It's getting cold outside. Winter is vastly approaching. Which means it's time to warm up with some more Fear Street. Though, granted, the next few books I plan to cover have their settings around Wintertime, so maybe we'll be feeling colder when we finish than when we start. When I first started reading Fear Street for the blog, this was one of the first ones I ended up getting, but has stayed in the back for a while, unread and yet to be covered. What better time than now, huh? Let's play a little Truth or Dare.
Never has a book checked the "rich and white" box quicker than literally opening with our cast in a white limousine. Well in fairness, only Dara Harker is rich. Our other characters, Ken Knight, Jenny "Fly Away" Byrd, Josh Berman and the main protagonist April Leeds, are all riding her limo on their way to her luxury ski condo. Dara isn't with them as she apparently drove up to the condo on her own in her Jeep, which the kids argue may be a Renegade or Grand Cherokee.
Most of the kids are very loosely connected to Dara, mainly just knowing her from school since she recently moved to Shadyside. Josh, however, knows her mainly because Dara's dad and his dad work in the same law firm. While April tries to get Josh to be more talkative, Jenny calls up Corky Corcoran from the phone, giving us our character callback for the book. Jenny's really excited to be calling from inside a limo. Definitely cooler than whatever Corky's up to. Something about an evil spirit that just won't die I wager.
Everyone makes it to Dara's condo. It's a gigantic house. Bigger than the kids expected. Yet April notes how there doesn't appear to be anyone else with Dara, especially no parents. And speaking of Dara, she arrives in her Jeep. She seems to really hope for the snow to fall so they can do a snow dance. She also seems cold towards Josh, seemingly not being that thrilled he's there. Everyone enters and there's indeed another boy and girl inside making out. This is Tony Macedo and his girlfriend Carly Rae. Hey, they just met them and this is crazy, but Tony picked the wrong week, and was supposed to be up here next week maybe. Turns out that his family rents the condo every other week.
Dara seems to not like Tony, telling the others that he's trouble. Dara wants Tony gone, but given the state of things and the impending storm, they're all going to just hunker in the bunker for the night. Everyone gets settled into their guest bedrooms then all meet back up in the living room. We get a little more info on April. She had a bad breakup a while ago, her mother lost her job meaning there's money problems, and she had the flu for two weeks. I know, I know, 1995 book, but come on, you're thinking it too.
Given that most of them don't know each other well, particularly with Dara and Josh, who is still nervous around Dara, Ken suggests they play a game of Truth or Dare. Josh is against it, but Dara thinks it'll be a a fun thing to do as she's still desperate for the snow to start coming down. Dara asks the questions. She asks Ken what was the worst thing he did, to which he admits that while at a comic shop, he saw a kid drop a ten dollar bill. Ken took that bill and kept it for himself. Dara finds that boring, so she moves over to April asking for the most embarrassing make-out story, to which April replies kissing a boy while still chewing gum and it getting caught in the boy's throat. Ah, the old "Death by Wrigley's".
April asks about Dara's most embarrassing kiss when Josh suddenly gets up and is literally about to stab Dara with a hot poker, then just leaves. Well that's concerning. But back to the game, I guess. After Dara gets Josh back with the group she apologizes for embarrassing him, and Josh acts more nervous than he already was. Dara asks April about her biggest secret, to which April begins to talk about something involving a girl at Sumner Island, when Tony scares them. We get no answer about that as Tony decides to take the first dare of the night. And he's down for anything.
The snow is finally falling which gives Dara the idea for her dare. Tony had thrown a frisbee up on the roof of the condo, so she dares him to go up and retrieve it. Despite everyone else realizing this might be a really bad idea in the midst of a snowstorm, Tony is cool with doing it. He climbs up and tries to retrieve the frisbee, but begins to slip and fall off the roof. Fortunately he grabs the edge and makes his way down with little to no injury. But he's given up on the game after that. Dara then decides that a snowstorm is a perfect time to walk through the woods below the hill. As they go down, April is still thinking about the incident on Sumner Island.
We learn that the previous summer, April was on Sumner Island when she spotted Ken there as well, kissing someone who wasn't his girlfriend Jenny. Some girl in a blue bikini, but she can't make out the face. Despite seeing Ken cheating on Jenny, April opted to keep it to herself, hence the guilt. After the walk in the woods, everyone gets ready for bed, except for Dara who goes out for firewood. When April awakens the next day, just as the blizzard is beginning to pick up. The group soon discover that both Dara and Josh are nowhere to be seen. And going by how neat their rooms are, they haven't been around all night. And the Jeep's gone as well,
Tony tells April that Dara and Josh were indeed a couple for a bit. Though Josh was more into Dara than the other way around. He suspects nothing sinister afoot, but maybe they drove off to talk and are at one of the nearby ski lodges. The others suggest calling the cops, but Tony tells them not to, given that he and Carly are up in the condo without their parents knowing. April then sees something fall off the roof and panics, but they discover that it was just some snow from the storm. After a while, they begin to hear loud knocks at the back door, but when they check, there's no one outside. They then notice the ski locker on the porch that's partly open, that then opens some more as something falls out of it. It's Dara, or to be more precise, her corpse.
Everyone panics and again they suggest that they should call the cops, but Tony is again against it, though this time he tells them that the phone line is conveniently just as dead as Dara. April and the others think Josh may have died as well, but find it odd that there's no footprints outside. Tony, however, thinks Josh may have been the murderer, which given the whole incident with the game, that's not the weakest theory. They search Josh's room, but his stuff is still there. So if he, say, killed Dara and drove off in the Jeep, he either was in a hurry or forgot his stuff. They then search Dara's room for any clues. That's when April finds a piece of paper, written by Josh, about wanting to meet with Dara one more time at midnight. So, it seems they have enough proof that it was him. I mean, it could always be forged or, you know, there's another, more obvious killer, but we're at the halfway mark so we're not ready for that reveal.
