The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: Final Grade

I think we're a little cheered out after our last three trips to Shadyside. Not that I'm not loving the cheerleaders saga or anything, but it's always good to go and see what other insanity is infesting Shadyside. And we're about a month away from School being back in session. So let's get schooled with out next book, Final Grade.

The cover is okay. Just the right level of goofball camp that you expect from a Fear Street cover. I like the weird implication that it looks like the girl, our protagonist Lily Bancroft, either just shoved her teacher or is about to go for the chokehold. And the little touch like the shocked expression and the teacher's tie being flipped around like that is a nice touch. Overall, a just okay cover.

Lily Bancroft has a problem with her social science teacher, the rather young and handsome Mr. Reiner. Even though she got all her answers right on her test, he still gives her a B because she didn't elaborate her answers enough for a better grade. Wow, two pages in and he's this kind of teacher, oh god. All the other girls in class really love Mr. Reiner, but Lily can't stand him because, as evident, dude's pretty damn arrogant. As Mr. Reiner focuses on the blinking florescent light and talks about the honor system, Lily then just full on strangles him to death. Of course that was just a dream. That was a just a dream. That's me in the corner...

No, Lily doesn't actually choke him, but she's sure ready to be rid of this guy. She's kicked out of the trance by her friend Julie Prince. When Lily mentions the word "murder", she worries if that might trigger Julie, given that her brother was murdered in an armed robbery of a grocery store. Julie also is really interested in mystery books ever since then as well. Lily's in a worry because that B grade could cause her to not get the Shadyside Honors Scholarship that her parents want her to get, which could mean goodbye any good university. Not only that, but Lily's sisters, Becky and Melinda, also graduated top of their class, so it's a burden that's expected of Lily as well.  

Lily's boyfriend (who used to be Julie's the year prior), Alex Crofts sneaks up on her because in these damn books nobody just walks up front. When she mentions Mr. Reiner, he says that Reiner's tough, but not a bad guy. Meanwhile, Julie's boyfriend Scott Morris, editor of The Forum, a Shadyside High literary magazine, shows up. All four of them are actually part of this paper. Lily then has to go to her Uncle Bob's drugstore to work, but not before Graham Prince, Julie's cousin, shows up to pretty much gloat about his grades and how he's going to ace the upcoming trivia contest. 

Lily goes to work at the counter, when suddenly an armed robber shows up, which feels a lot like what happened to Julie's brother. Uncle Bob sees the commotion and heads to the register, pulling out a gun of his own and pointing it at the robber. The robber lowers his gun and runs off, while Rick Campbell, the store's delivery boy, runs off as well. Lily calls 9-1-1 when Rick returns, saying he lost the robber in the alley. Well that's not suspicious at all. Rick tries to hit on Lily who changes the subject to what a hardass Mr. Reiner is. Before Rick can tells her what to do about that, he's called to do a delivery. 

Lily heads home to, where else, Fear Street, still worried about the robber being on the loose. Suddenly, someone leaps out of the bushes. It's Alex who decided to ramp things up from the whole "sneak up" thing earlier. She tells him about everything, and he helps take her home. At home, she's greeted by her father who puts more of the pressure on her about being valedictorian. It's here we also learn that Lily's mom had a stroke a while back, so that too adds more weight on her shoulders as she worries what failure would do to her mother. Like geez, we get it. Sisyphus would look at all the weight Lily is carrying and be like "Damn, that looks heavy". Lily then gets a phone call from someone who says they know a lot about her, before hanging up. You know, caller ID really killed this trope, didn't it? 

The next day, Lily goes to Mr. Reiner's class, only to find him dead. And, like, not another dream either. Reiner's a corpse. And of course everyone thinks Lily did it, given her anger and even saying she'd love to murder him. But, as a positive, the new teacher, Mr. Burris, gives Lily a second chance at being valedictorian, so good outweighing bad? I mean, people think she's a murderer, but, you know, rich and white. Even Graham gets some digs at her, how with Reiner dead she'll be getting that A in social science. That night, Lily gets another call, but now she's sure it's Graham who is messing with her.

At the magazine meeting, Scott tells Lily to go to the printing plant later that night, while there's tension with Alex thinking that Scott and Lily are becoming an item. At the drugstore later, Rick again tries to hit on Lily, this time being more forceful and even making comments about Lily killing Mr. Reiner. After that, she finally gets to the printing plant, only for one of the giant paper rolls to almost crush her. Everyone, including the foreman, are confused as to what happened, but Lily notices Graham seems to be acting more confident than normal. And given everything so far, that is a hell of a lot of confidence. Later that night, another call. The voice saying that he wants to help her. It just leaves Lily more confused as to what's going on.

The trivia contest takes place as it's Graham vs Lily to see who will represent Shadyside. Graham continues to gloat and mock Lily, which eventually screws her up and costs her the contest. Frustrated, she leaves the school gym when she's caught by Rick who admits to calling her at night. Or, at least he tried to call her, but lost confidence before he can get the job done. Lily doesn't buy it and runs off. Though coincidentally, she doesn't get a call that night. Lily's issues get worse the next day as she sees that Graham is now head of the class with straight A's, while her A- hasn't helped matters. 

