Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Do NOT continue to read unless you want to know who the bad guy/girl/completely obvious Justin is.
Tag Line: That's when he always kills them.From the Back of the Book: 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?
This book was published in 1992 as part of the general Fear Street series. This is my first time reading it and, God willing, it will be my last time reading it too.
We begin with “Joe” and
Candy making out in a car. Joe is clearly a
little.....unfocused. He just keeps thinking it's hot in the car and
he needs some fresh air because he feels smothered. This wouldn't be
a red flag ordinarily, but Stine writes it so we clearly know “Joe”
has The Crazy. Joe stops kissing Candy and tells her that he'd like
to go for a walk. She's understandably a little confused but not
alarmed even though they're all alone in a remote wooded area and she
should be hella frackin' alarmed. As they're getting out the car, he
drops his wallet and she picks it up to hand to him, noting that the
license identifies him as “Lonnie”. She asks him about it and he
spins some story about having his license suspended and getting a
fake which she seems to more or less accept. Still, he decides to
kill her because she's smothering him just like all the others.
Candy dies off screen and “Joe/Lonnie” heads to Shadyside.
Now we're with a girl named Chelsea.
She's a little chubby and a little frumpy and she just feels like an
outsider in every situation. Her family has just moved to Shadyside and they're
living in a creepy house on Fear Street. The only enjoyment Chelsea
gets from life, other than moaning about how unpopular and ugly she
is, is playing the saxophone. Stine mentions this saxophone playing
rather obsessively. He practically beats us over the head with it.
Chelsea's only friend is a popular girl
named Nina. Nina has a boyfriend named Doug that
Chelsea is extremely jealous of. She feels like Nina looks down on
her because she's single which isn't borne out in the writing at ANY
point. Nina is actually pretty nice to Chelsea considering what a
whiner Chelsea is. Every time Chelsea sees Nina with Doug we get a
bitter dialogue about how Chelsea's life would be different if she
could just lose some weight and instantly get pretty/popular.
Chelsea is EXHAUSTING.
Eventually Chelsea goes to school and
we get introduced to the first new boy. His name is Will and
Chelsea thinks he's pretty cute. She's too shy to talk to him and he
doesn't talk to her either so it seems pretty doomed from the start.
The second new boy helpfully presents himself after school at the
restaurant that Chelsea's dad owns. Chelsea is the only waitress
employed by the restaurant which makes me wonder what the hell they
do when she's in school. Does Stine know how restaurants work?
Anyway, this new boy is named Sparks (it's his last name) and
he looks “tough” to Chelsea. He asks her out but she gets
interrupted by her dad and Sparks just takes off.
At this point I should tell you that
“Joe/Lonnie” in the first chapter was described as having dark curly
hair. Both Will and Sparks have dark hair but only Will's hair is
curly. So we're obviously supposed to believe that Will is the bad
guy but we all know hair can be straightened so I'm not convinced
yet.
Odds that Will is the bad guy: 50%
Odds that Sparks is the bad guy: 50%
They're the only two suspects since the
bad guy has to be a new boy in Shadyside.
As they're closing for the night, three
“punks” rush in and demand the money from the register.
Chelsea's dad has already taken the money out for the night and they
get so mad about this that they hit him over the head with a pipe
before running out. Chelsea calls 911 and her dad is taken to the
hospital. He's put in ICU in “serious but stable” condition.
Chelsea ends up going home to an empty house.
Chelsea is a little freaked out because
of the events of the night so she calls Nina to come stay with her.
Nina arrives with Doug in tow and the two of them make out in front
of Chelsea which is pretty insensitive given the situation. Chelsea
has a HUGE 'why not me' meltdown in her head and I pretty much want
to cheer on the bad guy from here on out. {{{Yoohoo! She's over here, Joe/Lonnie. I'll even hold her for you.}}}
As she's falling asleep, Chelsea
wonders if Sparks was in on the robbery. Maybe the punks sent him
ahead to scope things out and he realized Chelsea and her dad were
there alone.
