The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: The Perfect Date

It's been a bit since we've traveled through Shadyside and it's high time for another drive. Can't say this one is one I'm super invested in, mainly since it already feels like we're in for a mystery story and Stine can be super shaky on them. Though he's given out the odd hit, so maybe we're in for luck? Only one way to find out. It's time to talk about The Perfect Date.

So Fear Street uses a mixture of styles for their covers. Most of the time we get illustrated covers but we do get the occasional photo image. And even more often than not we have no clue who the people on the cover are. Just people hired to model for the cover art. But in this case we have an answer as to who these two are, more specifically the boy on the right. Why that is none other than the Jovial Progeny of Jovial Bob, Matt Stine! Yes, Matt actually featured on this cover (I think he's in at least another one I believe) and our knife wielder is his then girlfriend. So at least that gives us more trivia than these normally do. 

And it's a cute picture... until you notice the knife which means it's not going to be as cute in a few moments. If I have a complaint it's the background's pretty bland. Clouds and a full moon and nothing else. Really gives the feel of snapping this in front of a screen and calling it a day. Still decent than some others in this series I guess.

We open this book with a prologue as Brady Karlin is out with his girlfriend Sharon Noles a day after a big snowstorm in Shadyside, meaning that it's the perfect weather to go sledding. Interestingly, every time we go skiing or sledding, that's a sign that something horrible is about to happen. Brady comments that Sharon's nose is as red as Rudolph's then kisses it as they ready themselves to ride down Miller Hill. Or Killer Hill as Sharon calls it. They clearly didn't check for a good sledding spot on the hill as the pair have to dodge thorn bushes and pine trees. Sharon's sled suddenly goes out of control and she disappears from Brady's sight. He soon finds her at the bottom of the hill, but he doesn't find her face as it's been torn pretty much clean off due to the thorn bushes and metal runners. So, maybe Killer Hill's a good name, but Ironic Fate Hill has a good ring to it.

Cut to one year later. Brady's sort of moved on from, you know, his girlfriend being killed, and is in a relationship with Allie Stoner, but isn't as into it, feeling that Allie is more serious than him, so it totally won't work out. Brady then notices a girl enter Pete's Pizza and he can't keep his eyes off her. To him, she's a perfect vision. His friend Jon Davis warns him against it, but Brady can't help but go over to talk to her. She introduces herself as Rosha Nelson. She doesn't go to Shadyside High, but rather St. Ann's, the private school. So unless this is an alibi that ticks off the "Rich and White" boxes for this book. Brady finds her name suspicious, but Rosha claims her mother was a big romance novel person and got it from some book. Don't worry. If we make it another decade a lot of Khaleesis are going to have to explain the same thing. 

As they exchange information, Brady suddenly feels his hand is on fire. That's because Rosha spilled coffee on his hand. I'm old enough to hear the words hot coffee and think of something else. But despite the possible need for a skin graft, Brady still has a date with her on Saturday. What could go wrong? Except that he runs into Allie not too long after. And instead of just telling her he's breaking up with her, he claims to be unable to go out with her because he's babysitting his cousin Chucky. Whether the kid is actually a killer doll is up in the air. After saying he'll study with Allie and Jon on Sunday, he leaves, still thinking of Rosha, the first girl he's had this level of feelings for since the death of Sharon, which despite my early statement he hasn't really been able to move on from. I mean when you stick your hand into a pile of goo that was your girlfriend's face, you kind of don't.

Saturday comes and Brady meets Rosha at the mall. Despite saying she would be shopping with her mother, there's no sign of Mrs. Nelson, nor any bags from anywhere, which Rosha claims is just not finding anything interesting. We're still on I'd say light green warning lights at this point. They talk about how it feels like fate that the two met, which Rosha believes more so than Brady. The two head to the movies when Brady spots a girl in the shadows. Her face scarred up like Nick Gage had a little too much fun with the pizza cutter (There's my one wrestling reference a blog on time). He wonders who it could be, even though we established that someone in this book is already missing her face, but I know, I know, still early. 

