Tag: Young Adult

Book: “First Date” (Fear Street #16) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Pocket Books, January 1992

Where Did I Get This Book: The library!

Book Description: Dying for a Date

Chelsea Richards is shy, lonely, and looking for love. She would give anything to finally go on a date. Soon there are two new boys in town, and both ask her out.

Too bad one of them is a crazed killer. Poor Chelsea. Will her first date also be her last?

Had I Read It Before: No.

A NOTE: It was suggested to me that there may be some people who want to read the “Fear Street” series without being spoiled, but also want to know what my thoughts on this books are. Since these recaps are basically a rundown of the whole plot, I’m going to try and meet in the middle. I thought of putting a quick opinion at the front of these posts, but it kind of upset the flow of the narrative. SO, what I’m going to do instead is suggest that those who don’t want to be spoiled for a specific book scroll down down down to the end of this post, and look for my final paragraph, which I will put in bold lettering and which will give my final and non spoiler-y thoughts. Okay. On we go!

The Plot: We start our story at a random Make-Out Point, with a girl named Candy and a black haired leather jacket clad boy named Joe. Candy is stoked that they’re parking and making out together, and Joe is starting to feel smothered by her. She also reminds him of his mother, who he doesn’t remember fondly. He suggests they leave the car, but drops his wallet. Candy finds it, sees his license, and sees that it says his name isn’t Joe, it’s Lonnie. He says it’s a fake license. Then, after an inner monologue about how he’s actually twenty and how he’s feeling smothered, he leads her off and kills her. He then sees a sign for a town called Shadyside, and decides that sounds like his kind of town.

Meet Chelsea. Chelsea plays the sax, has recently moved to Shadyside with her parents, and has a very ‘dry witted’ mother who works in a nursing home with dear old Dad is running his new restaurant. Chelsea works there too, but feels lonely, and laments that she is short, pudgy, ugly, and too shy to get anyone to notice her. She lives on Fear Street, which is ‘creepy’. Her Mom tells her that she’ll adjust and make friends, and then goes off to work. Chelsea decides to go to the house of her only friend in town, Nina. But when she arrives at Nina’s house, Nina and her boyfriend Doug are already on the way out. Poor lonely Chelsea! To make matters worse, on the way home a car of rowdy (read: misogynistic) boys drives up and cat call her. Which then progresses to them grabbing at her, throwing a cigarette at her, and chasing her. She hides in some bushes until they go away, and she wishes she could meet a nice boy. I’m feeling very uncomfortable at this blatant display of rape culture. Ah, the 90s.

At school the next day a shy new boy named Will is seated next to Chelsea. She notices how cute he is with his black hair and dark eyes(?!), but once again laments how SHY she is and won’t talk to him. That evening while working at the coffee shop that night (diner, coffee shop, it’s interchangeable in this book), and daydreaming about Will, another boy with black hair and a leather jacket comes in, running into Chelsea. He sits down, and she thinks about how tough he looks (‘tough’ is the adjective used a few times on this page). They proceed to have an awkward conversation, he says his name is Tim Sparks (but everyone calls him Sparks), and he asks her out to a movie. Brazen, that Sparks. But before she can answer him fully, her Dad says that she needs to attend to restaurant business. Sparks looks PISSED AF, and storms out of the restaurant without his hamburger. Chelsea is kind of sad that he went away, even though she doesn’t know if she would have gone on a date with him because he’s so ‘dangerous’ looking. Then she thinks about Will again, hoping that HE will be her first date. But before she can pine for long, a group of young men enter the diner, try to rob the place, hit Chelsea’s Dad on the head with a lead pipe, and run off.

Poppy Richards is alive, but taken to the hospital where he is declared in ‘serious but stable’ condition. Mrs. Richards tells Chelsea to go home and wait, and to stave off a panic attack Chelsea invites Nina over. Nina comes by happily… but has boyfriend Doug in tow, which means all of her attention is on Doug and not on her friend who is scared to death for her Dad. Some friend you are, Nina! While Nina and Doug make out, Chelsea thinks about Sparks. He sure ran off fast when her Dad showed up. Was he casing the joint? Was he in on the robbery?

Meanwhile Joe/Lonnie/whoever is out for a walk, thinking about class struggle in Shadyside (those snoots in North Hills!) and how much he resents his mother for leaving him to his own devices with a drunken father while taking his sister instead. That’s admittedly messed up. Then he strangles a kitten. Goddammit. We’d gone so long without animal death.

