Winter kind of sucks. And given I've recently covered a lot of Fear Street books set in the Wintertime, it's time to turn up the heat. We may not be there just yet, but it's time for a quick return to (Woo!) Party Summer. And we have a book involving the beach and summer, so I'm feeling warmer already. But it is a Fear Street Super Chiller, and usually those can be god awful, so will things heat up or will we get the could shoulder? Find out with High Tide.
Actually, turns out that some of the events did happen one year prior. Mitzi did fall off the scooter and Adam accidentally ran her over with the scooter, fracturing her skull and causing her to drown. Since then he's had the nightmares and continues to live with the guilt. He talks it over with his roommate Ian Schultz, who thinks maybe he should switch psychiatrists. Ian thinks Dr. Thall is more of a quack, mainly because he's always on TV shows hocking his services. But Adam thinks he's doing a fine enough job. And then Adam freaks out and thinks his legs disappeared. Wait what?
Turns out that Adam's been hallucinating as well, as Dr. Thall mentions that those seemed to have been cured for a while until this recent incident. Dr. Thall believes it may be because Adam blames himself for the death of Mitzi, and that being a lifeguard again might be triggering his trauma. But Adam doesn't want to live his life fearing the beach and having the death of Mitzi break him. It's why he's doing the lifeguard role again. To conquer this all. But Thall still thinks there's something deep in Adam's subconscious that's waiting to get out.
Adam heads to the beach to take over for Sean Cavanna, who is known to complain if Adam's late. He also talks with his new girlfriend Leslie Jordan and it's a cute relationship so far. He jokes about wanting the life of a beach bum before they leave. But as Adam starts to leave, he sees Mitzi and runs to her. Only her face turns into a skull and rotting flesh, seemingly smiling an evil smile at him. Well, one thing's for sure, Adam may think he's getting over all of this, but his brain clearly has other plans.
We then switch narration over to Sean, who holy creep he's a crap. Ogling a girl named Alyce Serkin before grabbing her and saying she loves it. Can-can we just go back to the guy with the hallucinations instead? Please Stine. There's still time. When he asks her out, she says she's busy, so he immediately snaps and says that if he sees her with another guy, he'll legit kill him. No, seriously, PLENTY OF TIME. Adam shows up and talks with Alyce, which makes Sean even more jealous. Then he tricks Adam into thinking a Shark ate a girl. Plenty of time, honestly. Yes, despite the incident last year, Sean still likes to screw with Adam's head. Alyce leaves, with Sean telling her that he'll be at her place at eight and she'd better be there. And if this book was better she'd be waiting there with a restraining order.
He then tells Adam the story about when he was going out with a girl named Cindy. One night he saw her cheating on him with a boy named Jay. And by "saw", I mean he literally stalked them from her place to the carnival. He then managed to get Jay into the woods and beat the crap out of him. So, you know, rational way to handle this. He realized that he could have killed Jay that night, but he restrained himself. It's why he's a lifeguard. He'd rather save lives than take them. He then warns Adam to stay away from Alyce lest things go bad.
We shift back to Adam for now. He heads home as Ian just ordered pizza and is about to leave on a date while wearing Adam's jeans and taking Adam's car. Turns out he's a bit of a moocher. A real J. Wellington Wimpy. Adam mentions that he has a date with a girl, but it's not Leslie. Oh great, let's just flush the redeeming qualities down the toilet ASAP. Ian mentions that Leslie won't like it as she tends to get jealous really easily. Adam takes a shower and hears the phone ringing. But when he steps out, he then sees Ian on the ground, dead. He's about to call 911, but when he looks again, Ian is gone. Another hallucination.
Adam answers the phone and hears Leslie on the other line. He mentions that he's still getting the hallucinations, to which Leslie also says that maybe Dr. Thall's not as great as Adam thinks. After hanging up, Adam begins to leave, but grabs an apple. He's about to eat it when the apple melts and turns into a weird skull, telling him to not let her drown. Okay, I don't know what other hallucinations are to come, but I have a hard time thinking we're going to top apple skull, here.