The two leave the movies and Rosha drives Brady's car, or more technically his dad's car which he's concerned about damaging for obvious Ferris Bueller-esque reasons. Doesn't help that Rosha puts full pedal to the metal and drives like a maniac. Suddenly, Brady notices an oncoming patch of ice and tells her to slow down, but suddenly she can't get the gas pedal unstuck. Sure enough the car crashes and Brady passes out. When Rosha wakes him up he sees that they indeed crashed, only into another car so this is about to get much worse. As cop cars arrive and Rosha tells Brady to take the fall since she doesn't have a license. Brady, still in love with her and most likely sporting a concussion, simps for her and takes the fall. Cops arrive and Brady manages to blame it on the ice patch. However, it turns out that Rosha split first chance she got so only he's taking the fall.

But surprisingly Brady doesn't get in too much trouble for it given the situation. And you know that simp comment I made earlier, Brady just thinks Rosha bailed because she was scared of getting in trouble. And, of course, he's still spinning the whole web of lies with Allie instead of just breaking up with her, in case you thought there'd be any reason to like this guy. Brady and Jon head to Allie's to study and he continues to give some really flimsy excuses as to why instead of babysitting his cousin, he nearly had an adventure through the windshield glass. 

Wanting to know what's up with Rosha, Brady then decides to leave and see if he can find her in the phonebook. As he heads home he sees a cop car pull up behind him. He panics, thinking that maybe the cop knows what really happened that night, but he actually showed up to give Brady a bag that was found in the car wreck. Brady takes it, thinking there'll be Rosha's ID and other incriminating evidence inside (which makes it odd the cop didn't check it first but whatever). But when he opens it, it's empty. The phone then rings. It's Allie checking up on him and to remind him of a party at Mei Kamata's the following Saturday which I'm sure is going to go just fine. No possible chance that Brady gets another date with Rosha that night. There's even a vacant lot that gets turned into an ice skating rink next door. One positive to that is it's not on the lake where an evil spirit may or may not still reside.

After talking to Allie, Brady begins to call every Nelson in the area. The phone rings again. The voice isn't Rosha or Allie, but another girl telling him to stay away from Rosha. At school, Brady again avoids Allie and talks with Jon about heading over to St. Ann's to see if Rosha's there. He tells him to drive him there, but Jon is already sick of Brady's obsession with Rosha and what it's turning him into. So, no drive is what I'm getting at. He arrives at St. Ann's and asks for a Rosha Nelson, but a student at the school says he never heard of any Rosha Nelson in the school. Brady doesn't believe that because if he's obsessed with Rosha then I guess everyone must be, so he freaks out at the boy. He's about to punch him, but the boy escapes on the nearest school bus. As Brady leaves, he sees a girl who looks like Rosha, but when she turns around her face is scarred.

The scarred girl starts toward Brady and he makes a run for it, only to crash in the actual Rosha. He mentions about how she was nowhere to be found at St. Ann's or how the boy didn't know about her, to which Rosha does say that of course a total stranger wouldn't know her. So that alibi's still semi-tight. He gives her back the empty bag and she claims that of course there's nothing inside because she took the wrong bag to the mall that night. She asks to see him on Saturday, which he agrees too, then remembers his promise to Allie. So unless we can be in two places at once, Brady's in trouble one way or the other. As he ponders how much of a douchebag he'll be to Allie, the girl calls again and warns him, but he just tells her to leave him alone.

The next day at the school weight room, Brady tells Jon about the scarred girl and the phone calls, believing them to be one and the same. In the midst of this to add with the burned hand and head wound, his weights slip on him and the barbell lands on his chest. Though at this point, given that this guy sucks, I'm not so upset that he continues to get hurt. He then sees the scarred girl outside the window, but Jon doesn't see her. Brady starts to figure out what we all realized. The scarred girl looks like Sharon. But Sharon died when she crashed. She... she did die right? 

