The Stinal Countdown: Fear Street: What Holly Heard

Been a bit since we had a proper Fear Street book talked about, so let's get back on track. Book this time is, admittedly, not one that I think about a lot when I think of Fear Street. It's not exactly a title that hits on the same level of Night Games, Who Killed the Homecoming Queen or The Confession. Though more often than not when it's a book with a title I'm less interested in, that breeds some positivity? Let's find out What Holly Heard.

The cover is pretty bland honestly. But I guess when your title is about someone overhearing something, it's hard to make clear what that was exactly without giving too much away. But it's clear that whatever Holly heard, it was shocking. Though her face is less super shock and more dull surprise. The very definition of "It's a cover".

When it comes to gossips in Shadyside High, Holly Silva may be the biggest one. As is evident with how excited she is to tell her friends Miriam Maryles and Ruth Carter about what she heard. I... I mean that is the title of the book pretty much. Mei Kamata, one of the richest girls in school, got in a huge fight with her parents and is thinking of running away. Why? Because of a boy, of course. I mean this is Fear Street. That boy being Noah Brennan. Noah's known for being a bit of a wild child. He has a history of a bad attitude that even the jocks in school don't mess around with. And despite at first thinking that maybe Mei's parents were cool with Noah, things apparently went south. And Holly's hoping that Mei and Noah's relationship goes even more south as she's interested in Noah too. More so than her current boyfriend Gary Foster. So really this story should be called "Who Holly Cucked".

Noah shows up and Holly tries to talk with him, mostly getting in a chance to mention Noah's earring before Mei comes and takes him away. Holly is of course upset that she got upstaged by Mei, but is still crushing on Noah, despite both Miriam and Ruth knowing that Noah is bad news and maybe just settle for Gary. But we're too early into this book for that to happen. Holly wants Noah and she'll try to get him no matter what. And given that Mei is holding a party that night, this gives Holly her chance to drive a rift in between the two lovers, Gary be damned. Ruth is pissed about this and leaves, deciding she wants no part of whatever Holly has planned.

As Holly and Miriam talk, they run into Jed Holman, Miriam's boyfriend who is also acting like a miserable prick lately, especially since basketball season began. Miriam tells Jed about the party, but he has no real interest in going, but says he'll pick her up at eight. He leaves after seemingly stuffing something in his bag. Holly decides that she'll find out what Jed's hiding, but Miriam pleads with her not to spy on him. I mean, the title isn't "Who Holly Stalked". But Miriam gets some answers from Jed later about his attitude. Playoffs are stressing him, as are his aspirations for being on a college team. With scouts at the next game, he worries that if he messes up, he'll blow his one chance. So, at least a solid reason for someone being how they are. 

Miriam and Jed, along with Ruth and Miriam's cousin Patrick, meet up with Gary and Holly, who is wearing a dress so flashy, I'm surprised it doesn't have a "Please do me, Noah" sign sticking out of it. They dance for a bit until there's a scream and the lights go out. Turns out it's a blown fuse caused by the band for the party, the Dustmites. Look, it's no "2RUFF4U", but what really is? When the lights go up, Holly is now holding on to Noah like he's some sort of "thirst magnet", which of course pisses off Mei. Miriam's pissed as well even though, let's be honest, this was always Holly's plan. Holly says she's sorry and wouldn't mean to hurt Gary, but still loved doing it, so not actually sorry.

The next day Miriam and Ruth talk some more about the previous night with Ruth playing with her hamsters Tilly and Lizzy. So, you know, expect it. They're particularly annoyed by Holly given how she acted at the party. We also see that Ruth has a broken hammer that belonged to her late father, as well as a copy of Catcher in the Rye, which, okay. Hell of a title to drop. Holly shows up super happy, saying that after Miriam and Ruth left the party, some of Noah's friends showed up super drunk, were kicked out and T.P'ed the Kamata house. And due to that, Mei's parents were super pissed and no longer want Gary in their house again and affectively breaking the two up, which, yeah that's pretty fair. Of course Holly is in full schadenfreude mode over this meaning that now she'll bag Noah for sure.

This pisses Ruth off because again, Gary is just being treated like crap. Holly lashes out at her for never really having a proper boyfriend, so that makes things even more tense. Miriam and Holly head to the basketball game while Ruth stays home, just already sick of Holly. Things go well for Shadyside until Jed gets into a confrontation with one of the Waynesbridge players. And that confrontation leads to him going full Brock Lesnar vs Randy Orton Summerslam 2016 on him. And there's my one per blog. Jed beats the Waynesbridge player to a pulp and starts to strangle the kid until he's sent to the showers. Miriam is sickened by it, but is also confused about why Jed would do this. Which, we're not there yet for her to see the irony, but clearly Miriam's whole "into the bad boy" thing with Holly is a major case of glass houses right now.

