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.