it (worth it!)

Character wise, the only two I can't stand are of course Bobby and Arnie. Not too much hate for Arnie he's just simply immature and annoying with his only good point being he seems to actually care for Melanie. Bobby Newkirk is the worst male character I have seen so far in a Fear Street book. He is vain, egotistical, treats women like dirt, thinks everyone likes him and just like so many guys I went to high school with. His only good points are that he likes classic rock music (like back to 1950s Chuck Berry) and likes animals (he has a science experiment with two monkeys and treats them very humane).

My biggest reason for hating him is he makes fun of Melanie for being a little overweight and says that if she lost a few more pounds he might go back out with her! I am slightly chunky myself so I take offense to that (especially in high school and college) but maybe it's his fault she is. Bobby went out with her for three months before she found out he was going behind her back with other girls and broke up with him crying so obviously a year ago she was just fine to go out with.

I for one know what it's like to be heartbroken and drowning my sorrows in tubs of ice cream and candy bars so maybe that's what happened and Arnie seems to like her the way she is. I think Bobby gives her crap for her weight just because she won't go back to him because he mentions that she does still look good...I still don't/will never understand boys/men!

Body Count: No human casualties and no animals were harmed either. There was a scene where you thought some one was actually deranged enough to cut off the head of one of Bobby's monkeys (named Wayne and Garth...so 90s!) and leave it in his locker! Don't worry it was real, gross smelling blood but a plastic, realistic monkey head but effective enough that Bobby tossed his cookies! Now I don't particularly like Bobby but that was messed up just like electrocuting him! Also, I do not like monkeys but I would never hurt one especially by decapitation...sick!

THE SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE

Bobby mentions taking Samantha to see a movie called Eradicator Five. Sounds cool but not a real film sadly. I think if they wanted to catch a flick they could have gone to see a nice romance:

Or with the way this story is going maybe some dark comedy?

Maybe the Wade twins would like a very female driven cast - they seem like some tough girls who can take care of themselves?

So that's a great time at the movies we could have had! Driving in the car or dancing at the club, I've got some tunes you might enjoy as well!

NEXT TIME, NEXT BLOG: Dead men and dead women tell no tales in this club...The Thrill Club!