A Revisit to Fear Street: “The New Girl”

Book: “The New Girl” (Fear Street #1) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, August 1989

Where Did I Get This Book: Ebook from the library!

Book Description: Welcome to Fear Street.

Don’t listen to the stories they tell you about Fear Street. Wouldn’t you rather explore it yourself…and see if its dark terrors and unexplained mysteries are true? You’re not afraid, are you?

Dying for a Kiss

She’s pale as a ghost, blond, and eerily beautiful—and she seems to need him as much as he wants her. Cory Brooks hungers for Anna Corwin’s kisses, drowns in her light blue eyes. He can’t get her out of his mind. And the trouble has only begun: Shadyside High’s star gymnast is losing sleep, skipping practice, and acting weird. All the guys have noticed, but only Cory’s friend Lisa knows the truth: Anna Corwin is dead and living on Fear Street. Now Cory must explore its menacing darkness to discover the truth. He has already been warned: come to Fear Street and you’re dead!

Had I Read This Before: No

The Plot: Sweet baby Jesus, jumping back into this series right at the beginning and I have learned that it didn’t slowly turn into a batshit bananasfest, it was ALWAYS this way. We first visit Fear Street because of high school gymnast and lovesick puppy Cory, a boy who sees a beautiful new girl in the cafeteria one day and just has to find out who she is. He’s oblivious to the fact that his best friend Lisa is in love with him, and would rather cuddle up next to this blonde who ‘haunts’ him and practically ‘floats’ down the hallway. All Lisa knows is that girl is named Anna Corwin. After asking around and getting a phone operator complicit in his stalking (she gives him Anna’s address even though she isn’t supposed to, because he ‘seems nice enough’ and ‘it’s [her] last night anyway’), Cory calls the number only to be told there is no Anna there.

Not to be deterred in his obsession, Cory asks Anna if the number he has is right, to which she says yes. But when he calls, a woman answers and says that Anna isn’t there, despite the fact he can hear her screeching in the background. So, deciding that this is obviously a messed up situation, he ventures off to Fear Street, the street that Anna lives on. And this is where it starts to get crazy. A man answers the door and tells Cory that Anna isn’t there, because Anna is DEAD!!!!!!

Still undeterred, Cory refuses to believe that she’s dead in spite of the fact that he’s presented with newspaper articles, testimony, and an obituary that Anna Corwin is dead and buried. By all accounts, she’s no more, ceased to be, etc. He even breaks some pretty serious privacy ethics when he looks for her file in school and cannot find one for her. Signs are pointing to ghost. So how come whenever he kisses her (and boy does Anna REALLY like to kiss him, like all the time), she feels alive, warm, and supple? And why is it that she’s always asking him to save her and take her away and be with her FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER? Nothing fishy about that. Everything must be on the up and up.

Well, after a few too many meetings, Cory finds out that Anna’s brother Brad wants to keep him away from her, so much so that she’s taken out of school for a bit. Though Cory continues to pine, when Lisa asks him to the Turnaround Dance, he accepts, only to find out that Anna has returned, saw the whole exchange, and also wants to go with him. By complete coincidence, Lisa later opens her locker to find that someone has thrown a dead and gutted cat inside of it, with a note that says she is up next for the killing. Cory is convinced that it MUST be Brad, Anna’s deranged brother!

Come the night of the dance, Cory goes with Lisa even though he really wishes he was there with Anna, and then Brad shows up and shoves Lisa down some steps, though he claims it’s a mistake. But, mistake or not, dude, that’s uncool. Luckily Lisa gets away with just a swollen ankle. The harassing phone calls up until this point seem like cake now.

Cory eventually confronts Anna about her crazy brother over pizza, and Anna tells him that she and Brad had a sister named Willa, who fell down the basement stairs. It broke the Mom, and Brad as well, and now they moved to Shadyside as a family to start over. Anna says that Brad, sad about Willa and dealing with a recently dead girlfriend named Emily (who died in a plane crash, what the HELL?!), got the names mixed up when he sent the obit to the newspaper. Hence why everyone thinks Anna is dead. It’s not Anna, it’s Willa who’s dead. Because of course. Not strange at all. But then Brad is outside the pizza parlor, staring in at them, Anna runs off.

SO WE ARE BACK AT THE CORWIN HOUSE, and Cory comes to take Anna away with him to keep her safe from Brad. But as he’s confronting Brad, suddenly Anna starts to turn exceedingly violent with a letter opener. She takes a few swings at Brad, and then turns on Cory when he tells her to maybe knock it off. And it is then (after an asinine moment with a window) that we find out that Anna is NOT Anna, she is WILLA. Willa, jealous of Anna, killed her sister, and Brad covered up for her, but never got her the help she needed, thinking he could keep her safe. Good one, Dr. Frasier Crane.

Our story concludes with Willa possibly getting the help she needs, and Cory and Lisa finally coming together as a man and his silver medal. And that, guys, is how the very first “Fear Street” book ends.

Okay, let’s unpack it all, shall we?

Body Count: One, being Anna before the events of the actual story. Well, and a cat. So I guess two. Poor cat.  A pretty low number for a Fear Street book, really.

Romance Rating: 5. Anna was far too creepy from the beginning and Cory was so heartless to/oblivious about Lisa until basically the end. But ultimately I was happy that Lisa was happy because she was pretty decent.

Bonkers Rating: A solid 9. I expected this kind of craziness from later books, but apparently it was there from the get go.

Fear Street Relevance: This book introduced Fear Street as a concept and a lot of the important plot points took place on it, so I will give it a 9 in this category as well.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“The passenger door swung open. He started to scream.”

….. And then we find out it’s just Anna opening the car door. Stine is known for these kinds of things. Sometimes you gotta improvise when every chapter needs to end with suspense!

That’s So Dated! Moments: So the copy I found of this book was actually an updated version, trying to make “Fear Street” hip and relevant to the youth of the early 2000s. But it was done in an incredibly lazy way, such as replacing a Walkman with an iPod and Phil Collins songs with Missy Elliott songs (I did my research), and yet leaving in references to video stores, records, and actual human phone operators. PET PEEVE! Will be looking for the originals from now on.

Best Quote:

“Go get more paper towels,” Lisa said. “Ucccch, I think I’m going to be sick. It’s a good thing I hate cats.”

That’s Lisa after she finds the dead cat in her locker. I swear, they’re all psychos in Shadyside .

So “The New Girl” really gets things going with the Revisit to Fear Street! Next up is “The Prom Queen”, Fear Street #15 (I’m jumping ahead just this once because I had access to that one right away, I’ll be trying to go in order after that).