We spend the next chapter with “Joe/Lonnie”.
He's explaining to us that dark haired girls have to die because
they remind him of his mom and sister. When he was young, his dad
was very abusive so his mom escaped and took his sister with her but
they left him behind for some reason. He's decided that every girl
who looks like his mom and sister has to die and he pretty loosely
defines “looks like”. Chelsea apparently fits the bill because
she has dark hair. So does a huge chunk of the population. Joe/Lonnie is
going to exhaust himself killing all the dark haired girls. Stine
throws in a gratuitous kitten death here to show us just how
disturbed Joe/Lonnie is. The problem is, we already KNEW how disturbed he
was from all of his internal dialogue and the kitten didn't need to
die at all. It was a dick move on Stine's part.
We're back with Chelsea at the
restaurant so I think it's the next day. Two “tough guys”
(which seems to be Stine's favorite way to describe people in this
book) come in and start sexually harassing Chelsea. Sparks rocks up
and scares them off. He drinks coffee and just sits there until
Chelsea closes up and then he pays and leaves. She finds this
suspicious. I think he was protecting her in case the guys came
back.
We hop into Sparks' head for a tiny bit
of the chapter. He's pissed at himself because he wanted to ask
Chelsea out again but he chickened out. He goes back to his
apartment and throws his phone through a window in a rage fit. Stine
is REALLY trying to make Sparks look like Joe/Lonnie here despite his lack
of curly hair.
Odds that Will is the bad guy: 75%
Odds that Sparks is the bad guy: 25%
Hear me out here......I KNOW Will has
the curly hair and that should make him too obvious to be the bad guy
but Stine is shoving Sparks down our throats like grandma's gravy on
Thanksgiving. Therefore it cannot be Sparks and must be Will. Which
means we have one of these going on, ya'll.......
We're back in Chelsea's head which is
actually just the worst. I'd rather stay with Sparks. Or even
fucking Joe/Lonnie and I usually hate bad guy POV. ANYONE would be better
than Chelsea. Anyway, she wants to get Nina's advice on the whole
Will/Sparks situation but Nina is a bit preoccupied. She saw Doug
having lunch with another girl and she thinks he might be cheating on
her. Chelsea decides that Nina is a total piece of ish for having
her own problems and not really caring about Chelsea's.
Will rocks up and unexpectedly asks
Chelsea to take a walk with him. She's thrilled and points him
toward the park in back of the school. He's never been there and
he's new to town but somehow he knows there's a river hidden in the
wooded area and he suggests they walk that way. Chelsea does not
find this in any way suspicious.
The entire time they're walking, he's
going on and on about how “pure” snow is and that's just serial
killer talk right there. At one point she even sees him holding a
length of cord between his hands like a fucking garrote and she still
doesn't see any reason to be alarmed.
Protagonist that should seriously watch
an episode of Dateline? Check.
He asks her out for Saturday night and
says she should keep it a secret and tell no one that she's going out
with him and she STILL thinks this is all normal. Girl. Fucking buy
a clue. He doesn't want anyone to know you're with him because he's
planning to KILL YOU!!! You cannot be this stupid. It's physically
impossible to be this stupid and still walk and talk like a
functioning human being. Chelsea just thinks it's “romantic” and
I think my head exploded.
This is the most “effing Justin”
situation since the original effing Justin. Sigh.
It's the next day. Chelsea's dad is
still in ICU and her mom is taking on a bunch of extra shifts but we
never really figure out why. The restaurant is still open......at
least it is after school when Chelsea is there......so that's not a
factor but maybe they don't have insurance and she needs to work
extra to pay the hospital bills? Shrug. At any rate, Chelsea is
pretty much home alone all the time at this point.
Sparks comes in during her shift again
and she uses the opportunity to ask him a metric fuck ton of
questions that he mostly doesn't answer. At one point she asks him
where he works and he says the mill which has been closed for years.
