Tagline: Sometimes the truth can kill you.Back tagline: Five close friends…one murderer.
Summary: All Julie’s friends hated Al. They all wished all were dead. But that doesn’t mean one of them killed him. Julie knows her friends. She knows they are innocent…
Until one of them confesses.
Julie and her friends promise to keep the killer’s secret. After all, they know he would never kill again.
Or would he?
First impressions: I have the reissued version of this book where the cover is just a handprint with a blue background, but this one is so much better. Love the kneepads and helmet. Safety first!
This was the first Fear Street/Point Horror book I ever read/owned when I was around 12 and it started my obsession with these books because I thought it was the best thing ever. It’s probably been almost 10 years since I’ve read it, so all I really remember is the basic storyline and the twist ending but I’ll try recap it as if I was reading for the first time. [And listen to me discuss this book with Hannah on the Fear Street Book Club podcast!]
Recap
Meet the crew!
Julie – Our heroine.
Hillary – Julie’s “intense” best friend.
Vincent – Julie’s friend that she’s crushing on.
Taylor – The newest member of the group and Sandy’s girlfriend.
Sandy – The nerdy/shy member of the group, Taylor’s boyfriend.
Al – An old friend that everyone hates now.
The story begins with Julie, Hillary and Taylor hanging out at Julie’s after school, talking abut their guy friends, Sandy and Vincent. Julie has a crush on Vincent, but he has no idea. Sandy is the shy and quiet type, which is why it’s so strange that he’s dating Taylor, who’s super hot and only became part of the group a month ago when their relationship began. Julie’s not sure Taylor likes her very much. Hillary, an African-American [Yay for diversity!] has been Julie’s best friend since junior high, and according to her is really intense.
The conversation changes to the upcoming party at Reva Dalby’s [The main character from the Silent Night trilogy. Yay for continuity!] house where a garage band named Garage Band [Stine didn’t burst any blood vessels coming up with that one, lol] and a hip-hop group named 2Ruff4U [Hahahahaha no] will be playing. Hillary can’t decide what to wear because it’ll be a cold night, but she plans on dancing a lot so will get too hot if she wears long sleeves [You’re on Fear Street, girl, that’s about to be the least of your problems].
Side note, we’re only in the first chapter and this book is already annoying me with the way it’s written. Sentences abruptly stop half the time when there should have been a comma instead of a full stop:
Hillary and I have been friends since junior high. So I’m used to her.
[…]
Anyway, she tugged me to my feet. And the three of us dragged our backpacks into the house.
[…]
So we were talking about the party. And Hillary was fretting about what to wear.
All of those could have and should have been one sentence; it reads so much better that way. Maybe it’s because unlike the other books I’ve recapped so far, this one is written in first person instead of third person, which usually I prefer because it gives a deeper insight into the main character, but I just think the way it’s written really hinders the flow.
Anyway, Al bursts in and we all hate Al. He used to be part of our favourite crew, but he started hanging out with some “hard dudes” from Waynesbridge and changed [“hard dudes” hahahaha]. He started drinking and getting into trouble with the police, and now he’s a huge creep. He’s here to blackmail Julie into giving him $20, even though he already owes her $20.
Al gulps down the last of his beer can and throws it in the sink before lighting up a cigarette. He threatens to burn a hole in the kitchen counter with it, knowing Julie will get the blame because her mum has caught her smoking before. Julie has no money to give him though, so Al turns on Hillary, threatening to tell their science teacher she cheated on the final last year, even though Al gave her the answers himself. Hillary gives him the $20 and he leaves just as Julie’s mother arrives home. She quickly spots the beer can and cigarette leaves behind and grounds Julie for the weekend, which means she misses Reva’s party that Hillary later reports as “the best party in the history of Shadyside High.” [With Garage Band and 2Ruff4u playing, I doubt that].
