Rereading My Childhood - The Podcast

Fear Street: What Holly Heard by R. L. Stine - Bad Boyfriends and Foreshadowing!

• Amy A. Cowan

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This book review features R. L. Stine's Fear Street: What Holly Heard , in which the foreshadowing is apparent, a militia of characters appears in the first five pages, and Fear Street boyfriends continue to be terrible.


Get the Book: https://bookshop.org/a/80100/9781439121238

00:00 - Intro Song

00:19 - Introduction

00:37 - Spoiler-Free Review

03:24 - Amy's Random Plot Thoughts

10:42 - Outro Song

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Should you read this book?

★★★★★ - This book was written specifically for me.

★★★★ - Absolutely.

★★★ - If you enjoy this genre, this is something you should try.

★★ - It’s difficult for me to recommend this book even for its intended audience.

★ - No. Just no.

I’m a bookish nerd on a mission. I’m rereading the books from my ‘90s childhood: The Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street, and writing summaries and reviews. I’m Amy A. Cowan, and this is Rereading My Childhood - The Podcast.

Rereading My Childhood is written by me, Amy A. Cowan. For a list of every Baby-Sitters Club, Goosebumps, and Fear Street book review I have written or subscribe to the Substack, go to RereadingMyChildhood.com. To listen to the official podcast, visit the website or search for “Rereading My Childhood” in your favorite podcast app. For more information about me, visit AmyACowan.com.

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Main: http://RereadingMyChildhood.com

Links to Amy’s Social Media and About: h...

I’ve complained about R. L. Stine’s use of seemingly random plot twists, including my recent review of *Goosebumps: Welcome to Camp Nightmare. It seems like the twist merely exists, and the reader might be entitled to compensation for how much whiplash it caused. I have also griped about the opposite - where the twist is so obvious that reading the book seems like a fruitless endeavor. *Fear Street: What Holly Heard is an excellent example of foreshadowing accessible to a teen audience and twists that seem inevitable but not arbitrary.
The story follows three girls: the titular Holly, who is the Shadyside High Gossip Queen; Miriam, who indulges in the gossip; and Ruth, the foil to Holly. The various other characters who appear and reappear throughout the plot are Mei, Noah, Patrick, Jed, and Gary. All of these characters are introduced by page four through the dialogue of our triad of main characters. After all, the book *is about gossip. It makes sense that the other characters are introduced in this passive way, but it’s still annoying.
Anyway, the plot revolves around Holly, Ruth, Mei, Noah, Patrick, and Gary’s convoluted relationship triangle, as well as Miriam’s troubles with her angry boyfriend, Jed. Eventually, a death after a supervised house party sets off a chain of events that ends in more murder.
This entry into Fear Street* isn’t bad, and it’s actually enjoyable. As a well-read adult (at least, by American standards), the foreshadowing is obvious, and I figured out what was going on pretty quickly. In this case, that is not a bad thing. I’m not a teacher, and the material itself is probably not school-friendly, but when I was a young reader, I would have loved to learn literary devices like foreshadowing, foils, and red herrings with this book. 
Unfortunately, disposable characters are a common feature of the genre, and this book is no exception. We have angry red herring, wet blanket girl, slut who needs to be punished, blank slate character for the reader to slip into, just as a few examples. Additionally, although the story revolves around three girls, boys are at the core of their entire existence. Not a single boy is worth all the trouble that the girls go through. There’s also a lot of basketball talk, which is a personal thing. I just don’t like sports. Boring sports. Sports are boring.
The characters are usual broad stereotypes that represent a single trait, but at least you can remember which one is which. The twists are predictable without being obvious, and everything seems to follow a logical (for this series) plot. While the book suffers from the ‘90s tropes that pervade the time period and genre, it’s still an enjoyable Fear Street* entry that is fun to read. 
Should you read Fear Street: What Holly Heard* by R. L. Stine?
3.5 ★★★/5 - If you enjoy the genre, this is something you should try.