So with her father in recovery for awhile, Chelsea is left to man the diner with Ernie the line cook as her only back up. And Ernie is ever around when he’s needed, let me tell you. As Chelsea daydreams about Will (who has smiled at her and said ‘good morning’ as well! Progress!), two toughs walk into the restaurant right before closing (at 7? odd hours) and start giving Chelsea a hard time. And where is Ernie??? WHO KNOWS. She thinks that they are going to rob the place, but they start sexually harassing her and asking her when she gets off work. Before they can do anything else, Sparks walks in and they back off, leaving. She pours him a cup of coffee, and says that they seemed scared of him, to which he replies ‘they should be’, and ‘it’s dangerous around here’. Now Chelsea is scared of him too (though honestly it seems to me he’s just really bad at flirting). Ernie FINALLY makes his presence known just in time to say he’s leaving, and Chelsea and Sparks are alone. She pours him another refill, and he hightails out of there. She’s both disappointed and relieved he’s gone (girl, get it together), and closes up BY HERSELF before going to see Dad at the hospital. Sparks goes home, laments not asking her out, and trashes his place in a rage.

At school the next day Chelsea and Nina are talking. Nina is mad at Doug for talking to Suki Thomas (YASSS SUKI!!!), and then randomly a giant dog runs past them and out the doors, never to be mentioned again. Chelsea tries to tell Nina about Sparks, but then Nina sees Doug and runs off to meet him. Bitch. Luckily, Will is there, and he and Chelsea start talking! He asks her if she wants to go for a walk, and she says yes. They go for a walk in the woods, and Chelsea is thrilled that she’s going for a walk with a boy, ALONE. He falls behind, and when she turns he’s wrapping a length of GRAY CORD IN HIS HAND?! He says that he just randomly found it, and then asks her to go on a SECRET date with him, and to not tell anybody about it. Though this should be setting off alarm bells, Chelsea is SO EXCITED!!!

Chelsea tells her Mom about her date, and Mom tells her that Dad is now in a semi private room at the hospital. Good news on both fronts. At the diner that night Sparks comes in, and they continue the Dance of the Awkward Flirts, in which Sparks says that he’s a drop out, she says that she’s in the band, and he asks if she plays the tuba. Which insults her because OBVIOUSLY that must mean he thinks she’s fat. When she asks him about work he gets defensive, lies about having an interview at the mill that has been closed for years, and then he asks her out that Saturday. That’s the night of her SUPER SECRET DATE, so she says no, and he leaves, looking angry. Dammit, Sparks. You are so emotionally stunted and so obviously NOT the killer.

It’s date night! Will is taking Chelsea to the movies, though not in Shadyside for some reason, but Waynesbridge. He says he’s had this car forever, but he doesn’t know how to work the defroster. When she asks him about it, he says it’s because he’s a klutz. RIGHT. He almost forgets his wallet in the car, and when she hands it to him he yanks it back in a suspicious manner. She forgets all about it though, and after the movie they go a parking on River Ridge. They can see over the town, and he suggests they go for a walk. He beckons her to the cliff to look at the view, but she balks and says she’s afraid of heights. So they go walking again, and he falls behind and PULLS THE CORD FROM HIS POCKET, READY TO STRANGLE HER. I give Stine credit for not trying to keep up the ‘is it Sparks or is it Will?’ mystery. Before he can strangle her, though, another car shows up. Thank God for horny teenagers. But then Chelsea suggests they go back to her house, as they will be alone. Not so shy anymore, eh Chelsea?

They get to her house and start to make out on the couch. Will pulls out the cord again but Chelsea declares she’s making hot cocoa and walks to the kitchen, blissfully unaware that her cold feet have saved her from death again. Will tries to sneak up behind her and strangle her, but then the doorbell rings!!! COCK BLOCKED AGAIN, JERK! Chelsea goes to the door and sees Nina there, sobbing over her boyfriend. For once it’s good that Nina thought only of herself, because Will gives up and runs out the backdoor.

The next day Will calls and Chelsea asks where he ran off to. He claims he called to her a ‘goodnight!’ before leaving, and asks her out for that evening. She says she can’t, but then suggests he meet her after her shift the next night. He says it’s a date. Then the doorbell rings, and Chelsea is face to face with an FBI agent named Martin. Agent Martin tells her that they are looking for a young man with curly black hair and a good build who may be new to the area. When she asks if he may be dangerous, and he says yes, she rats on Sparks, because OBVIOUSLY he’s the one who it has to be! She tells him everything about Sparks and he thanks her, telling her to be careful. At school the next day she and Nina talk about Will and Chelsea can’t wait to see him that night.

At the diner, Chelsea is worried that Sparks may come in, and is jumpy throughout her whole shift. As it gets close to closing, Ernie disappears AGAIN, and Sparks comes in right at the last minute. Drunk as a skunk, and unfortunately he’s an aggressive drunk who keeps asking her to come here. She freaks and runs for the kitchen, and Sparks follows trying to tell her he was just joking. He manages to burn his hand pretty badly on the stove, and while he’s writhing in pain Chelsea calls Agent Martin and asks if he will come and also send an ambulance. After Sparks is taken away, Chelsea is relieved to see that Will has finally arrived.

