The Stinal Countdown: The Best Friend 2

It's time for what I think is technically the last Fear Street sequel I have to cover. That's good. And it's a sequel to a book I liked. That's concerning. Oh, and it's a sequel with a fan-submitted ending. Oh fuck no. So, apparently the original The Best Friend book wasn't as well received at its time. Given the way the book ends with all of Becka's friends dead and Honey getting what she wants with zero comeuppance, I could see that ruffling a lot of feathers. But I think horror shouldn't always have a happy ending and that yes, you can have the villain ultimately win in the end. And Fear Street, honestly, plays it very safe with most of its endings where you do get a happy ending for your protagonist. And the ones that usually are bad have to do with the character having poor mental health but I've banged on that drum forever. 

But Stine still got a lot of angry fan mail over it, and thus a contest was held where readers could submit their endings for what should befall Honey in the end. And as we all know, giving power to the fans ALWAYS goes well. Ultimately, the winning choice went to Sara Bikman. Thus giving us an ending that I've heard also wasn't well received so I guess nobody wins. Except for Sara I guess? Let's see just how this all went down as we talk about The Best Friend 2. 

I like this cover. It's very simple, but sets out to do what it's intended to do. Sell us the idea that Becca is very much tired of Honey and, going by the broken glass in the picture, she's ready to finally get rid of her. Still not overly fond of this cover format with the more cartoony houses above, as if to confirm that yes, this is Fear Street alright. You see the houses? Sure looks like a street to me. Downside is of course the big piece of text in the middle mentioning that the ending was chosen via contest, but it's far from the worst placement of these types of text bubbles. 

Becca Norwood's life was going quite well until Honey Perkins showed up. Her new next door neighbor, Honey claims that in the fourth grade she was Becca's best friend. However, Becca has no recollection of Honey, nor does her friends Lilah and Trish. Honey seems obsessed with Becca, starts to wear her clothes, does a bunch of fun, totally not psychotic games like "strangle Becca" and tries to bump off Trish and Lilah, almost killing both. All while Becca's her sanity begins to fade and it comes into question if she's been doing these evil things or if it was all Honey. Despite multiple attempts to get rid of Honey, things escalate with Honey stabbing and killing Becca's boyfriend Bill, then blaming Becca for it, then saying that it'll be fine because she'll make sure that Becca gets away with it since now they can be best friends forever. In other words, this is the most gaslightiest book to have ever gaslighted. 

We open the story in Waynesbridge, not Shadyside, which means that Becca no longer lives on, where else, Fear Street. She stands at the front doors of Waynesbridge High and has to meet with her new guidance counselor Miss. Englund. But more importantly Becca is promising herself that this is a new Becca and that things have changed from before. She talks with Miss Englund and recaps the last book, as I just did above. Miss Englund says that Becka seems to be on the road to recovery from the year prior. But when Becca leaves the office, she sees Bill. Only it's some other boy. Okay, so maybe she hasn't actually healed that much. She heads to her history class and meets Glynnis Quinn who helps her get acclimated. After class though, Becca looks at her notebook and sees that all she's done is write Bill's name on every single page. So if you were hoping this wouldn't be a "Stine writes about mental health poorly" book, too bad.

After class, Becka talks with Glynnis some more, to which Becka notes that Glynnis looks very slim and sexy while she looks like a cow. Stine, your fucking lane, STAY IN IT! They meet Frankie, Glynnis' boyfriend who is also a guitar player that Becka starts to fall for. They head to the local pizzeria in Waynesbridge, Pizzaz, which I'm sure is good pizza, but it's no Pete's Pizza so it's mid as shit. It's there where Becka runs into Eric, her old, not stabbed to death boyfriend that she had before Bill. She heads off with Eric and makes out with him, but can't stop thinking about Frankie. So she begins to consider maybe dressing like Glynnis to make Frankie interested. If the twist is going to be what I think the twist is going to be I'm going to be fucking annoyed. She has a fantasy about dressing like Glynnis as Frankie confesses being attracted to her before then remembering the whole incident at the dance where Honey dressed like Becka then sent Trish down the stairs. As she finally snaps out of it, she sees that in her manic state she wrote Bill's name on her forehead with nail polish. I heard of not getting someone off your mind but this is ridiculous.

After Becka has another visit to Miss Englund where she lies about the whole constantly writing Bill and beginning her journey to single white female, she heads to Glynnis' house and steals some of her clothes. She does at least cop to taking the clothes, but obviously not the part about the planned boyfriend theft. They head to the mall in Shadyside where they run into Eric again who drops the bombshell that everybody saw coming. The Becka weve been following isn't Becka at all. It's actually Honey Perkins. And we got like 100+ pages to go with this too. And yes, I am indeed annoyed. So yeah, Honey is now acting like Becka, calling herself Becka, trying to get take over her life. Which probably could work, if the actual Becka wasn't also still around. But before she runs into the actual Becka, Honey snaps and grabs some glass beads and chokes Eric to death. Becka shows up and sees what happened as Honey tries to blame her for ruining everything then running off. So yeah. 100+ more pages of this, huh? Oh fuck. 