There’s a party at Mei’s house. Everyone is going, and they’re all paired up. These are the couples and the thing that makes them stand out. Mei (the girl who is fighting with her mother) is with Noah (the guy with questionable friends). Miriam (our main character) is dating Jed (the angry, red herring guy). Ruth (the boring one) is going with Patrick (a guy whose only personality trait is that he’s drumming, just drumming, all the time). Finally, we have Holly (the gossip) and Gary (Ruth’s neighbor and Holly simp). Even though Holly is dating Gary, she actually wants to get with Noah, Mei’s boyfriend. The first bit of gossip we get is that Mei has been fighting with her mother over Noah because her mom doesn’t like Noah. Holly hopes that this will initiate Mei and Noah’s break-up, leaving him open to date Holly.
The party is weird. There’s a live band called The Dustmites, and Patrick spends the whole night looking at the drummer, and that is pretty much the end of Patrick. I’ve been to many a house party of disparate socioeconomic levels, and I have never seen an actual band. It was usually the host’s iPod on shuffle. But this high school party has an actual band there. 
The other weird thing is that Mei’s parents are there. Like, not upstairs, quarantining off their room from amorous teens. They’re physically in the kitchen next to the red Solo cups. The only parties I’ve been to where the parents are present usually include gift bags and an adult ordering us to play a game involving a blindfold, a construction paper cutout, and a poster with a body part missing. Put the nose on the potato man. No trademarks, no donkeys.
During the party, the lights cut out, and someone screams. The band tripped the circuit breaker, and Mei’s mom screamed after she dropped a plate. When the lights come on, Holly’s arms are around Noah. She says it’s just because she grabbed the closest person, but Miriam and Ruth aren’t so sure. Our main characters leave just as a bunch of Fear Street toughs arrive. So, probably some ‘50s greasers. Turns out they were Noah’s friends, sending Mei into another argument with her mother.
At a basketball game, Jed tries to strangle a player on the opposing team. Afterwards, Miriam looks for him and finds two more named characters - Teddy Miller and Luke Appleman. They’re named, but Miriam never talks to them, and they never reappear. Did they win a contest or something? Why are they named as if they’re characters? They literally just walk down a hallway. Is this a cameo that I don’t understand? Are they famous high school basketball players?  I’m fascinated by their inclusion. Why? Just, why?
Anyway, Miriam finds Jed, and he goes on and on about how he’s under so* much pressure and that he needs a basketball scholarship and that the coach is riding him. Then he squeezes Miriam so hard he leaves red marks on her. Now, Jed is a terrible boyfriend and character. He’s supposed to be our red herring, but he’s so violent that it’s obvious that he’s not the eventual murderer, therefore negating his existence. Also, he’s going to be like this for the rest of the novel. He does something violent and suspicious, but then he apologizes and blames this coach who never appears on the page but does more for the plot than Teddy and Luke Applewad or whoever those guys were.
Afterwards, Miriam is chatting with Holly about her latest bit of gossip: Holly overheard Mei talking to Noah about how she wants to kill her mother. This is important because Mei’s mother turns up dead in a few pages. She fell down the stairs, but Holly thinks Mei murdered her. Ruth then says:
*“Be careful,” Ruth warned. “If you spread false rumors about them, they’ll be hurt. And furious. You don’t really believe they would kill someone.”
This was the exact moment I said to myself, Ruth is going to kill someone. I don’t know who, I don’t know why, I don’t know when, but if someone dies, Ruth is the culprit. Here are my notes as proof:

So, Holly is murdered.
Miriam is talking to Holly over the phone. Holly is at school, and she has news about Jed that she can’t disclose to Miriam over the phone. Miriam rushes over to the school and finds Holly strangled. Jed is there because his contract as the red herring requires him to be anywhere a character discovers a corpse. I still suspect Ruth.
But how can that be? Ruth gets a threatening note! She thinks it’s from Mei and Noah. Because, apparently, Ruth can’t write a threat because she doesn’t own a pen and paper, and lacks access to such materials. She can only use a stone tablet and a chisel to write. And even then, she only knows cuneiform.
The Shadyside Police Department doesn’t help. They are as inept as, well, most police departments. Shadyside High has multiple murders a month, and the only way they’re ever solved is if the murderer goes crazy. Detectives? Private Investigators? What are you talking about? They were run out of town in the Great Murderer Solver Purge of 1974! They just kept the cops who hassle teenagers and yeet out of slides.
There’s a lot of back and forth of Miriam thinking all these people (except Ruth) killed Holly. At some point, she suspects every character (except Ruth). She sees Jed taking pills, and everything about him is clear. He’s clearly roid-raging, which is a problem I thought would be bigger when I entered high school. There were so many PSAs and sitcom “very special episodes” about steroids, I thought this was going to be a major problem when I turned sixteen. I have never met someone who has taken steroids to get a scholarship. I’ve only heard about famous athletes and fitness influencers injecting themselves with butt steroids in locker rooms. 
Anyway, Jed chases Miriam through Shadyside. Miriam ends up at Ruth’s house, at which point it’s all revealed that, shocker, Ruth murdered Holly. Why? Why would Ruth do this thing that is so unexpected? Brace yourself, it’s a stupid reason.
*“Why?” Miriam whispered. “Why did you kill Holly? She was your friend!”
“She was a waste!” Ruth snapped. “She had to die. She led Gary on. He was in love with her, and she didn’t care!”
Miriam gaped at her. “You killed Holly for Gary?”
Ruth nodded again. “I love *Gary! I always have. He’s the greatest guy in the world, and I’m so lucky to live next door to him. We talk all the time. We laugh. We even kissed* once,” Ruth declared. “I bet you didn’t know that*!”
Aww man, that means that Patrick, the boy who drummed on everything, wasn’t good enough for Ruth! What about Patrick, Ruth? You guys could have had beautiful, judgmental, drumming babies together! Well, now that Ruth has killed Holly, Gary will surely love her certifiable butt now.
Ruth attacks Jed and Miriam, and Miriam hits Ruth over the head with a hamster cage. Jed promises never to take another pill if Miriam stays with him. I assume he takes more steroids the second a scout for Big Sports University comes to Shadyside.
And that’s What Holly Heard*. It wasn’t that* bad - it was par for these books. It was interesting enough to keep reading, there’s enough fodder in here for me to make some jokes at its expense, and it wasn’t that long.
On a final note, I got this book second-hand, and the previous owner of this book put their name in the inside cover. Her name is Holly Lastname-I’m-Not-Going-to-Dox. Do you think she picked up the book because her name was on the cover and it’s a new book from her favorite author, only to find out that the character with her namesake is murdered at about the halfway point? That sucks! She’s like, “Oh man, a new book and there’s a character with my name! Oh, she’s the school gossip! Wait. What’s happening to her?” And then she’s crestfallen as she slowly closes the book and puts it in the To-Donate box in her house. I’m sorry, Holly. I hope this wasn’t your only introduction to *Fear Street. There are better ones out there and there might be another Holly!