The obvious lie makes her super suspicious of him and I'm just trying
to figure out how a fucking garrote doesn't raise her brow at all but
a lie about a job (probably because he's embarrassed that either he
doesn't work at all or he has some super humiliating job) gets her
hackles up. Girl, you need to FOCUS. Sparks asks her out for
Saturday and gets disproportionately pissed that she already has a
date because Stine is still trying to convince us that he's Justin.
Odds that Will is Justin:
1000000000000000000000000000000%
Odd that Sparks is Justin: Negative
Infinity %
Suddenly we skip to Saturday night like
we stepped into Stewie's time machine. Will takes Chelsea to a movie
in the next town over so no one will see them and know she was with
him. She still thinks this is romantic.
On the drive, she comments about his
car and he says his family has owned it his entire life and it's the
only car he's ever driven. But when the window fogs up, he can't
figure out where the defroster is or how to turn it on. He covers it
up by claiming to be clutzy and she eats this up with a fucking
spoon. Chelsea. It makes no fucking sense. What is WRONG WITH
YOU????????
After the movie they go up to River
Ridge to park and 'talk'. Will seems very concerned about whether
she told anyone she was out with him and this should at least make
her think that he might be cheating on someone with her but she
doesn't. She just thinks he's being conversational. He kisses her
once but it's short and awkward and she feels a little cheated by the
entire experience.
Will suggests a walk and somehow this
action catapults us out of Chelsea's head and into his. He pulls the
cord out of his pocket and then proceeds to try to strangle her for
PAGES. Literally he keeps not doing it because she moves or turns
around or something so stupid I want dig my eyes out with a Q-Tip.
Stine repeats his motivation a few times in case we forgot – he's
seeking revenge on brunettes because his brunette mother and sister
left him with an abusive father. We didn't need the reminder, Stine.
We heard you and this weak ass excuse for a motive the first time
you said it.
Will tries to strangle Chelsea for
about the 50the time but.........{{{GASP}}}} LOLZ another car comes
into the parking lot and they have to get the hell out of there
before someone sees them together. Chelsea suggests that they go
back to her house because her parents aren't home and he practically
explodes in his pants at the idea. They go inside and start to make
out. He pulls out the cord to strangle her......{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ......but she gets up mid-kiss to make hot chocolate. Will. Bro.
This speaks VOLUMES about your kissing skills.
From this point on we just start head
hopping all willy nilly. It makes it annoyingly hard to follow and
I'm irritated. In the kitchen Will takes LITERALLY FUCKING PAGES to
raise the cord up over Chelsea's head and then.......{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ....the doorbell rings. Will is the worst Justin in the history
of Justins and this is just sad.
Nina shows up crying because she and
Doug just had a big fight. Instead of being concerned for her
friend, Chelsea is ecstatic to show off her date and rub it in Nina's
face that she has a date and Nina doesn't. Chelsea is awful.
When she goes to the kitchen to get
Will, she finds out he dipped out of there entirely. Even this does
not deter our Chelsea. The next day when he tells her that he said
goodbye and she just didn't hear him, she accepts that and doesn't
question it further. This one is a special breed of dumb. Will asks
her on a date for that evening but she says she has to visit her dad
and then do homework. She says he can pick her up from work Monday
evening instead and he agrees. Not long after she hangs up, a big
scary man comes to the door to murder her.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
The man turns out to be Agent Martin
with the FBI. He gives her Justin's description and asks if she's
seen him. She immediately thinks of Sparks and not Will even though
Will matches the description to a tee and Sparks just has the same
color hair. She gives Martin all the information she has on Sparks
which isn't much at all and Martin hands her his business card,
asking her to call him if she sees Sparks again.
At school on Monday, Chelsea tells Nina
all about Will. She also mentions Will to her mostly absent mother.
So we've established that Chelsea is complete trash at keeping
secrets. But it IS the first reasonably intelligent thing she's done all book.
After this very brief exchange, we skip
to Monday evening. It's 7:00 and the restaurant is about to close.