Brady goes to check on Rosha. He tries the phone number she gave him, but that gets him nowhere. So he goes to her house which is on, where else, Fear Street. 7142 Fear Street to be exact. However when he arrives on Fear Street. There's no 7142. In fact where there should be the house is just a vacant lot. He heads home and is about to study when Rosha shows up at his front porch. He asks about the address, she says it's not 7142, it's 1142. The phone number she blames on the phone company, like she barely tries with that one. Hey, things aren't awkward enough right now, so it's high time for Allie to show up so he has Rosha leave out the back. Only suddenly, Rosha starts to trip on the carpet. When Brady grabs her, he feels a stabbing sensation. As in the letter opener that Rosha just stabbed him with. Hey, the cover sort of happened.

Rosha apologizes for the whole stabbing incident just as Allie shows up to see her boyfriend with a gaping wound in his side. The two girls argue until Rosha says that right now it's more important for Brady to go to the hospital. Brady soon wakes up in the hospital, still confused about everything when the scarred girl shows up. She tries to warn Brady about Rosha. That Rosha is out to kill him. She's about to reveal who Rosha really is, but there's still around 40 pages left so cue a doctor to throw her out due to no visitors. 

As Brady heads home, he's still in denial about everything. The scarred girl is probably wrong like everyone else. Rosha isn't evil, it was just an accident how she managed to grab a letter opener and just jab it right in at that point in time. Allie shows up. She's well aware by now of all the bullshit that Brady's pedaled on her the past few weeks. They break up and Allie leaves. Brady soon gets a call from Jon saying that the scarred girl is at her place and that Brady has to go to his place immediately. However, when Brady arrives, he sees cops at the house. Jon's dead. His throat crushed with a giant marble candlestick. What is this, frigging Clue?

Brady cooperates with the cops and tells them everything he knows. About the scarred girl and the warning about Rosha. He then heads home, sad about Jon, when he sees he got an answering machine call from Rosha, reminding him about the date at the park. He heads to the park, now intent on finally getting any answers. He specifically heads to the top of Miller Hill because of course. He finds Rosha up there and she tells him how beautiful the hill looks... just like on the day they went sledding! Yep, Rosha Nelson is Sharon Noles. Brady doesn't believe her, but she mentions how the name Rosha Nelson is an anagram for Sharon Noles. Credit where credit's due, for a villain she's pretty damn clever.

So, why is this happening? Well, Sharon didn't want to go sledding that day and what happened still ended up happening. So, Sharon did actually die, but she came back from the dead and managed to switch her body with someone else's to plot her revenge. And she enacts that revenge by strangling Brady, That is until the scarred girl shows up. The girl in Sharon's body. The girls brawl and eventually they start to literally tear off each other's body parts and then break each other's neck. Wait, what the hell? And then Brady passes out.

When he comes to, Brady heads to Allie's house to apologize to her. Ultimately, despite all the crap he put her through, she does. She then notices that his hands and lips are freezing. Oh, that's because Brady's dead now too and is a zombie, I guess? Man, this book fell off a cliff.

This is another book that is one of Stine's favorites. Compared to The Face, this one is one that I think almost works. Granted, it goes down the route that so many of these books go that the outcome of it being Sharon in some way becomes super obvious. I am glad that my fears of it going the evil twin route didn't happen. But what the hell was that ending? This feels like Stine either didn't have a more plausible way to reveal it as Sharon or he felt that given Fear Street can be a location where supernatural events are possible that having the reveal be a weird zombie body swap thing was also possible to do. I mean, the Cheerleaders books thrived on supernatural possession. But even with that reveal, this one was far more clunky and rushed. But, I'll take it over evil twins again.

Brady sucks, but that's also the point. His obsession and deceit has to happen for the story to progress. Without that we don't have the stakes that we ultimately get. But that doesn't excuse treating Allie like garbage. Nor does it really feel like Allie should forgive him so easily. Even if he ended up actually dying that night. As for the book itself, its pacing is fine, its scares work well enough. And points to Rosha/Sharon, she's really good at her alibis and really thought this plan through. And, given her literally dying thanks to him, her revenge on Brady makes sense. So that all works out. 

In the end, The Perfect Date is just fine. Far from the most clever take on the concept, but still works for a fun read. If it didn't fall apart by the end, it would have been more in the high spots, but I can't say it was the worst read ever. As serviceable a Fear Street as you could ask for. The Perfect Date gets a B.