As Holly spots Mei and Noah still together, Miriam goes to check on Jed in the locker room. He says that it was the Waynesbridge player who started it, even if it was Jed that finished it. Then in a rage, he grabs Miriam's hand and starts to almost break it, with a lot of glee on his face for doing so. He finally calms down, only to realize what he just did. He tries to apologize, but she runs off saying that if something like this ever happens, they're through. Miriam goes back to Holly, and we finally find out what the title of the book is alluding to. What Holly heard was Mei and Noah planning to kill Mei's mother. Well this escalated. 

Miriam thinks it's all hyperbole, that maybe Mei said she'd kill her mother out of anger, but won't commit to the idea. The next day, Miriam tells Ruth about the encounter with Jed, and even though yes, this is a serious red flag, she cares too much about Jed to let him go so easily. Miriam then tells Ruth about the whole "Mei's going to kill her mom" thing, and they both get a good laugh out of it. Especially since Mei Kamata isn't exactly the murderous type. Not too long into their little laugh session, however, Holly arrives and tells them that sure enough, Mei's mom is dead. She was found at the bottom of the staircase with her neck broken. Holly thinks Mei must have done it and they should call the cops, but Miriam doesn't buy that being the case. 

Noah shows up and says that he saw Holly that night around the time of the conversation. Normally, Holly would be happy to be noticed by Noah, but now she's in a panic. If they saw her there, they know she must know about Mei's comments. But Miriam again thinks that for now it's likely that Mei and Noah know nothing about Holly, and that it's probably for the best not to spread the story about Mrs. Kamata just yet. Ruth asks for a ride home with Holly, but she's busy setting up for the victory party should the Tigers actually win. That night, Holly calls Miriam from the school to get her picked up, mentioning she thinks she sees Mei. She also says she knows something about Jed, but won't spill unless Miriam complies, so yeah, even with her life in danger, Holly is a really, really bad friend.

Miriam arrives at the gym and finds Holly. Or, to be more precise, Holly's corpse. Yep. Holly is dead. Someone had strangled her to death. Miriam then runs into Jed who is conveniently also there. They call the cops and wait, while Jed, in a way that definitely screams innocent, goes into another fit of anger before being calmed down by Miriam. But she is curious as to why the hell Jed was here, but he claims he was exercising. They also worry about Gary, which even the smallest iota is more than Holly ever cared about him. But one thing's for certain, Miriam is now convinced it was Mei or Noah or the both of them. So, we know that it'll no doubt be neither. The next night Miriam talks with Ruth for a bit before she discovers a note written in blood saying that Miriam is next to be killed.

Later, Miriam talks with Jed who heads over. Jed is happy that Holly is gone, mostly because she was known for sticking her nose in everyone's business. She was even asking Gary about him, which is not something he wants to be brought up. Miriam says that it was her who asked Holly to get some info on what's been going on with him since Jed's been so quiet about things lately and that just because Jed had issues doesn't mean he killed Holly... right? I mean, probably not given we're making this way too obvious, but you never know. 

The next day, a memorial for Holly is held in the gym. Miriam can't bring herself to go, both out of her own mental state and that it was where Holly was killed. So she heads to the bathroom, only to soon see Mei and Noah outside. They learned that Miriam had recently called the cops on them and they both claim their innocence, especially Mei who says she would have never actually killed her mother. Her mother fell down the stairs via a sprained ankle is all. And they also didn't have anything to do with Holly's murder either. Miriam isn't buying it, saying she knows [[Title of the Book]]. About Mei's comments, but Mei says that that was all just blowing off hot air. But when Miriam tries to say that Mei used to be nice and changed since Noah came around, Mei says that she would kill for Noah, which is really not the words to use when you're claiming your innocence. A whole lot of passing the complicity ball around.

After spotting Jed getting into an argument with Gary, Miriam confronts Jed again. She tries to get answers as to what's wrong with him, but he again is tight lipped. To which it finally dawns on her to ask why he really was at the gym the night of Holly's death. As he's about to leave, she starts to believe that maybe he didn't have anything to do with it. Later, Miriam tries to get Ruth to go to the basketball game, but again Ruth turns it down, before saying that going to the game is a big mistake. She runs into Jed before the game as he's taking some sort of pill. A vitamin he claims he got from a health store. We move from that to the game as once again history repeats itself with Jed getting furious and almost murdering a rival player. That's the last bit of confirmation Miriam needed. Now she's fully convinced that Jed murdered Holly.

