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