They got back to her house, and snuggle on the couch. Chelsea admits that she didn’t keep their date a secret, and that she told Nina all about it. That’s a big wrench in Will’s plan!!! But no matter, he’ll just kill them both. He tells Chelsea to invite Nina over RIGHT NOW so he can meet her, and Chelsea does so straight away. Nina is game. But then the phone rings, and it’s Agent Martin telling Chelsea that Sparks isn’t the guy that they are looking for…. and Chelsea FINALLY puts two and two together. WILL IS THE ONE THEY’RE LOOKING FOR! She tells Martin that he’s in the house with her, and he tells her to just get out and go. She starts to, but remembers that Nina’s coming over! She runs out hoping to intercept Nina or the FBI, but unfortunately she intercepts Will. She tells him she knows who he is, and he attacks her with the cord, wrapping it around her neck until she struggles no more. He assumes she’s dead, and remembers that Nina is coming too, she he drags Chelsea’s body into the house and waits. When Nina arrives he makes small talk, and then attacks her with the cord. He chases her into the kitchen when she pulls free, and hits her with a vase. BEfore he can deal any fatal blows, he gets yanked back, and sees that CHELSEA IS THERE! He has another ‘BUT I KILLED YOU’ moment that Stine and Verhoeven alike are so fond of, and Chelsea fights him off long enough for the FBI to show up and arrest him. Chelsea explains that she plays the saxophone, and can hold her breath for a looooong time.

Chelsea goes to visit poor Sparks in the hospital. His hand is pretty messed up but he’s expected to make a full recovery. After some awkward apologies on both ends, Sparks asks her out on a date. And she says “It’s bound to be better than my FIRST date!”

Body Count: 2. Poor Candy right out the gate and that poor sweet kitten. And probably countless other girls off page.

Romance Rating: Uh, 1. Because Will/Joe/Lonnie/Whoever was trying to kill Chelsea the whole time and Sparks is kind of a prick.

Bonkers Rating: 4. The random robbery at the beginning was pretty crazy and unexpected, I suppose, but otherwise it wasn’t very shocking.

Fear Street Relevance: 5. Chelsea lives on Fear Street and we once again get some references to what a kooky place it is. But Will isn’t even from Shadyside, much less Fear Street!

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“She gasped when she saw an enormous, hulking man in a dark trench coat on her stoop. His face was nearly pressed against the glass of the storm door, staring down at her with the coldest eyes she had ever seen.”

… And then it’s the pretty decent and sweet Agent Martin. The only guy we can fully trust in this book who isn’t incapacitated.

That’s So Dated! Moments: Sadly, this was one of the updated “Fear Street” books, and because of that the really dated things were taken out and replaced with new things (a movie starring Will Ferrell… but also the Quaid Brothers, so huh?). But there was one thing: a reference to watching music videos on MTV. May they rest in peace, those music videos.

Best Quote:

“‘Frankly your looks are great. It’s your personality I’m not crazy about,’ her mother said, doing her impression of a stand-up comic.”

DAMN, Mrs. Richards!!

Conclusion: “First Date” was pretty lame and predictable, though some of the characters I had a soft spot for. Up next is “The Best Friend”. 

 

Book: “The Knife” (Fear Street 14) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, January 1992

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

Book Description: Quiet—hospital!

Sshh. There are a lot of things they want to keep quiet at Shadyside Hospital. In fact, just about every private room holds a private secret of its own.

Poor Laurie Masters. The student volunteer innocently happened to stumble onto the hospital’s sickest secret of all.

Laurie has seen too much—and now the doctors and nurses are taking a close look at Laurie.

What they come up with is a deadly diagnosis. Laurie may not be sick, but she’s getting a prescription anyway—a prescription for horror!

Had I Read It Before: No.

The Plot: R.L. Stine has taken his “Fear Street” books through multiple horror tropes. You have the camping trip, the cabin in the woods, the prom court, the haunted house, and many many more. But with “The Knife”, we are finally treated to the evil hospital trope! We first see our protagonist, Laurie, being chased by a man, and she is worried about the knife that he’s holding. Then we go back a week and the story begins. Laurie and her friend Skye are volunteers at the children’s ward at the Shadyside Hospital, having given up their summer break for garnering karmic points. While Skye is delivering balloons, Laurie looks towards the newest wing that is being built, the Franklin Fear Wing. Yep, named for the Fear Family. Soon Laurie hears crying from another room, and lets herself in to find a crying little boy. She tries to calm him down, but to no avail. She checks his chart (not sure if she’s allowed to do that since she’s a volunteer and not a doctor….?), and finds out that this little boy’s name is Toby, he’s three, and has pneumonia. She decides to just hold his hand and keep him company, which is actually kind of sweet, but is interrupted by a mean nurse named Nurse Wilton, who tells her to get out.

While eating lunch in the cafeteria (and I gag because the meat is described as ‘blue’), Laurie and Skye chat to let us get to know them a bit better. Skye is juggling two boys and thinks that she’s destined to win a car in the hospital raffle. Laurie is dating Andy Price, the son of one of the hospital’s administrators, but he’s a real dud. Luckily for both of them, a handsome man walks into the cafeteria at that moment, and walks right up to their table. He says his name is Rick Spencer (which is gross now because Rick is short for Richard and Richard Spencer these days…. well….. yeah), and he’s a college student who is also volunteering that summer, though he is on the surgical floor. Skye is practically in heat over him, but he seems to be more interested in Laurie. Before Laurie can really gaze into his eyes, a Code Blue goes over the intercom for room 903… Toby’s room!!! Laurie runs off to check on that precious little boy, but when she gets to his room she instead finds Nurse Wilton who tells her the Code was for another room, 503, and kicks her out again. Laurie walks to the nurses station to talk to the kinder, gentler Nurse Girard, who is talking to…. Toby’s MOM!!! She says that she wants her son back. Where he went, I don’t know? Laurie notices Nurse Wilton going into the Fear Wing…. and then sees Rick follow her in. Odd.

That night Laurie is at her house, the one she shares with her Aunt Hillary in the part of town called North Hills. Laurie’s folks were killed in a boating accident when Laurie was a little girl, so now she lives with Hillary who is rarely home because of her job. While reading the phone rings. She answers, but hears nothing but breathing on the line. After hanging up, the phone rings again. This time it’s Rick, who has called to ask her out for that weekend. Laurie politely declines, as she has a date with Andy, and asks how he got her number. He says Skye gave it to him. But once they hang up, Laurie calls Skye, because OBVIOUSLY, and asks if that was true. Skye says nope, and now Rick is a liar as well as a college guy hitting on high school girls.

The next day Laurie finds a note from Hillary saying she’ll be late that night. Then the phone rings again, and this time it’s Dr. Price, Andy’s Dad. He tells Laurie to skip out on work and play tennis with his son instead…. because JUST KIDDING, it was Andy the WHOLE TIME!

Laurie declines, and says that she’ll see him after work when they go out for pizza with Skye and one of her boyfriends.

At work she buys Toby a teddy bear and intends to bring it to him, but she freaks out when she gets to his room and it’s empty. Because clearly the only answer is that he must have died tragically. In actuality he’s been discharged, and she sees him at the nurse’s station while his Mom talks to Rick. She gives him the bear and tells him to go with his Mom… and Toby says ‘she’s not my Mommy’. Okay, that’s weird, but before Laurie can question it too much his ‘Mom'(?) says it’s time to go, and Toby follows. She asks Rick what they were talking about, and he tells her she was giving her directions to the pharmacy. Laurie isn’t buying it, because he said he was new to the area so HOW COULD HE KNOW WHERE THE PHARMACY IS? The phone at the station rings, and he answers. Laurie starts to leave, but lingers, and sees that after he hangs up, he slips a pack of surgical knives into his pocket!!! Liar AND thief!

Laurie can’t stop thinking about Toby and decides to check up on him. After very illegally going through his file, she gets his address… which is, of course, on FEAR STREET!! She thinks that she can go there under guise of selling raffle tickets for the hospital, though she’s nervous about going to Fear Street alone, because, you know. All the horrible things that have happened there. Before she can make a clean getaway, Nurse Wilton plants herself at desk to the file room. Laurie manages to kind of sneak past, but Wilton sees her anyway and demands that she come back. Laurie, however, runs to the elevator and gets in, only to be kicked off on an unfamiliar floor (as a patient was coding maybe? It’s a plot device). She starts to explore, ignoring the ‘personnel only’ signs, and hides in the first room she can in case Wilton tracks her down. Sadly, it’s a room with a dead body in it….. and then someone locks her inside!! But she manages to get out (because it locks from her side), and once out sees Nurse Wilton and Dr. Price talking. Assuming it’s about her, she gets indignant that Wilton would rat her out…. But honestly, Laurie, you were violating SO MANY HIPAA LAWS THERE.

At the pizza place Laurie tells her friends about her ethics violation and convinces them to go to Fear Street with her. They all get into Andy’s Volvo and drive to Fear Street. Toby’s Mom greets Laurie and Skye with an angry ‘what do you want?!’, and they convince her to buy a ticket. When Toby’s Mom goes to find her purse, they hear crying inside the house. Laurie sneaks in further, and sees Toby on the steps looking a lot thinner and paler than he did earlier. His Mom catches them, throws money at them, and tells them to get the hell out.

The next day Laurie is told that she’s being transferred to another floor on Wilton’s orders. Hoping to convince her otherwise, Laurie hangs around until shift end to try and find her. SHe sees Nurse Wilton sneak into the Fear Wing, and then Rick does so as well. She decides to wait a bit for one of them to come out, but loses patience after probably about five minutes and goes in to find them. As she stumbles around in the dark, she trips over something….. and it’s NURSE WILTON’S CORPSE, WITH A SCALPEL STICKING OUT OF HER NECK! But when she runs to get help and comes back with Skye and Nurse Girard, the body, of course, is gone. They think she’s playing a joke on them. Laurie now believes two things: 1) Rick is the murderer, and 2) It has to do with Toby somehow. She tries to go check the files again, but they’ve up and absconded.