So, stuck in a huge mansion in the middle of a snowstorm, no vehicles to drive off in and no means of outside communication, not to mention a killer on the loose has the kids in a panic, particularly Jenny. Tony suggests finding a gun that belongs to Dara's dad, but everyone else pretty much thinks that Tony, who already isn't very trustworthy, carrying around a gun won't help matters. Everyone retires for bed, but April soon hears the sounds of creaking floorboards and believes that Josh has come back. She grabs a ski pole to attack him, but it's just Tony. He seems freaked out and claims that he was just walking around because he thought Josh came back, but even April doesn't buy it.
Tony then reveals what we all pretty much knew, he dated Dara for a brief period. So did Josh, but he clearly didn't handle the breakup well. This finally calms April down, until she discovers Josh is outside. He's still alive and enters the mansion, frozen and disoriented, seemingly out cold in the cold the entire day. Tony presses on him to admit that he killed Dara, but Josh is just confused and has no idea what's happening. When he comes to his senses, he panics, freaking out that Dara's been killed. The others then show him the note, but Josh says that the note isn't his, it's not his handwriting.
Despite that, everyone but April believes Josh to be the killer. Which, given he did steal the Jeep that night doesn't help matters. But despite all of his claims, nobody wants to believe he's innocent. He claims to have left the lodge earlier in the day in the Jeep, but the conditions caused him to crash the Jeep and leave him stranded for a while in the blizzard. But he managed to walk back on his own. Again, only April seems to believe his claims, now worried that there's another murderer in the house, and if I'm right, I think I know who it is already given the pieces of info so far. But let's press on.
The next day, as April wakes up, she runs into Ken who wants to talk about something. Fearing it's about Sumner Island, she takes her leave, only to find Josh raiding her dresser. He's searching for the red pen that was used to write the note and so far has had no luck. April's had enough of the lodge and goes to leave, but when she checks her closet she finds her parka is missing, only to realize "oh god, Dara wore it on the night of her murder". It now makes her realize something else. If Dara wore the parka that night, nobody would have recognized her as Dara, but as April, which means the killer's target was not Dara, but her.
April now has more motivation to run off, so she swipes Ken's parka and starts to run out in the snow. It doesn't take long for her to start freezing. She sticks her hands into the pockets, only to end up finding something inside. A red pen, just like the one that wrote the letter. This seems to suggest Ken was our killer. That thanks to the truth or dare game, Ken now knows that April knew something about his affair on Sumner Island. And sure enough, Ken shows up to take her back to the lodge. Knowing she can't do anything to stop him, she plays along, even mentioning that she knows about his fling but she never told Jenny about it. He apologizes as they head back.
Back at the lodge, April tries to tell Jenny about Ken, but they get interrupted by Carly. But April does manage to get Jenny to come and escape with her on this second attempt. This time using skis. They eventually make it to the ski resort nearby and to the ski lifts, meaning we're getting to the events of the cover. The two make it up high in the lift as Jenny then apologizes to April before trying to shove her off the bench. Because it was actually Jenny who was our culprit this whole time.
So, why did Jenny do all of this? During the game, when April mentioned Sumner Island, Jenny realized that means that she knew about the girl. The girl that Ken made out with. The girl, Barbara. No-no frigging way, Bob. Ken and Barbara? KEN AND BARBIE? Anyway, Barbara and Ken were still seeing each other after the summer, even when he told Jenny that it wasn't going on anymore. So, Jenny went to meet with Barbara and well, one thing led to another and she murdered Barbara in a blind rage. You know how it goes. And given that the case was never solved, Jenny has been trying to hide the truth ever since. When she learned that April knew, she tried to kill her that night, only to kill Dara by mistake. To ensure she didn't take the fall for this murder, she wrote the fake note from Josh.
April says that she actually knew none of this, just the girl on the island. Nothing about the murders. But Jenny's over the edge now. As is April as Jenny shoves her off the ski bench. Only she doesn't die as the bench was close to the snow. But Jenny gets off the lift and grabs a ski pole, ready to stab April. Suddenly, the chair of a ski lift bench smacks her in the back of the head and knocks her loopy. Ken shows up and reveals that he found the pen in his pocket and soon clued in to what was going on. That Jenny was responsible. He tried to warn April, but, you know, plot convenience. He says that the truth or dare game revealed too much truth. Maybe next time April should take the dare, but April says she'll stick with Trivial Pursuit. Try the veal and tip your waitress, good night folks!
I will say the biggest downsides are a very bland cast of characters. April's fine, but doesn't feel that special either. Everyone else plays their part well. And, again, the real lack of the truth or dare game after its stay early on, as well as like one dare. One dare? That's all you got, Stine? That aside, I liked its flow, and honestly felt like this is the book I wished Ski Weekend was. Hell, we got actual skiing in this one. We couldn't even get that in the book with Ski in the title, so bravo Stine. If this was a make good, then mission accomplished. Though, dude, really? Ken and Barbie? Like, it's better than "Hat" I guess.
In the end, this one's a recommend. It's not amazing, and it's definitely still a victim of weak tropes and basic writing, but I do feel compared to other attempts at this story from R.L. Stine, this one actually does work well enough. And from the book I didn't think I'd be that interested in when I got it. Well, time makes fools of us all. At least the cover paid off more than Cheerleaders: The New Evil did. Yeesh. Truth or Dare gets an A-.
It Was Acceptable in the 90s: Getting really excited about using a phone in a limo.
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