We enter the 2nd part of the book which is from the actual POV of Becka Norwood. She's at Eric's funeral with Trish and Lilah. So we get some obvious answers. Honey was copying Becka at everything, including a relationship with Eric. She then disappeared and moved to Waynesbridge, pretending to be Becka. Becka's also been having visions of Honey ever since. Oh, and Bill's alive. Yeah, he was stabbed, but he recovered and had a lung removed. Oh good lord this might be the ultimate asspull of all. But despite all of this, Becka's still weird about him given, you know, she got blamed for stabbing him. And despite him trying to at least talk to her, she's trying to move on with her new boyfriend Larry who I'm sure will make it out of this book just fine. This book has already hit on a lot of Stine gimmicks, so of course we also get Becka getting a call with someone breathing on the other side. Could it be Honey? After finishing work, Becka walks home, but runs into HONE-no, wait, it's someone else, not Honey. Speaking of Stine staples run into the ground.

No, it's Bill, actually. Oh, and he was the breathy caller. He just didn't have the nerve to actually talk to Becka on the phone. He tries to get her to talk to him, but she refuses, so he gets more forceful. Larry shows up to make the save. I mean, I get the the forcefulness is bad, but Becka is trying to fully ignore someone who's missing a lung mainly because of her. Larry takes her home, only to see Becka's car being torn apart with the seats slashed and a dead rat on one of the seats because hey, Stine's gotta get a dead animal in here somehow. She screams Honey's name as Larry looks sort of rigid and, to quote the book, "Not at all like Bugs Bunny". This book is confusing the absolute shit out of me. She soon sees on the news that Honey hasn't been found yet, so now Becka is even more worried that Honey's out there, waiting and ready to get her. She then gets a call from Trish who tells her that Bill was at her place to essentially trauma dump on her about how Becka wouldn't talk to him and then to accentuate the fact, he showed her his scar and says that what Becka's doing to him hurts worse than the stabbing did. Okay, tone it down a bit there, my man. Becka gets angry for Trish taking up Bill's side and hangs up. So if the job here is to make every character unlikable, mission accomplished? The phone then rings and it's a whispery voice telling her that she killed Bill.

Concerned that Honey is next door, Becka sneaks out to check the Perkins residence where Honey's father still lives. But as she heads there she runs into a BOD-no, wait. Just a fertilizer bag. She peers inside, only to see Honey's dad is inside, but no sign of Honey herself. But when she leaves, she's grabbed by HON-No, wait, it's Lilah, actually. She's there to give us a massive exposition dump by way of an old newspaper clipping. Years ago, Kevin Paulsen shot and killed his wife Dierdre and son Harold. Harold's twin sister Hannah survived the incident but disappeared. The twins were in fourth grade with Becka, Trish and Lilah. Hannah would usually shadow Becka, trying to be her friend. So to get rid of her, they tricked Hannah into thinking she needed to join a cool club, and to do so, she had to get on all fours and bark like a dog at the school assembly. Also Hannah was Honey, obviously. And it I guess explains everything. The obsession and her need to both destroy Becka's life and usurp her so much. So, ultimately, Becka kind of deserved the shit Honey did to her? Maybe? Oh this is going to be quite the conclusion section. They then get a phone call from someone claiming to be their best friend and they have something sharp. 

Becka talks with her psychiatrist, Dr. Perlberg, about everything going on with her currently. After leaving, she's grabbed by Honey who says she's not Hannah, or Honey, she's Becka now, and starts smashing Becka's head into the pavement, causing her to black out. And then Becka wakes up and Honey is just gone. Okay then. I mean we have like 30+ pages to pad this out but that feels like the closest Honey's actually gotten to doing the deed and she bails? Becka goes on a date with Larry when she's SUDDENLY STABB-no, wait, it was some girl accidentally poking her with her umbrella. They then go to a dinner where HONEY SHOWS UP TO STAB-oh, wait it's just a waitress. Holy mother of fuck I've never wanted a book to hurry the hell up more. Apparently so is Becka who starts to freak out that Honey is coming to kill her. Larry takes her home and she goes to bed. Only, her bed is soaked in blood and the words "THIS IS U" are smeared on her mirror. Becka realizes that she's home alone and Honey is with her. Except maybe not because her parents return home and there's no Honey to be found. There's like 18 pages left, please just get to the point. 

