A bit of backstory here: I am a child of the 80's. I used to love Fear Street (but not Goosebumps, for some reason) and Christopher Pike. I had Shelves full of YA scary books. I assume my parents tossed them years ago, which now makes me sad.
In looking for these books online, I came to find out that some had been "updated". So, my memory of the original versions are way gone and this will be in response to the updates. My first impression of the updates was "WhyTF are there references to Kanye West and iPods in an 80's book?!?"
With that being said, let's get on with the show! Here's your warning that spoilers are likely to be up ahead!
Here is the cover I remember:
And here is the one showing on Amazon:
Great. We're in for some sexification. :/
Book opens in the way I remember them to - with a brief glimpse into something that happened to create suspense. In this case, someone being pushed down the stairs to their death, with the pusher scheming to play it up as a terrible accident. OH NOES THERE'S A KILLER ON THE LOOSE!
The story opens with our main dude Cory pulling off some shenanigans to impress his goofball (erm...I mean "dork") friends. Of course, he's a gymnast that's been on the varsity team/group/squad/mob since his freshman year. He's a stud on the rings and can perform magic tricks when faced with danger. But for now, he's performing a menial routine of balancing on his head and a hand while holding a tray. I imagine it looked something like this:
My Photoshop Paint skills are PHENOMENAL! You can barely even see the effed up watermark from this person's arm adjustment! Ahem....moving on....
So, dude's just chillin' with his tray and his buddies when the blood begins rushing to his brain and he sees a "New Girl" (dun dun dun!) and topples onto his face. Probably from his blood not knowing which head to rush to, if ya know what I mean. So, New Girl (who we later find out is named Anna) is described almost like this:
Except, you know, she's so hot.
Cory also has a friendzoned lady in his life named Lisa. Rumor has it she looks like Cher. Lisa is the only one that has seen Anna in class so Cory is all up in her grill like "Who is she? What's her name? What's her number?" And she's just rubbing herself against Cory and trying to get out of the friendzone. He's oblivious though.
Artist's rendition of Lisa
Yes, he's oblivious until Lisa hears a rumor from her cousin that Anna is DEAD. They find the newspaper with the article and it gets weird.
Cory calls Anna at all hours of the night, gets her address from 411 (it's 444 Fear Street, if you're interested), and decides to stop by. That's when evil brother Brad becomes a key player, with his signature line being "Anna is dead! Anna is DEAD!" and things like "You'll die too!" But Anna and Cory make out in the car and he tastes blood, so he doesn't care. There's also a quite mysterious dog-walking neighbor that's always around, but I won't spoil his plot significance (Hint: there is NONE)!
So, there's all this back and forth. Lisa wants the D, Cory wants Anna but she is playing hard to get, and there's some super gymnastics competition (Allstate! They're in good hands!). Cory is starting to fail at things because he's obsessed with Anna and her blood kisses. He's falling off things and missing practices. It really is sad.
The time comes when we're far enough into the book to get things wrapped up. As it turns out, "Anna is dead! Anna is DEAD!" as Brad has been telling us all along. So who is this chick that's been running around pretending to be Anna? Well, I won't give it away. But she's a horny beast who tries to get Cory up into her bedroom for some nookie after he finds out how fucked up that family really is. I assume the sex offerings were one of the "updates" to the book, because I don't remember any sex stuff in Fear Street. but maybe I was just naïve?
In conclusion, for being a YA novel, The New Girl is worthy of (drumroll please!)...
FOUR Q-STARS!
Yes, there is some cheese factor to the book, But all out, it's pretty dang good. + points for great writing (grammar, style) and actual suspense. Really, I would not have suspected the ending.- points for Kanye West and a bit lacking in the character development.
If you're interested in getting this book for yourself, I'd appreciate if you use my Amazon affiliate link. This review is my own, and is not sponsored or endorsed by anyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment