The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street #1: The New Girl

If R.L. Stine will truly be remembered for anything in his career, chances are it will most likely be Goosebumps first. The 1992 kids horror series turned him from known author to part of the 90s pop culture zeitgeist. But before the days of evil dummies and monster blood was his earlier days in the world of horror. Stine's first notable work in horror came through Scholastic's Point series of horror-themed books aimed towards the young adult market. Stine was among several names who authored works for the line. In 1989, Stine took his burgeoning notoriety in the genre and began his first book series. That being Fear Street. 

Fear Street began in 1989 and continued on its initial run until 1999, briefly resurfacing in 2005 and returning once again in 2014 with a newer series. The books are all set within the fictional town of Shadyside and focuses on the people who live on Fear Street, a street notorious for supernatural events and lots and lots of death. I mean, it's not just a unique name for a street. But we'll learn more about that in time. I've dabbled in the Ghosts of Fear Street series for this blog, but that was kids stuff. This is our foray out of the playpen and into the young adult section. We're truly moving up in the world of thirty year old novels. 

While there's no numbering for the books like Goosebumps, I likely won't stick to the release schedule for these. If one interests me enough, I'll cover it. But in the case of this debut, we'll cover what is definitely the first book in the series. And what better way to enter the new world than to talk about The New Girl.

Since the books have been released on a few occasions with newer cover art, I'm going to make the decision that I will stick solely to the original cover artwork as it was what was out there to sell people on these books in their inception. And this cover is okay. I like the use of blues for the night sky and the white fog that works not just for atmosphere but giving a ghostly glow to Anna Corwin, our titular new girl. Also, I don't know, maybe it's the house shapes themselves, but I think of Welcome to Dead House with this cover. So, I guess that somehow makes it work better as our debut book.

We open the book with a prologue of someone telling us that a girl named Anna is dead. Pushed by someone, now laying on the ground in a heap. Whoever did it however, seems to really be happy that perfect, beautiful Anna is now just a corpse. So, Only two pages in and our first death. Stine could not wait. 

Cory Brooks is a member of the gymnastics team and a goofball. We open the book with him doing a headstand on his lunchroom table when he suddenly sees a girl in a light blue dress, blonde hair and pale blue eyes. This distracts him long enough to take a header into his lunch. He asks his friend David Metcalf and another gym team member Arnie Tobin if they saw the girl, but they're confused. He talks to his platonic female friend Lisa Blume, who is described as looking a lot like Cher, which was more of a compliment in 1989 than 2021 probably. He tells her about the lunchroom incident and she gives him a unisex shirt from The Gap to wear. The school bell rings and in the commotion, Cory sees the girl again. Moving in a way that seems very ghostly. Like something a ghost would do. 

That night, Cory dreams about making out with the girl, but he can't feel her. After school, he meets with Lisa who tells her that she knows of the girl. Her name is Anna and she now lives on Fear Street. Cory seems surprised since Fear Street has a reputation of being cursed. There's a burned down building in the street that overlooks the cemetery, once owned by a man named Simon Fear. People who go to Fear Street often disappear, not to mention rumors about strange supernatural events that go on. Perfect place for a lot of characters to end up at for this book series, huh? Cory gets the number for the Corwin residence via the operator and calls the house. But the raspy voice on the other end tells him that no Anna lives there.

Cory finally talks to Anna, but doesn't get too much out of her, particularly about the phone call and her living on Fear Street. At gym, as he performs, he sees Anna again, causing him to slip and fall. His interest in Anna is becoming full on obsession, unable to think of anything else. He's even pissing off Lisa with his constant talk of her, since Lisa likes him as has clearly been made obvious. Cory returns home and calls Anna's house again. But this time when someone answers, he can hear a girl screaming in the background. Despite that, they still tell him to back off.

Concerned about this girl he doesn't even know outside of his wank fantasies, Cory heads to Fear Street to see what's going on. He makes it to Anna's address, but the house is empty with no sign of life at all. He gets scared by a man only here to add some more exposition that the Corwins are a strange family. When he sees the light flicker, Cory heads to the house and knocks, only to get a young man with a raspy voice. When Cory mentions Anna, the man gets in a panic, then tells Cory that Anna is dead. I do kind of wish we weren't aware of that two pages in, Bob, but whatever. The next day, he manages to sneak into the school permanent records, only to not see any file for an Anna Corwin. Some time later, Cory gets awakened by a phone call. The raspy voice again tells him to stay away from Anna or he'll be dead like her.

Soon, the phone rings again. It's Anna on the other end, asking him to meet her at Fear Street. Cory's hesitant, since he also remembered a story about a collision between two cars that seemed to kill six people, but when the police arrived there were no bodies. Like they walked away on their own. But, freaky zombie car issue or no, he heads to Fear Street. He drives there, hitting something in the road, then stops. Anna enters the car. Cory asks if she's real and she kisses him, proving she's real enough, I guess. He doesn't get many answers, but she tells him that the raspy voice is her brother Brad. He's dangerous and he should stay away from her. Suddenly he gets attacked by something.

That something is revealed to be Voltaire, the dog of the strange man he met a while back. His shoulder is clawed up bad, but he still heads to his next gym meet. He runs into Lisa who is here to tell us that his cousin has a friend who was from Melrose, where Anna was originally from. Anna Corwin died a while back. She had fallen down her basement stairs and died instantly. The two head to the library and find the newspaper that mentions Anna Corwin's death. Cory drives for a bit, heading near fear street where he sees the man and the dog again. He heads home and Anna shows up in his bed, telling him to be with her. She's dead, but he can join her forever in death. He gets up, but sees no sign of her. He immediately gets a call from Anna, again wanting to meet him at Fear Street.