It’s the following Friday now and Hillary and Julie are heading over to Sandy’s after school to meet the rest of the gang when Hillary mentions how weird Taylor and Sandy were at the party. Apparently Taylor ignored her boyfriend the whole night and flirted with every other guy, and Hillary reckons she saw her pashing someone else while Sandy ran around fetching her drinks all night [So Taylor’s a slut and Sandy’s a pushover!]. Julie thinks Hillary might be a little jealous of Taylor, but it seems more like she just doesn’t want Sandy to get hurt. Hillary also mentions that Al also forced her to lend him her car and she’s super angry about being blackmailed all the time. Julie suggests that Al will get bored and move onto some new victims.
They reach Sandy’s, where their friends tell them Al got suspended for getting into a fight with a boy on the wrestling team. Julie is super smitten with Vincent but the way she describes his shoulder-length, rust-coloured hair parted in the middle does anything but turn me on. He’s always joking around as well and I really don’t know what Julie sees in him because he sounds awful.
The gang gets hungry and moves to the kitchen, where Taylor scoffs her face with tortilla chips and I’m pretty sure she admits to being bulimic but the group laughs it off:
Hillary watched Taylor grab another handful of chips and devour them hungrily. “How do you stay so skinny if you eat all those tortilla chips?” Hillary demanded.
Taylor didn’t miss a beat. “I try to throw up every night,” she replied.
We all laughed. Sometimes Taylor really cracks us up.
[Banter with the lads, or does Taylor need new friends?] Al rocks up uninvited and wants a beer, but Sandy doesn’t have any and another fight breaks out. Al ends up punching Sandy and knocking a tooth out, so Hillary squares up to him because she’s super strong from working out all the time. Al eventually backs down and leaves, and Julie notices how angry Hillary looks.
Later in the week, Julie heads over to Vincent’s to work on a lab project, wearing her “sexy, new spring outfit” that consists of a striped sleeveless shirt and a blue pleated skirt from the ’60s. As she arrives, she finds a moth in her hair [Hahahaha what] but Vincent is too busy pacing back and forth in the driveway to notice as she pulls it out. He’s in a bad mood because Al blackmailed him into letting him borrow borrow his mum’s car, because Vincent took it without permission on Saturday night and Al witnessed him getting a speeding ticket [Is Al just a ’90s version of Alison from ‘Pretty Little Liars’? Why has he witnessed everyone’s secrets? Is he just stalking everyone waiting for an opportunity to blackmail them??]. Al is over an hour late to return it and his mum’s carpool from work will be home soon [Uh-oh].
Finally, Al returns with the car, but it’s completely totalled [Wow, can’t wait for him to die!]. Al reckons the crash wasn’t his fault because he didn’t see the stop sign [Nice try, Al]. Vincent goes ape-shit and tries to attack Al, but Julie manages to pull him off with some queer subtext:
“Let me go!” Vincent screamed. I held on tight.
“No, Vincent. No way! He’ll only pound you,” I insisted. “You know I’m right. You can’t fight him. He’ll pound you.”
[Sounds like good time to me, hehe ;)] Al scurries away and the chapter ends with “The next night—Friday night—I killed him” which would be fine, except the next chapter begins with this “Well…some people thought I killed Al. But of course I didn’t”. These fake-outs happen so damn often in Point Horror, especially with R.L. Stine, and I get it, cliffhangers are a great way to keep someone interested enough to keep reading, but it’s super annoying when the character lies then immediately corrects themselves. What’s the damn point?!
Anyway, it’s Friday and the gang are going rollerblading at the local skating rink [So ’90s!], except for Vincent, who’s grounded. Sandy and Taylor spend the whole time sitting on the bench, “wrapped around each other like octopuses”, before disappearing after a little while. Then Hillary leaves with a boy from Waynesbridge to go to a party, but Julie would rather continue skating so refuses their offer to tag along.
When she finally decides to leave, she takes a shortcut to the bus stop through an alley where she finds Al on his back, a pair of skates laced tightly around his neck with one skate jammed in his mouth [I love this death and it couldn’t have happened to someone more deserving. I wish they didn’t tone it down so much on the cover though]. As Julie examines the body, two twins she used to babysit come out and call the police, thinking she’s the murderer. Officer Reed believes Julie’s story, but grills her about why Al was murdered as if it’s her job to solve crimes and not his. Eventually, Julie mentions the “hard dudes” Al had been hanging out with before accidentally blurting out how everyone in her friend group hated him.