The next day Laurie puts on a disguise and goes back to Fear Street to stalk outside Toby’s house. She sees him at the kitchen table, and then sees him being whisked off with a suitcase into a car and driven away. Though she hears a child’s scream from inside the house, she decides to ignore it (?!?!) and talk to Dr. Price the next day. When driving home she is stopped by a car that blocks her path, and the driver is none other than Rick in a weird Batman tee shirt. Laurie turns around and drives off. She gets home to her empty house and calls Andy, asking to talk to his Dad. He wants to know why, and she lies saying she is doing a project that involves interviewing him. Andy invites her over for a hook up, and she hangs up to call Skye to see if she can crash at her place, as she’s scared to be home alone after the weird stuff she’s seen. She hears footsteps on the steps, and tells Skye never mind, Hillary is home… BUT IT’S NOT HILLARY, it’s some intruder!! But when Aunt Hillary does come home, the intruder runs away. Laurie is convinced it’s Rick, but Hillary says she saw Andy’s car in the street (maybe). Laurie tells her everything, and Hillary says that since she’s working with the Board of Trustees maybe she can talk to Dr. Price. Laurie gets upset and says she thinks she doesn’t need any help, but frankly Laurie…

Rick calls. Asks why she ran away from him on Fear Street. She confronts him about the knives, he tries to brush it off, and so she asks why he was even on Fear Street to begin with and he tells her to stay away from Fear Street, ominously.

Laurie meets with Dr. Price. Tells her that she saw Nurse Wilton’s dead body. He calls the hospital to ask why he didn’t hear about any of this, and tells Laurie that he was told that Wilton is on vacation. Laurie tells him she thinks Toby is in trouble, and to placate her he says that he’ll check the kid’s files. Laurie informs him that the files have gone missing and he tells her he’ll track them down. Later Laurie and Andy are talking about why she was talking to his Dad, and she tries the ‘extra credit’ excuse again, and Andy puts the moves on her and she says nah, which leads to a fight and she dumps his ass. When going to the mall to meet Skye, Laurie conveniently sees Toby and his Mom in the parking lot!! Laurie waves, and Toby waves back, but then he’s shoved into the car by his Mom and they drive away. Laurie hates seeing Toby hurt like that, but instead of calling the cops to report a possible case of child abuse, she resolves to figure it out on her own!

So she calls Toby’s Mom pretending that she has an extra raffle ticket. Toby’s Mom is not convinced and tells her she’s a ‘nuisance’. There’s a slap and a child crying right before hanging up, and so Laurie decides to drive to Fear Street and save Toby herself! To what end, idiot? She sneaks into the house through a window, but is knocked over the head and dragged to the basement where she is tied up by Toby’s Mom. Toby’s Mom goes upstairs to make a phone call, and Laurie overhears that perhaps they have nasty plans for Aunt Hillary! Laurie sees a pair of scissors, and tries to get them. But the someone is coming down the steps.. and it’s Toby! Toby cuts the ropes, and Laurie says that she thought he had been taken away…. and Toby tells her that that wasn’t him, that was his twin brother Terry. Because OF COURSE IT WAS. They sneak up the steps and out of the house and get in her car and drive away. At a payphone Laurie tries to call Hillary to warn her, but can’t get an answer. So she calls the hospital, and gets a message that Hillary left for her: her car won’t start so please come pick her up from her meeting at the hospital, and she will be at the nurses station. So she and Toby rush for the hospital, and on the way they hear a radio report that Nurse Wilton’s body has been found. To make matters worse, Rick’s car is following them!! They get to the hospital and it looks like maybe they lost him.. but as they get into the building Rick pulls in the lost. Laurie and Toby get in the elevator and the doors close JUST AS RICK IS ABOUT TO GET IN TOO.

They get to the nurses station and Laurie leaves Toby with a nice nurse. Hillary isn’t present, and Nurse Girard tells her no one has been by for nearly two hours. Laurie tries to use the phone, but then Rick is there! He’s distracted by Nurse Girard, so Laurie runs into the Fear Wing (of course) to try and hide. While dicking around in there she finds a random trap door, and surmises that’s how Rick moved Nurse Wilton’s body. So Rick enters and we’re back to the prologue, with him grabbing her and her worried about the knife he must have. Turns out he grabbed her to keep her from falling down a broken elevator shaft she almost ran into. Someone else enters the wing, and Laurie screams for help. Rick shoves her away so he can tangle with whomever it is, and Laurie hears a fight. She sees Dr. Price, who tells her she can come out now. She runs to him, jumping over unconscious Rick… But Rick is waking up! And he tells Laurie that it was Dr. PRICE who killed Nurse Wilton! Because Nurse Wilton found out that Dr. Price and Toby’s Mom (not really his MOm!) were selling children in an illegal adoption scheme, and she was blackmailing him! Dr. Price and Rick fight again, and this time it ends with Dr. Price falling down the elevator shaft.