Back to Sean. He heads to Alyce's, confident that she'll be there and that she's crazy for him because holy hell I hate this guy. But her roommate Kathy tells him that she went out to the movies or something, which sets him off again. He heads to the movies and sees who Alyce is with, but we're not privy to the name yet, only that it's someone that Sean knows and he feels betrayed, because Sean is a controlling bitch. He tries to follow them, but a van is in their way. He runs into Leslie, who also saw who Alyce was with. In the midst of it, another teen gets in their way and Sean takes his rage out on him, beating him down. Why is it that the guy with the apple skull hallucinations is the more sane protagonist?
Next day at the beach, Sean sets flags up in the beach given the high tide that's coming. At least the title's delivering. Adam shows up and talks to Joy Bailey and Raina Foster, while Sean gives him he old death stare there. Ian's there as well trying to be a ladies man. We learn that Joy and Adam were a couple once before, until she dumped him for Gary Brandt. Adam tries to talk with Sean, but he gives him the cold shoulder. He soon looks in the water and sees someone on a water scooter about to crash into the rocks, but he then sees the the driver is himself! He talks about it with Dr. Thall who suggests some methods to try to get these thoughts out of his head.
Adam goes out for dinner with Joy and Raina and things seem to go smoothly. That is until Leslie shows up. She's not happy to see him with two girls, especially when she saw him with Alyce the previous night. Adam tries to say it was nothing serious, which I get this guy's got bad mental issues, but one thing he clearly doesn't have is a poker face. Leslie doesn't want to hear it from him and makes a promise that she'll find a way to hurt him back.
The next day, Sean throws the high tide flags at Adam like lawn darts. After that attempted murder, Joy and Raina show up wanting to go into the water despite the high tide. Adam says it's fine so long as they stay close to the beach. However, he soon sees the two further in the water, being caught by the current. And this time it's not a hallucination. It's actually happening! So this gives us our scene from the cover of the book, and like, it's an actual full scene here. Adam gets out to the two girls. Raina is in a bad way, but Joy is in a panic and won't cooperate. He tries to get them both to safety, but with Joy freaking out, he has to make a choice of which one he can take back to shore. He gets Raina to shore then goes back for Joy. But it's too late.
He blacks out and wakes up later as Ian confirms that this wasn't a dream or a hallucination. Raina's okay, but Joy drowned. So with the guilt of Mitzi already in his head, now having been the reason for two girls' deaths makes him feel even worse. Adam's shaken up about it, but tells Ian that he'll be fine alone. After Ian leaves, Adam gets another phone call. And it's just about that time of the book, so it's a whispery phone call saying he'll pay soon. He runs out to the beach just as a thick fog is passing over. He sees Joy... or to be more specific, Joy's ghost. She asks why he let her drown, then disappears. Adam at first thinks it's another hallucination, only he sees a set of footprints where Joy's ghost was. Unless these hallucinations are going next level, this might not be in his head after all.
Adam returns home and falls asleep, where he gets the same dream about Mitzi dying, however this time it's not Adam on the water scooter, but another guy he can't recognize. The next day, he gets a nightmare about Joy this time before getting another whispery call. He thinks it must either be Sean or Leslie getting back at him. He goes to talk with Leslie to clear the air over everything. But when he mentions Joy drowning, Leslie's confused. She didn't hear of any drowning, and it's not in the paper either. Adam checks and sure enough, nothing. Was Ian telling the truth, or has Adam been gaslit this whole time?
Panicked, Adam heads back to the beach and again thinks he sees Joy's ghost, but is unable to catch up to her. When he returns home, he finds something wrapped in one of his sweatshirts. A seagull with its head cut off. Because of course, Bob. The seagull also has a note attached saying that Adam is next. The next day, Raina shows up, thanking him for saving her life and saying she needs to show him something that night. Adam also runs into Sean, who is still being cold to him, but surprisingly hasn't beaten him up yet. When Adam mentions the seagull, Sean seems shocked, as if maybe he's not the one sending the threats. But, given all we know about this guy, maybe he did as well. Sean's an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in toxic masculinity.