The next night at the printing plant, as Lily's working on the magazine, she learns the answer to the riddle "What's black and white and red all over?" Why, it's the papers covered in Graham's blood. Yup. Graham's dead. Crushed under the press. She gets Graham's corpse out from under the press, which is just around the same time Scott shows up and sees the scene. So, those suspicions aren't going away any time soon. But police suspect it was an accident because, you know, rich and white. Yeah, he just accidentally fell into a printing press. Well, at least she's valedictorian again. Bitter with the sweet?

But her paranoia is starting to get to her as well. At Graham's funeral, she imagines his corpse springing back to life to blame her. But given that everyone else seems to blame Lily, including Julie, it's not like the real world's any better. She runs home and cries in her bed, confused as to why all this is happening, only to then find Graham's glasses in her purse. Scott arrives and he admits that he was the one who put the glasses in there. In fact, he's the one who killed Graham. He did it for her. Just like how he kept calling her every night. He's always had feelings for her since grade school, but never had the nerve to tell her. Lily is understandably freaked out by this, but Scott warns her not to turn him in, given that he's already killed once. Which must mean he didn't kill Mr. Reiner? I mean we are 89 pages deep in this 148 page book so there's still time for another shoe to drop. The... the other shoe drops, right?

After the magazine meeting the next day, Julie apologizes for being so cold to Lily after Graham's death, but says it was because she was jealous of the relationship between Lily and Alex. On the subject of Graham however, Julie doesn't believe it was an accident, given her interest in mysteries she can believe that it was deliberate. She still blames herself for not being able to solve her brother's murder, but she vows to do so for her cousin. Scott calls Lily the next night and tries to get her to break up with Alex, and says that if Julie suspects him, he'll blame Lily. He says that they're together in this forever. 

So, Lily is now forced to go on a date with Scott. Go to the movies, get pizza and go to a ool hall (not a typo, the neon sign of the pool hall is broken, but I did double take for a sec). Rick shows up for a moment which makes Scott jealous. He warns Lily not to have any other men in the picture, lest another murder occurs. After the date, Lily realizes that this is going to go on forever unless she does something about it. And that something is murder Scott. I mean, other people think she's a murderer, why not just confirm that?

At the magazine meeting, Scott gloats about his date with Lily, which causes Alex to break up with her. So add that to the reasons to turn Scott into a corpse, I guess. Later, Julie tells Lily that she might know who murdered Graham, because whoever was there that night left a message on the answering machine. She just has to get the tape from the plant. Scott shows up at the drugstore and forces Lily to kiss him, while promising that she can't ever get away from him. She then tells him that Julie may have the smoking gun to finally bust Scott, so Scott tells Lily that Julie will have to be next to die. He tries to force Lily to call Julie. Julie grabs the gun under the drugstore counter, but Scott grabs it from her. So that plan failed.

The two head to the printing plant and wait for Julie. When Julie arrives, Lily yells for her to run, but Julie's confused. Scott then pulls the gun on Julie and admits to killing Graham, just like he's about to kill her. He then calls Lily his accomplice, which, you know, despite Scott being off the deep end, Julie kind of starts to believe. Which is screwed up, but again it's not like there's not reason to believe that. Lily manages to save Julie momentarily, but Scott still manages to shoot her. Lily manages to get the gun from Scott and tries to force him to call the cops on himself, but he says he'll just blame her anyway. 

Suddenly, Julie gets up, grabs a metal bar and smashes it over Scott's head, knocking him down and busting his head open. Turns out she wasn't shot after all. As they celebrate, Scott starts to grab at Julie before collapsing. Uncle Bob and Rick arrive after the police questioning. Julie seems smitten with Rick, which given how forceful he was with Lily, I don't know if that's a good ending. But at least Lily still has a chance at being valedictorian. 

Final Grade is okay. If anything, it feels like a redo of The Cheater, but nowhere as good as that one. Both feature a girl who is suffering from having to exceed expectations at school and failing, who ends up being blackmailed by a boy who is infatuated with her to a deadly and violent level. Notable difference is the main villain of this book doesn't get killed mid-story. There's also this feeling like crucial stuff is left on the cutting room floor. We get no answer as to how Mr. Reiner died. Scott never confesses to it, and it's referred to as an accident. For being the focus of the book's cover only for it to matter so little to the overall plot, that feels kind of weak. And then there's the whole robbery thing. We never get an answer to that. It just happens and we never come back to it. Like, I thought we were going to end up with Rick as one of the villains working with the robber, but that just gets dropped and Rick just feels like a creep regardless.

Part of me feels there's a wall hit hard with this one. Once Stine got to liking the idea of Scott being the big bad murderer, much of what mattered beforehand goes to the wayside. Though thankfully what we get is far from bad either. Julie's a decent protagonist who you do feel bad for. Not just for the blackmail, but because she's another kid who feels pressured to excel in her schoolwork and to be a valedictorian. Again, similar to Carter from The Cheater. Scott's a decent villain. Not the most dynamic, but for a lovesick maniac he does the trick. I do wish Julie played more of a role in the book and that her whole mystery solving thing actually felt like it mattered. On the scares side, we get two deaths in the book, which even after coming off the Cheerleaders books feels rare for Fear Street. 

In the end, Final Grade is just okay, but doesn't feel too unique. It treads similar ground to some other Fear Street books while not feeling super derivative either. If Stine hadn't seemingly lost some of the plot and the book felt a bit more unique than most, I think it could have been a more memorable experience, but for what it is it's the very definition of a middle ground book. The final grade for Final Grade is a C+.

It was acceptable in the 90s: MTV, ool Halls, "The new Winona Ryder film"