Hello Everyone...I'm back!
I know it has been a long time but I have been busy what with my self-publishing and many works in progress as well as just laziness and my attention deficit disorder trying to handle so many things I want to do.
In any case, I am still wanting to blog about the Fear Street books I own since the 3 movies are definitely a go with casting news and the synopsis for what we can expect. I've been listening to some podcasts talking about the Fear Street books and as much as I would love to do something like that it would suck to do it by myself. Also, not a lot of funds on this end and personally, I like blogging to get all my ideas out and my personal take on each book. So I hope you are ready to join me back on Fear Street with the next book I read in chronological order.
WELCOME TO FOCUSING ON FEAR STREET WITH THERESTHEGIRL
Book #26
Published November 1994
Cover Art: Bill Schmidt
This doesn't exactly happen in the book but the ghostly figure looking down at our protagonist Ellie Anderson is in our story in some visions that she has. She doesn't look too horrified but scared enough at what she is seeing. I always liked Bill Schmidt's talent in these covers since I can't draw for beans but sometimes the girls don't look like high school students...they look older like college students or even moms. This doesn't show it much but on my copy it is much more noticeable. As always I have found that the German covers never let me down so what does it look like for this one?
A knife in the woods? Well the trees are very detailed and the knife as well and one does play a part in the story. There are also woods so...good for that. Probably not my favorite of the bunch or even the German covers so far. Let's see what the French cover is like:
A man with a knife shrouded in shadow going after a girl in the woods who I assume is Ellie. I guess it's okay with its ominous colors but it looks like standard slasher fare. Lastly, the cover for the book in Brazil:
These are never a disappointment...such warm colors that draw your eye! A bloody knife looming over Ellie's head, a figure in a window, a shadow looming behind, a bony skeletal hand reaching out, Ellie grabbing her head to clear the visions from her mind and I think blood dripping down in the upper right hand corner? This is my second favorite after the original US print.
Taglines: On the front we have "Seeing too much is murder" and on the back we have "A bony hand beckons from a shallow grave..." The first is more the actually tag line while the second is more of a lead in to the blurb on the back. Personally I thin both work fine and the blurb on the back tells us what's going on without spoiling much of the plot. Intriguing enough that I want to read it...
The First Line: "Hi Sarah." Ellie Anderson greeted her best friend and slid onto a stool at the counter of Alma's Coffee Shop.
The Sarah in question is Sarah Wilkins and they engage in the normal girl talk, making fun of the jocks and their girlfriends who are her only customers in the burger joint (coffee shop but caters to high school kids...I'm calling it a burger joint.) The two girls are best buds with single dads and Ellie and her father have only recently moved back into Shadyside for Ellie's senior year. Ellie was born in Shadyside but her father left town with her when she was a toddler but is finally back in good old Shadyside thanks to his sales job and Sarah is the only friend Ellie has connected with.
A good-looking guy then enters the place and sits behind Ellie, staring at her with his dark eyes, and even though Ellie is drawn to him, Sarah goes to get his order and do a little flirting. Ellie is shocked that Sarah got his name: Brian Tanner and even though Ellie is shy this time...it's different. She literally bolts out the doors but it isn't embarrassment it's almost...straight up fear.
Ellie returns home and takes her black Lab (oh no...doggies in these books sometimes don't have good odds!) named Chaz out for a walk where he chases a squirrel to drag her towards the infamous Fear Street woods...but her mind keeps turning back to Brian. Ellie knows she shouldn't be thinking about a boyfriend after she broke up with her boyfriend Tommy last year...it was complicated. Ellie confronted Tommy and her best friend Janine about kissing behind her back all because...she saw it...in a vision.
Yep, Ellie is a psychic. As a kid, she could have fun with it until the day she saw her dog Jake get hit by a car in one of her visions (see what I mean about dogs in these books?) and then tried not to have them but when she gets around people she can see things and get feelings. So it becomes no walk in the park when Chaz finds a bone...a human bone and leads Ellie to where the remains of a human hand are rising out of the ground where her dog has been digging. Stopping a car filled with the same jocks Sarah and Ellie were innocently mocking, they take her to the police station to report the discovery and the main police officer in charge is Sarah's father, Lieutenant Wilkins, who doesn't treat Ellie like she is crazy.
Heading back to the woods, the rest of the body is discovered which pulls in a crowd to watch...Brian Tanner among them as well as Sarah. Brian soon disappears and when a swatch of red fabric is found, Sarah faints. The next day at school, Sarah isn't there and Ellie learns that her friend had an older sister, Melinda, who went missing wearing a red sweatshirt. Ellie tries contacting her at home but the phone keeps ringing and while at the library working, Ellie runs into Brian looking for a book on weapons. They flirt but when Ellie gets a vision of a bloody knife, she runs off and Brian calls after her...by name which she had yet to tell him.
Heading to Sarah's job to see if she is there, Ellie runs into Brian again to flirt until Sarah's dad shows up to tell the owner that Sarah is going to miss work for awhile staying with her aunt and he leaves without a word. Ellie soon has to tell her dad that she found the body in the woods once it makes the paper and Mr. Anderson is not happy.
In his anger, he lets it slip that Ellie's mother was killed when she was little and the vision of the bloody knife comes back to haunt her. At her job, Ellie checks the microfiche (so 90s and old school before the Internet) and finds out that her mother was stabbed to death and she was the only witness sitting in her stroller. All of this with the body and finding out about her mother's murder leaves Ellie on edge and soon, she finds that Sarah is still at home completely devastated because it was her sister Melinda's body found in the woods. Her father lied about the non-existent aunt and has gone completely gung-ho in trying to find Melinda's old boyfriend, Brett Hawkins, believing he might have murdered his daughter. Sarah is being neglected by this discovery and Ellie tries her best to comfort her friend but finds Brian taking an interest in her to fill the void.
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| Brian's hair is described like this in the book...sounds so hot!! |
Brian asks her out to a canoe date on Fear Lake to Fear Island along with Chaz and the two of them share a kiss (so romantic!) Things start turning less romantic when Brian pulls out a knife from their picnic basket to slice her an apple and the knife is the same one Ellie has been seeing in her visions! It freaks her out and once they leave, Ellie falls into the lake, Brian jumps in to save her, accidentally almost pulls her down grabbing her leg as he almost drowns and then Brian mutters the name Melinda while unconscious when Ellie kisses his cheek!
How does Brian know the deceased Melinda Wilkins? Why is Ellie all of a sudden having her visions again? Why is she seeing such horrible things?
The Mind Reader is a pretty good Fear Street novel. It is more a murder mystery-thriller than straight up horror but the paranormal visions of our protagonist Ellie bring in those horror elements. Some of the plot is easy to figure out what all the character connections and motives are with a couple of really good twists.
Body Count: Melinda Wilkins' dead body is what drives most of the plot and the death of Ellie's mother, Louise, happen prior to the actual story. No one dies in the story proper so no death toll on this one.
Cameo Time!: Again a cast of pretty straightforward characters...no special guests this time around.
SHADYSIDE HIGH TIME CAPSULE
I'm thinking that maybe Ellie and Brian should have gone on a movie date instead of the lake but that's just me or maybe gone dancing at the club. Music at the time was the best ever...
NEXT BLOG: Anybody up for a little game of...Truth Or Dare?
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