What kind of restaurant closes at 7:00? Stine definitely doesn't
know how restaurants work. This is getting ridiculous. Chelsea's in
the back counting out money when she hears someone come in the front
door that she's left open for Will. Why would she leave it unlocked
when she's had so many problems with tough looking punky people
coming in to rob her or worse? Stine. DO BETTER!!!
It's not Will who comes in but Sparks.
He's drunk and giggly which Chelsea finds frightening because the
fibbies are looking for him. He tries to talk to her but she
literally runs away from him. In his drunken state, Sparks thinks
they're playing a game and he chases after her. Eventually (and it's
been a stupid amount of pages dedicated to describing two people
running), Sparks trips and his hand comes into contact with the grill
that's been left on because fuck fires. He burns his hand badly and
almost immediately goes into shock.
Chelsea calls the number on the card
that Martin left her and reaches Agent Forest instead. This seems
super weird to me but I guess they're partners and share a phone? He
overhears her talking to Sparks and figures out the situation
somehow. He shows up with the ambulance and they take Sparks away.
Pretty much as soon as they clear out,
Will rocks up for their date. They just end up going back to
Chelsea's house. She tells him all about turning Sparks over to the
fibbies and he's hella amused. But then she tells him that Nina knows all
about him and he's furious. Now he has to kill Nina too. Will tells
Chelsea that she should invite Nina over and she's so eager to shove
Will in Nina's face that she agrees.
After she hangs up with Nina, the phone
rings and it's Martin. Wait. How did he get her phone number? She
had his number on the card but she never gave him hers. And she called from
the restaurant so even if caller ID existed back then (I think it
did?) that can't be how he got her home number. DO BETTER, STINE!!!
Martin tells Chelsea that Sparks wasn't Justin and that's when it
finally clicks for her that Will is Justin. She tells Martin his
name and Martin says “That sounds like him.” Um. What? Why
would he say that when all she told him was Will's name? DO
BETTER!!! Martin says he'll be there soon and she should get out of
the house.
Chelsea runs outside but she can't
really leave because Nina is on her way over. Will comes outside and
asks her to come back inside and talk but she refuses. She blurts
out that she knows he's the one the fibbies are looking for which is
just a really stupid move on her part but I'm not really surprised at
this point. Will tackles her and chokes her to the point that he
tells us she's dead. He drags her around the side of the house and
hides her in a bush. Then he goes inside to wait for Nina.
Nina shows up and instead of just
killing her right away which would make so much more sense, he makes
small talk with her for AN ENTIRE CHAPTER. When he finally does
decide to choke her, we get the same song and dance that we got with
Chelsea after their first date. He tries so many times but she
thwarts him by simply moving a little. It's so dumb. Finally he
gets the cord around her neck but she fights back. She manages to
get away and run into the kitchen but he catches up and slams her
over the head with a vase.
Before Will can choke Nina, Chelsea
reappears in the kitchen and he loses his gotdamn mind. He keeps
screaming that she's dead but obviously he was mistaken. She tries
to stab him with a knife but he gets it away from her. Luckily the
fibbies burst in to save the day. Chelsea explains that she faked
dead due to her extraordinary ability to hold her breath for FOUR
MINUTES due to her saxophone playing. This seems like an excessively
long time to me but I haven't done the research so I don't know how
believable it is. I guess that sax playing that Stine was obsessing
over the entire book was his idea of foreshadowing. Wow.
Chelsea goes to visit Sparks in the
hospital the next day. His hand was burned badly and developed an
infection so he's getting IV antibiotics. He says that he never
meant to scare her. He comes from a home where his parents fought
constantly so he decided to drop out of school and run away. He's
been scared about his life choices and lonely and that's been making
him act out. He apologizes and she apologizes for turning him over
to the FBI. Alls well. He asks her out on a date and she quips that
it can't be worse than her first one.
This book was fucking terrible and
Chelsea has to be the worst protagonist that ever lived. Stine
should be ashamed of himself with this one.
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