Turns out that whole line about not wanting to beat up Adam was a bit too presumptuous because as Adam gets home, he sees someone in his house slashing up his room with a knife. It's Sean. He admits to sending the threats and the dead seagull, only they were for Ian. It was Ian who Sean saw with Alyce. I mean, duh. The book wouldn't hide that detail if it wasn't going to be Ian. See, given Ian constantly takes Adam's clothes, Sean went after him because he's a maniac, and that also means Leslie confused Ian for Adam, which is why she was mad. It's all one big, screwed up misunderstanding. He also tries to calm Sean down, saying that Ian runs around with girls all the time and never has any serious relationships. Sean then says that Alyce won't like hearing about that. Because in Fear Street all the women are super jealous all the time.
Adam runs into Ian and tells him that they'll talk after he meets with Raina at the dock. When he gets there, he soon sees Joy's ghost is there... or to be more specific, just Joy. Yeah, Joy never drowned. It was all an act. Turns out this was all the work of Dr. Thall. Thinking that Adam is holding something deep in his subconscious, he had Joy and Raina work towards bringing that triggering memory back up to the surface. Angered, he rides out to the ocean in a water scooter. He then sees another vision of Mitzi on the scooter with someone. And this time he recognizes who it is. It's Ian. It was Ian the entire time.
Ian arrives on his water scooter and we learn what happened. Given Ian's been borrowing everything Adam owned, of course he also "borrowed" Mitzi. And it was Ian who caused Mitzi to die on that fateful day, not Adam. When Adam saw what happened, he jumped on his water scooter and drove in circles. And in his panicked state, his mind broke, making him think he was the one responsible. And Ian let him keep thinking that, knowing it will get him off the hook for her death.
Ian rams his scooter into Adam, causing Adam to fall into the water. He tries to run Adam down, but Adam ducks under in time, just as Ian crashes into the other scooter. Suddenly, Ian's scooter runs over his leg, cutting it up badly. Adam grabs him in time and the two make it to shore. As Ian leaves in an ambulance, Adam talks with Sean and Alyce who are a couple now since they talked things over. No, no I don't like that at all. Oh and Adam and Leslie are back together again, so mega happy ending I guess?
Adam is an interesting protagonist. Not perfect by any means, but is at least someone you can sympathize with. His trauma, his hallucinations, his guilt for thinking he let Mitzi (and later Joy) die. It's more dimensions than you usually get with a Fear Street protagonist, especially a male one. He's less the horn dog or white knight that we often get with these male protags in particular. Sean however, Sean sucks. The exact opposite of Adam with no real redeeming qualities. Super jealous and ultra violent. A creep in many different ways. So no, I don't look at him being with Alyce as a happy ending at all. If this guy was enough of a scumbag to kill a seagull and beat the shit out of someone for being with "his girl", then no, I don't want this guy to have a happy ending. I'd rather Alyce get a restraining order already.
But given how over the top he gets, it also becomes obvious that he's not the main villain. Ian is the most logical one given how he treats Adam, taking everything from him without regards for Adam's feelings on things. So it makes sense that the one thing he'd give Adam is the belief that Adam was Mitzi's killer. And given he tried to intentionally kill Adam, I'm not so happy he gets to survive the story, regardless on how bad his leg is messed up. Another thing that earns High Tide high praise from me is the imagery. The bizarre hallucinations from Adam, the intense action in some of the scenes in the water. The general feel of dread that comes through in the story and some harrowing moments. They make sure that this book doesn't drag too much or feels like a slog to get through, and given this is a Super Chiller, that is more than appreciated.
So yeah, really liked this one. Reminds me a lot of Curtains given the entire plot revolves around guilt and a character who is grappling with the trauma of the death of a loved one. In terms of Fear Street, this also feels a bit like The Surprise Party as that also featured a character who took the guilt for a death they thought they were responsible for. But it feels fresh enough here. As for writing trauma in the story, Stine handles it well enough and doesn't go down his usual bad routes with it. And that's more than enough to give this one a high recommend. Although there really was no need for this to be a Super Chiller and some of it could have been trimmed without losing anything. But in the end, it's still a better read than most Super Chillers, so it all balances out. High Tide gets an A-.
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