Rick and Laurie leave the Fear Wing and are reunited with Hillary, who explains that Dr. Price thought that she was getting too close to his secret and that’s why he wanted her dead. Rick and Laurie kiss. The end.

Body Count: 2. You get Nurse Wilton and Dr. Price (I think? I have to imagine).

Romance Rating: 4. Rick is fine and he and Laurie are an okay couple with similar interests. But Andy is obnoxious and having her have to spend ANY time with him is upsetting.

Bonkers Rating: 5. A complex conspiracy theory in a hospital that involves selling children and then the fact that there is a set of twins as well gets it a bit of a boost. But it feels more Lifetime Movie, plot wise.

Fear Street Relevance: 8. The wing in the hospital that seems to cause the most trouble is named after Simon Fear. So it’s The Fear Wing, and THAT is pretty great. Also, Toby is being kept in a house on Fear Street.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“Then she had a sickening new feeling. Something in the room behind her was moving!”

… But nope, it wasn’t. She was alone the whole time.

That’s So Dated! Moments: Laurie and Skye first see Rick and the comparisons to Tom Cruise are thrown around pretty readily and heavily. I’m not so certain seventeen year old girls these days would be making THAT reference when trying to describe a cute boy.

Best Quote:

“He grabbed the front of the shirt, his face filled with mock horror. ‘Get rid of my bleeding knife t-shirt? Are you crazy?’

‘Get rid of it,’ she insisted.

‘But it’s so… so totally cutting edge!’ he cried.”

YEAH YEAH, I LAUGHED, OKAY?

“The Knife” was pretty lame. Less conspiracy, more GHOSTS, dammit! Next up is “The First Date”. I can only imagine how this is going to be.

Book: “The Secret Bedroom” (Fear Street #13) by R.L. Stine

Publishing Info: Simon Pulse, September 1991

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

Book Description: Lea Carson can’t believe it when her family moves into the creepy, old house on Fear Street. Most creepy of all is the secret room up in the attic.

The room has been locked and boarded up for at least a hundred years. A murder was committed in that room, the story goes, and it has been closed up ever since.

Lea knows she should stay away. But she thinks she hears footsteps inside the secret room. And voices.

Someone—or something—is waiting for Lea in there.

Should she open the door?

Can she resist?

Had I Read It Before: Yes

The Plot: Once again, we are introduced to a new student at Shadyside High. This time it’s a girl named Lea, and I have to wonder about enrollment policy at this school. Are kids just joining willy nilly at any time, or are all these things supposed to be happening on the same timeline? Regardless, Lea makes a splash at her new school in week two where she spills chili on the white sweater of class megabitch Marci Hendryx. After getting a severe tongue lashing from Marci, who goes to clean up, Lea gets in help cleaning up her tray from a cute boy. He says his name is Don, and she says that she’s Lea and she just moved to Fear Street. When Don is, of course, shocked, she explains her parents are the predecessors to “Flip This House” and are going to focus on Fear Street. After some more chit chat, Don asks her out, and Lea is excited and says yes! But when she returns to her seat, her new friend Deena (from “The Wrong Number”!) tells her that Don is Marci’s boyfriend and Lea will catch hell if she goes out with him. Don, you’re a creep.

Lea walks home and thinks about the first time she and her parents entered the house. Their realtor, Mrs. Thomas (Suki’s Mom! I love Suki, so this bitch is tops in my book), told them about a boarded up room in the attic after Lea stumbled upon the locked door. Apparently it was a bedroom, but someone was murdered in their and it’s been shuttered ever since. Um, that should probably have been disclosed before they closed on the house, Mrs. Thomas, but perhaps when selling homes of Fear Street you’re encouraged to leave stuff out. Lea’s parents say they’ll just leave it alone. I bet not.

So now it’s Saturday night and Lea is on the phone with Deena, waiting for Don to pick her up. While giving Lea advice, Deena then has to hang up because her friend Jade has arrived (no word on whether or not she’s still dating her rotten half brother). So Lea waits, and waits, and waits… And Don doesn’t show. She calls his house, and Don’s mom says that he’s out with Marci. Ouch, girl. But instead of accepting that she’s been stood up, Lea decides that the thing to do is… CALL MARCI?????

Predictably, it doesn’t go well. Marci tells Lea she dared Don to ask her out, and that Don would NEVER go out with her, and that Lea deserves it for hitting on her boyfriend. Yikes. Lea goes to sleep that night convincing herself that Don really DID ask her out, but then chickened out because Marci found out and that he does really like her. As she falls asleep she thinks she hears footsteps in the secret bedroom in the attic.