Everyone calms Becka down and she's now back on meds to help her out. In it she thinks about her old poodle Pinky who was run over when she was a kid, because I guess the dead rat wasn't enough I guess, when suddenly the phone rings with someone saying her best friend is showing up tonight. To which I guess means we're likely in the Sara Bikman ending at this point. Becka makes a run for it, but it's Bill at the front door. Still no sign of Honey. Bill takes her to a cabin to finally talk with her, when Becka gets a call from Lilah. Honey's been arrested. In fact, she was arrested a while ago. It wasn't Honey who made the threats or blood smeared her bed, it was Bill the entire time. Bill grabs her as Trish shows up. Trish reminds Becka that when Honey pushed her down the stairs, that Becka never came to visit her. Trish says that she was the one with the phone calls and the threats. She pulls out a knife and is about to stab Becka, but that wasn't part of Bill's plan, so he tries to stop her, only to get stabbed again. Trish then goes for Becka, but Becka counters and stabs Trish in the neck, killing her. She goes to Bill and tries to keep him alive, promising to be a good friend this time. And we just end there. No answer if Bill survives, the promise of Honey getting what's coming to her not really being fulfilled. 

 

Before I get into this, I'm going say up front that I really don't have an issue with the idea that Sara Bikman came up with. In fact, going by an interview she gave with Wicked Horror, she actually provided something that I feel Stine neglected when it came to why Honey was doing all of this to begin with. That in the end, Honey wasn't entirely at fault for what caused all of this. That Becka and her friends treated her so horribly as a kid, mixed in with the trauma of her family's murder, it broke her. My only real issue with this is that how would Becka and the others just forget that they had Hannah pretend to be a dog in front of the entire school?  Feels like one of those incidents you wouldn't fully forget about a few years later. So what Bikman does, and I do think does well, is shift things around to make it so maybe we were too quick to feel so bad for Becka over all of this. And given how we shift the villains to Trish and Bill, two people slighted by Becka's actions (or inactions given, fuck, you really couldn't visit your injured friend?) it becomes a story about how in the end Becka didn't just destroy Hannah's life, but so many others. Maybe Hannah as Becka would have been a better Becka than Becka. Bikman stated she sympathized with Honey and I think it shows in how this ending does do a better job than Stine did in at least presenting Honey in a more sympathetic light.

My problem with this book though is that I really don't like how this book is structured at all. And that I don't blame Bikman for. The book's issues are things I totally blame Stine for. Because this is a book rife with his worst trappings and probably the worst case of padding I've ever seen in any of his books. So many fake out chapters, so many moments where it feels like this could have been a much shorter book. I get that a lot of that does come down to the winning entry by Bikman perhaps not being the one with the meatiest plot to build upon, so he had to pivot with a lot of padding, but it is glaring and it makes this one super frustrating to read through. But I've never had a book that I've felt more like I wish we got to the fireworks factory already with than this one. 

And while I do at least appreciate the idea that Bikman came up with, and really don't mind the attempt to humanize someone like Honey, someone with bad mental health that Stine usually writes horrendously, I don't know. I'm just not satisfied with the end result. And it comes down to a few factors. I don't like that Honey is arrested offscreen and we just move on from it. It's fine that we build so much of Becka's paranoia over Honey, but Honey not being involved in the conclusion and really not being around for Becka's inevitable realization, kind of feels lacking. The book opens by saying that Honey will get what she deserves, but does she? She's still arrested. She still thinks she's Becka. She's still mentally broken. And she never gets to have that moment where she gets that apology from Becka for what she did to her. If the book's intent by the end is to resolve this issue with Becka and Honey, to never actually give it to us feels a bit too much like a tease. 

I don't like that Bill's back either. I get the idea that many felt Bill shouldn't have been stabbed and presumably killed at the end, but it's Fear Street and we've had so many murdered teens in this series that I never even considered that he should be brought back. All to be essentially be the guilty conscience that's nagging at Becka throughout the story, and then get stabbed again and possibly die for real? I also don't get Honey/Becka's Bill obsession. It feels off, especially given how she acted towards Becca in the first book. We took one of the most queer-coded characters and straightened her out completely. I'm not fully complaining as I said in the first review I felt it could represent long-standing and outright bullshit stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people being obsessed groomers, but to lose all this and be back to boy obsessions just feels really lame to me. 

I just don't think this book had to happen. And I say that as someone who liked the ending to the first book. Was it sad? Yes. Did the villain ultimately win? Yes. But I don't see that as a negative. Horror shouldn't always provide a happy ending. You can have the villain win in the end. Honey is also the kind of villain who you could see ultimately succeeding in her plan to break and have Becka. I think had that book better built Honey's reasoning for all of her actions, I think the book could have been better received than it was. This feels at least like an attempt, but not one I feel really provided a satisfying resolution to the issue, with a finale that I just did not like at all. I was going to at one point call this the worst Fear Street, but I do think that some factors do work in its favor. I just think it's a poorly executed package that didn't have the payoff I think people would have wanted with this story. A shame, but it is what it is. The Best Friend 2 gets a C-.  

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