A few days later, the group is at Sandy’s house after Al’s funeral, when Sandy confesses a secret – he’s the murderer [Or is he…???]! Taylor is hysterical, screaming that it’s not true while Julie and Vincent are also in disbelief. Hillary is pissed off that Sandy involved them all by telling them, but Sandy insists he mainly did it to protect her, since Al was causing her the most trouble. Sandy insists he’ll never kill again, and Hillary reluctantly agrees with the rest of the group not to turn Sandy in. The chapter ends with Julie revealing that Sandy killed again the next week, but guess what? It’s just another one of those pesky fake-outs, because she immediately says it was just in a dream she had [Come on, Stine!].
Anyway, it’s the next week and Sandy’s revelation has been followed by lots of tension and awkwardness within the group. At graduation rehearsal, Julie and Hillary discuss how uncomfortable they feel around Sandy now, especially since he’s been acting like everything is completely normal. Hillary admits to Julie that the truth is bursting to get out of her and complains about how unfair it was for Sandy to tell them. The girls spot Taylor eavesdropping and wonder if she’ll tell Sandy.
Later as they walk home, Hillary and Julie continue to discuss their growing fear of Sandy and how they struggle to view him as a friend anymore. They think they’re being followed, but don’t catch anyone, so conclude they’re just being paranoid. When they arrive at Julie’s, Officer Reed is there to ask if they’ve heard any rumours around school that might be useful. We get another fake-out trying to trick us into thinking Julie turns Sandy in, and even though Julie and Hillary are dying to tell Officer Reed the truth, they stay loyal to their friend. As Officer Reed leaves, the girls notice Sandy outside, sneakily watching them through the window. They run outside to confront him, but can only watch as he disappears into the night.
Two days later, Julie walks past the school gym where Vincent and Sandy are shooting hoops with some other guys. Vincent offers to walk home with her, so she waits for him while the game finishes. Julie notices Sandy seems to be taking the game really seriously, and eventually there’s a small scuffle when Vincent says something to Sandy as they grapple for the ball:
With another loud curse, he grabbed the ball from Vincent’s hand. I saw Vincent’s mouth drop open in surprise.
Vincent started to back away.
And Sandy heaved the ball at him with all his strength.
“Noooo!” I let out a frightened wail and ran onto the court.
[OK, relax, Julie] Vincent is fine other than being winded, but his friendship with Sandy has taken some damage. Julie realises Sandy is no longer their friend, but an enemy now.
On Saturday while at the movies with Hillary, Julie bumps into Taylor on her way to the bathroom and it’s super awkward. Taylor insists Sandy isn’t a killer and sends Julie on a guilt trip about not hanging out with them lately. Julie asks if she told Sandy what she’d overheard at graduation rehearsal, but Taylor denies eavesdropping. Julie thinks she’s lying and quickly excuses herself.
On Monday night, graduation rehearsal runs super late so Julie doesn’t get home till close to 12. Sandy strolls right into the garage while it’s shutting, which terrifies Julie [No wonder she doesn’t want to hang out with you anymore, Sandy]. He invites her to a party he’s having on Friday night, but she lies about being busy, and he reveals he was lying about the party to test her. Before leaving, he warns that the group need to make an effort to go back to normal or else.
At school the next day, Julie learns that Sandy also threatened Vincent and Hillary, but they still do their best to avoid Sandy and Taylor. After school, Julie and Hillary bump into Taylor, who seems to have been waiting for them. Taylor reckons it’s disgusting how they’ve abandoned Sandy when he killed Al for all of their sakes, but Hillary and Julie are dismissive. Taylor’s anger surprises Julie, since she’s never really seemed to be that into Sandy.
As Hillary tries to move past her, Taylor grabs her by the hair and the two get into a fight. When Julie manages to pull Taylor off her friend, Taylor vomits and hurries away [Again, some kind of eating disorder maybe?]. Hillary is determined to tell the police about Sandy now and reckons she’ll do it tonight when she gets home.