Monday at school Don approaches her and says he’s really sorry about the date thing and that Marci is jealous. While trying to explain himself, Marci shows up, and he runs off to her like the spineless jellyfish that he is. After lunch, Marci approaches Lea at her locker and tells her that she’s sorry. It was a joke that went too far, and to make it up to her she wants Lea to join the school sorority! How nice! She tells Lea that the next meeting is the next day in room 409. But Lea isn’t a dummy, and tells her that the school only has three floors so there ISN’T a room 409!! Boy, she sure was spared some kind of douchey prank a golf pro might pull off.

That next Saturday after a night of watching movies by herself (as even her parents have a social life), Lea decides to go to bed. But again, she hears footsteps above her in the attic. She goes up to investigate, but finds nothing up there. Yet as soon as she turns out the light, the footsteps start again… in the secret bedroom! She presses her ear against the door and calls inside, but then hears a new sound… the sound of blood flowing from the doorway!!! She freaks out and calls Deena (instead of her parents? I know this is before cell phones but did they not leave an emergency number?) and asks her to come over. Then she calls the police. When Deena arrives they go up to investigate, but they find nothing. So have fun explaining THAT to the cops who show up a few moments later. Lea apologizes, saying she thought she heard something, and after both cop and Deena leave, she tries to go back to sleep… But the sounds start again, louder this time.

At breakfast the next day her parents brush off her concerns. That night Lea is thinking about Don, for some reason that I can’t fathom… Yes I can, I was a teenage girl once. But the noises start up again. This continues for the next few nights, and then it even evolves into a voice! Lea dreams that she goes into the attic, and into the bedroom… and finds Marci in there, right before waking up. Marci is truly a jerk so the stress dreams are understandable.

The next weekend Lea, having been blown off by Deena, is all by her lonesome at home again, and when she hears the sounds this time she’s going to investigate. She hears a voice on the other side of the door, but this time she decides she wants to open the damn thing up. Of course, when she tries, a bunch of iron spikes slam through the wood and almost gore her. I just….. WHAT. They pull back into the secret bedroom, and Lea is left dazed. When the phone rings she almost misses it, but she answers, and it’s DON!! Who wants her to meet him at the mall right away!!! Lea, foolishly, thinks that her time has come, and she rushes in the rain to her car and drives over to meet him. I have no idea where her parents are. When she gets to the mall and to good ol’ Pete’s Pizza, she sees Don… and that he’s sitting across from Marci. Lea, the definition of insanity is to repeat an action expecting a different result. This is you to a t. Don says she should sit with them, but Marci shuts that shit down. Lea, after accidentally knocking into a waitress and making  a scene, returns home.

Given that the house is still empty but the sounds are still happening, Lea storms up the steps to settle this once and for all. This time when she calls through the door, she hear’s a girl’s voice asking her to open it up. Lea complies, prying the boards off with a hammer, and finds a key in the lock. When she walks in, she finds an ornate bedroom with an old fashioned looking girl sitting on the bed. The girl says that she ‘lives’ there, so that means she’s haunting the place because she’s clearly a ghost. A ghost who wants to touch Lea’s hair. Which is a bit too much, and Lea runs out of the room, slamming and locking the door behind her.

The next day Lea convinces herself that it was all a dream, and goes to play tennis with Deena. Deena agrees that it must have been a dream and then tells her that Marci is spreading rumors about her being a floozy. Fun. That night, while her parents are engrossed in a nature show, Lea tries to go to bed early. But the noises start again, and Lea goes upstairs to investigate. She finds the room and the girl again, and realizes that it wasn’t a dream. The ghost says that her name is Catherine, and that while she knows she’s dead it took her awhile to believe and understand it. She says that she was locked in this room because her parents didn’t want the world to know about her, as she was born out of wedlock. When she tried to escape one day, they killed her, and kept her body up there to rot. Lea isn’t convinced, and Catherine gets angry with her AND wants to touch her hair again. Lea runs out and slams her bedroom door, but doesn’t remember if she closed the door to the secret bedroom. She goes back to look, and all seems locked up and okay… But then in her own room Lea’s stuffed tiger’s eyes start to glow red.

At school the next week, Lea overhears Marci spreading more lies about her, and wonders just why Marci keeps doing this even though she clearly has her beaten into submission. Well, Lea, it’s because girls like Marci are like a dog with a bone and can’t get enough of torturing you because you have been seen as weak, and weakness is easy to exploit and fun too, if you’re a total sociopath. No, I don’t have personal experience. Lea, however, gets the bright idea to use her new ghost friend (?) to teach Marci a lesson (and I am convinced that Ryan Murphy lifted this for “AHS: Murder House”). When she gets home she goes up the secret bedroom and formally introduces herself. Catherine tells her how much she loves her hair, and that she wishes her blonde tresses were dark like hers. Lea, undaunted, asks Catherine if she will help her scare Marci. Catherine agrees, but starts to press her ghostly essence into Lea, explaining that she’d use all her energy if she traveled on her own, and that she should really just hitch a ride in Lea’s body. Lea is a little weirded out, but convinces herself that it’s a legit request.