Cory returns to Fear Street, but no Anna. Thinking she may need help, he returns to her house, only to be caught by Brad who screams at him that Anna is dead, before dragging him into the Corwin house to "finish him once and for all". And that's... by letting him go. Okay then. He sees a figure on the stairs and thinks it must be Anna. At school, Lisa asks him to the dance, which he accepts, despite his Anna obsession. Speaking of, Anna shows up and talks to Cory and Lisa, but not giving many answers. Later, Lisa opens her locker, only for a cat corpse to fall out of it with a note that says "LISA - YOU'RE DEAD TOO!" 

Cory suspects it's Anna, but she seems to have no clue about it. He asks about Brad and why he's saying she's dead, but Anna panics saying that he has to stay away from her house. She has no clue why Brad is saying things, but she's alive. She lives at her home with just Brad and their sickly mother. Cory and Lisa head to the dance, and also get another threat on the phone. At the dance, Lisa is finally sick of Cory's Anna obsession, particularly the fact that he doesn't believe Anna's at fault, while Lisa, who for the entire book has been into him, is finally sick of this crap. She starts to leave while Cory sees Anna in the crowd. Then he hears Lisa scream. 

Cory finds Lisa down the stairwell on the ground. Her ankle badly hurt. She tells him that she was pushed down the stairs. She mentions that she couldn't tell who, only that it was some guy. Cory immediately realizes "oh crap. It's probably Brad, and he's still in the school." The two look for Brad, despite Cory being overpowered before and Lisa clearly having a broken ankle. They think they hear Brad in another room, but it's just two teens making out. They head into the music room, then get caught by Brad who... runs away. You know for this big threat he's barely done anything. He does lock the door on them, trapping them inside. Cory sees his way out of this second story floor by exiting the window to the nearest tree. Just in case you forgot at any point that he's a gymnast. He falls, but makes it into the woodshop below. He gets Lisa free from the music room and takes her home. He then drives back to Fear Street.

Returning to the Corwin house, Cory knocks the door, but gets no answer. He does get the man and the dog again though. The next day he runs into Anna and this time he wants answers. Particularly about Brad. Anna tells him that Brad's girlfriend Emily was killed in a plane crash. This devastated Brad, turning him cold and violent. Also, they had another sister named Willa. And due to his confused state, Brad often screwed up their names, thinking Willa is Anna and Anna is Willa. It was Willa who fell down the stairs. Brad was home and claimed it was an accident, but neither Anna nor their mother believe him. They believed he was the one who murdered her. And in his broken state, he thinks Anna was the one who died. The family moved to Shadyside, hoping it would fix things, but Brad was still unhinged, still thinking Anna was dead. With their mother out of the house for a bit, Anna now fears that Brad will finish the job.

Cory returns to the Corwin house and hears Anna being assaulted by Brad. He arrives in time and wrestles with Brad, eventually getting the advantage by smashing a vase over his head. Anna seems relieved, but then takes him up to her room. She grabs a letter opener and tells Cory to finish the job, to kill Brad. When he refuses, she begins to attack him with the knife. She lunges at him, sending him flying through her window. Cory manages to grab the windowsill in time and returns to the room. He manages to subdue Anna when Brad enters the room. 

Brad tells Cory that he was trying to warn him to stay away from her. When he said that Anna was dead, it's because she really was. The girl in the room is Willa. Willa was always jealous of Anna, so she pushed her down the steps and tried to assume her identity. He learned of what Willa was trying to do so he tried to stop her, while trying to keep Cory away. Cory then asks about pushing Lisa down the stairs, but he says that he thought it was Willa and that was an accident. They call the police to put Willa away. And the book ends with Cory and Lisa, now a couple, happy to be past this whole ordeal.

The New Girl is okay for a first book. Its strengths is that it flows well for a 168 page story and does feel like it delivers on suspense and some horror. What I think works is the story's ultimate twist. That we go into this story thinking that Anna is a ghost. That the book's concept is a supernatural being, only for it to be more sinister with a girl who not only killed her sister but tried to steal her identity. I do wish the book didn't open with that prologue, since it really killed that big twist. I mean, we realize that whoever shoved Anna was obsessed with her looks and popularity and it wouldn't make sense for it to be Brad. Definitely a case where Stine could have cut that and it wouldn't have hurt the book at all.

I'm not the biggest fan of our protagonist Cory, if only for the fact that his obsession with Anna just feels creepy. Almost stalker like. Granted, he's not the villain of this story, but it leaves me just feeling like he's just as bad as Willa, or even the perception of Brad that we get in the story. Or even worse. Obsessed to a sexual manner, and in many ways feeling like he's trying to be her white knight. That he has to be the one who saves her when no one else can. I get it. It's a late eighties teen horror novel, but it hasn't aged that well to me. And I have a feeling I'm going to have to get used to that as I delve deeper into Fear Street. But given that I'm dealing with a story that looks at mental health in a poor light, maybe I gotta get used to a lot of what's to come, huh?

I also feel like the dog and the man seem oddly added. Like I thought maybe they'd be the father that left the Corwin family, but we never get anything from him other than exposition about "aren't those Corwins weird?" And while Fear Street is a neat concept, I don't think it's as well used as I'd expect, save for giving us small little info on how weird it is, and setting up the story of its origins and Simon Fear. Stuff to at least keep the readers interested as we go further. Pepper in what you can and keep em hooked. Reader beware indeed.

In the end, I leave feeling positive. Definitely interested in seeing what I have coming to me in the future with Fear Street. But for our first foray, it's not perfect, but for a "pilot" it'll do. The New Girl gets a B+.