Miriam rushes off to Ruth's house with Jed chasing after her. She escapes him and makes it to Ruth's who tells her that it wasn't Jed who is the murderer because, and I told you to expect it, there were two other murders this night. Ruth's hamsters. Heads completely crushed. Ruth says it was Mei and Noah who did it, which, like, okay the idea of these two teens sneaking into Ruth's house just to step on hamsters is the best laugh these books have given me in a while. Miriam tries to find a box to give the hamsters a solemn enough burial when she finds a flannel shirt covered in blood. And inside the bloody shirt is a hammer. Yup, the killer wasn't Jed, Mei, Noah or even Gary. It was Ruth.

As the two fight over the hammer with Ruth getting in a shot to Miriam's kneecap, we learn why Ruth did it. And it's the same as damn near every other one of these stories. It was out of jealousy. Ruth was in love with Gary all this time, and how Holly treated Gary as someone to be walked over just to get with Noah broke Ruth. It didn't help that on that night when Ruth confessed her feelings for Gary to Holly, Holly laughed at her and said that she could have Gary as soon as she gets Noah. So, yeah, Holly really sucked, didn't she? Maybe not enough to actually be murdered, but still. 

Jed shows up, but before he can save Miriam, Ruth smashes him in the head with the hammer, knocking him out. Before she can finish off Miriam, Miriam grabs Ruth's hamster cage and smashes it over her head, knocking Ruth out. Jed recovers and finally reveals what we all kind of guessed. He was taking steroids the entire time. It's why he got in these fits of rage. Gary knew about this and told Holly about it. It's what Holly was holding over Miriam at the time of the call, which again, god she sucked. Jed felt guilty as he was too late to confront Holly in time and she was dead before he made it. Miriam and Jed call the cops as the two I guess are still a couple. 

What Holly Heard is fine, but pretty much part and parcel to so many of these Fear Street books that it just blends in with similar stories. Especially with it being another villain who is motivated by love and a need for revenge. One that went too far obviously, but in the case of Ruth, yeah, I get it. This book reminds me of the standalone Stine book for Point, The Boyfriend. Especially when it comes to the villain motivations. Both feature a character who treats relationships like toys and sees someone else's life as something to be screwed with. Chewed up and spit out before you get who you really want. Especially Holly who we go through the book with more and more reasons to find her to be such a terrible person. Not on a Reva level, but still someone who is just the worst person. But being a gossip that makes sense. 

Both books also reveal that the real culprit did what she did because the other girl was treating a boy she liked so horribly. So it became defending that boy's feelings over the more callous girlfriend's actions. Only this time it actually ended up with murder while The Boyfriend was more about breaking a girl's sanity after how she treated those around her. 

So the reveal of Ruth isn't too predictable for once, even with the hammer from earlier. It could have easily been Gary. But doing that would justify Holly treating him like she did, so Ruth it is. Jed was the obvious red herring and it makes way more sense for it to not be Mei or Noah and that Mrs. Kamata's death was, in the grand scheme of things, an accident. So, for once we have this villain motivation at least make sense. And while it's still boiled down to poor mental health, it's at least handled with more logical motivations. Way too obvious, but still works as a shocking reveal. Did.. did Stine actually try with this mystery? He can do that?

I like the subversion of the book. With Holly's name on the cover, you assume she's the protagonist. But we soon realize that she's not at all. That this is Miriam's story. You know, if they did this in the Silent Night sequels, they could have worked. Just saying. Miriam's a decent protagonist. Her relationship with Jed is concerning, especially with his rage swings and that scene where he hurt her. And no, roid rage doesn't excuse that scene. But I can at least believe that Jed wouldn't really hurt Miriam. That it was his stress and his addiction screwing with his head. Again, doesn't absolve it, but I can buy that given how the events of the story unfold, they're at least in a better place than they were. 

So, in the end, this book is another in a line of just okay Fear Street books. Not amazing, but nothing that will leave you feeling ripped off. The mystery works just enough, the protagonist is fine, there's some decent gore and it doesn't really spin its wheels too much. It's a decent enough recommend. And that's hardly a rumor. What Holly Heard gets a B.