Lea goes to Marci’s house to confront her, and Marci tries to slam the door in her face but Catherine (who did leave Lea’s body) prevents that from happening. Lea gets into the house and starts to read Marci the riot act, but then Catherine lifts Marci up in the air and drops her. Marci, now freaked out, runs up the stairs in a panic… and runs right through the railing and plunges to the floor. Oops. Lea calls 911 as Marci’s Mom is screaming and sobbing (this was actually way upsetting, thanks Stine), and when the cops arrive Marci is pronounced dead. An officer drives Lea home, and she feels Catherine re-enter her body. When they get home Catherine returns to her attic room and Lea tries to eat dinner, but just has to confront Catherine about how things went down at Marci’s house. She asks Catherine if she pushed Marci, and Catherine just smiles at her, saying that she did Lea a favor and now Lea has to do one for her. Catherine wants to be inside Lea’s body PERMANENTLY. She tries to possess Lea, but Lea fights her off and runs out of the room screaming for her parents. When she tells them everything, they think that she’s suffering from PTSD because she saw Marci fall. Lea tries to show them the attic door she broke into, but it looks all boarded up, as if never touched. Huh?

A doctor recommends bedrest to Lea. As she’s trying to rest up, suddenly Catherine appears and REALLY flips things on its’ head: she says that she’s been messing with Lea the whole time! Lea never actually went into the secret bedroom, that Catherine was ALWAYS in THIS room and that she just planted those memories. When asked why, Catherine says that that secret bedroom is evil and Catherine boarded it up herself one hundred years prior, and the blood and the spikes were to keep Lea out before she just started planting memories. And now they’re going to share this room AND LEA’S BODY!!! Catherine succeeds in possessing her this time. Holy shit, this is getting real.

A few days later Catherine tells Lea that they have some stuff to take care of. I have a feeling it isn’t running to get paper towels from the store. CLea (as I will be referring to them) pulls a long rope out of the closet, and Catherine tells Lea that they’re going to go make Don Jacobs pay. They end up at Don’s house, and right before CLea can strangle him in cold blood, his friends arrive. Lea is able to fend off the control for a bit, and they make a hasty exit. But Catherine tells her that soon Don will be dead and so will his stupid friends. WHAT DID CORY AND GARY DO? The next day Lea realizes that Catherine has left her body for a bit, and thinks that perhaps the key to her salvation is opening up the secret bedroom. She grabs a hammer and gets to work on the boards, but then Catherine shows up to try and stop her. Lea tells her that she won’t be stopped, and she manages to get into the bedroom…. AND FINDS THE LONG DRIED OUT CORPSES OF CATHERINE’S PARENTS ON THE BED!!!! Catherine manages to possess Lea just then, and then the BODIES GET UP AND START SHUFFLING TOWARDS CLEA! ZombieDad wraps his hands around CLea’s neck, and Catherine leaves her body saying they killed her once and now they want to do it again…. But ZombieMom says that it was CATHERINE who was the murderer, who killed THEM and locked them in the bedroom. Suffice to say, the corpse parents start to circle Catherine faster and faster, and when Catherine reaches to Lea for help (ha, yeah right), one of the corpses LITERALLY rips her hand off and tosses it away. I AM LIVING!!! They ghostly family spins and disappears into nothingness, and Lea, presumably, passes out.

She wakes in the hospital some time later and is told she’s been battling a fever that’s left her in and out of consciousness. But Don has been calling to check on her and Deena has been bringing her school work for her to work on when she gets better. So maybe it was all a dream? When she gets home, she does find the attic door all boarded up, and is thinking that yes, it was all a dream. But the she sees one of Catherine’s hair ribbons on her dresser, and she thinks of Marci and the ghost in the secret bedroom. The end.

 

Body Count: 2. Well, technically one with Marci falling to her doom. But I think that I may count Catherine too, since she was kind of taken out again.

Romance Rating: 3. Don is a total wimp when it comes to his girlfriend, but he and Lea could have some potential now that she’s out of the way (sorry, Marci).

Bonkers Rating: 10. This one has a secret bedroom, a ghost, possession, mind alterations, murder, AND skeletons just drying out in an attic. Seriously, it’s crazy.

Fear Street Relevance: 9! Lea living on Fear Street and the ghosts living in an attic in a Fear Street house are exactly the kind of setting these books need to be as good as they can be.

Silliest End of Chapter Cliffhanger:

“Lea was the first to break the silence. “I don’t believe it,” she said, her hands pressed tightly against her face.”

… and then there’s literally nothing there. Though I have to say, this book had some really SOLID cliffhangers.

That’s So Dated! Moments: Lea is watching “Ghost” on her parents VCR. Also, many descriptions of Lea’s bangs. Also, see below….

Best Quote:

“Patrick Swayze is a real babe, she thought, stretching sleepily. He can come haunt me any time.”

YEP, this one was a really fun and great read. It’s right up there with “Missing” in terms of “Fear Street” faves. The next one up is “The Knife”, and the cover alone makes me think it’s going to be a journey.