There's The Girl With The Blog: 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.