Hillary’s convinced the only reason Sandy admitted to the murder was so he would look cool and tough in front of his friends, especially Taylor. She’s not so sure he won’t murder again, but does finally decide she won’t go to the police straight away. She wants to give Sandy a chance to explain everything properly first and asks Julie to drop her off at his place. Julie does so and offers to come inside or wait outside for Hillary, but Hillary orders her to go home, saying she’ll call her later, and Julie leaves with a huge feeling of dread in her stomach.
As Julie heads home, we get a monologue about how she hates living on Fear Street and how all her friends tease her about it [This is literally the first time Fear Street has been mentioned so I beg to differ]. At home, Julie is super worried because Hillary hasn’t called yet, even though she just dropped her off. Eventually the phone does ring, but it’s Hillary’s mother, wanting to know if her daughter is there because she hasn’t come home yet. Julie is really worried now. Hillary finally rings after dinnertime and asks Julie to come over because something terrible has happened – she killed Sandy!
Julie races over and finds Taylor and Vincent there as well, who don’t know why Hillary has called them over yet. Hillary sits everyone down and tells them how she went to Sandy’s after school and told him to go to the police, threatening to do it herself if he wouldn’t. Sandy flew into a rage and tried to bash poor Hillary’s head in with a sculpture, and as she tried to grab it away from him, it fell and landed on Sandy’s head. She think it must have severed a blood vessel in his neck [Not his head] or something because there was “so much blood, I thought I could swim in it,” [Which is a very weird thing to think], and his skull was crushed. Hillary is going to turn herself in, but she just wanted her friends to know first [Because it turned out so well for Sandy!].
Taylor is super upset about Hillary’s revelation and dives into a confession of her own. She was the one who killed Al [A plot twist which totally blew my 12-year-old mind and cemented my love for these books]. Turns out she was seeing Al behind Sandy’s back because she has a weakness for dangerous guys [A true Fear Street gal!] and had stolen money from her parents for him a few months ago [I don’t understand the timeline here, because Julie said at the beginning of the book that Taylor and Sandy had only been going out for a month? Was she dating Al first, then started seeing Sandy as well and was just two-timing them briefly, maybe?].
Anyway, Al kept blackmailing Taylor for more money until she eventually told him she never wanted to see him again. Then at the skating rink that night, he forced her to meet him in the alley and demanded more money. Taylor refused to give him more and Al started to get rough, so she strangled him with her skates in self-defence and then told Sandy everything, who was smitten enough to confess to the murder to protect his cheating girlfriend [#Relationshipgoals].
As Taylor finishes her story, the doorbell rings. But it’s not the police, it’s another plot twist! Hillary answers the door and Sandy walks in. Turns out Hillary figured out the truth during her car ride with Julie earlier and when she confronted Sandy, they concocted a plan to trick Taylor into confessing. Sandy apologises for lying, stalking them and scaring them into keeping his secret.
We then jump ahead two weeks as Julie and Vincent are walking home from school. Vincent says he has a confession to make. Julie reckons she’ll scream if she hears one more confession, and that’s exactly what she does when Vincent admits he’s had a crush on her since third grade.
The book ends there and I’m mad because we don’t find out what happens to Taylor. Julie mentions that her parents were called, but that’s the last we hear about her. I think when I was younger I just assumed she went to jail, but reading it now I’m not sure what to think because she killed him in self-defence, right? Tough one.
Final Thoughts
This was definitely a lot better when I was younger, but I still enjoyed it now, although I’m probably bias since it was my first Point Horror/Fear Street book. It’s definitely more realistic than a lot of the other ones, too, which was nice.
The characters were likeable enough and Julie’s internal battle between her friendship with Sandy and her fear of him was well done. The writing style was incredibly jarring with all the full stops in the middle of sentences, which I now know was not just Julie’s way of thinking because a lot of the dialogue is written the same way, but if you can look past that it’s pretty good as far as these books go.
I give it 25 deadly roller skates out of 30.
