Saturday 23 July 2016

Fear Street - The Switch

ONCE AGAIN SINCERE APOLOGIES FOR NOT POSTING FOR 0949349 MONTHS, uni and work is stressful and hectic and I'm annoying. But here is the first of 2 super old reviews I never got around to posting xoxox.




Revisiting Fear Street again with this one and I gotta say the cover looks intense without actually being intense at all. A blond and a brunette wearing identical clothes hold hands and glare at the viewer while a lighting bolt strikes the middle. I've never read this book before but I'm super duper excited. I hope it's good.
I pray it's good! Pray for me guys.
Ok so this book is set in parts. Great.


Part one: The Switch.
Not subtle at all, I like it.
Ok so literally the first sentence is "My name is Nicole Darwin and I'm a loser." And I love this girl already. Her life is the pits at the moment she reckons, and after one chapter I totally agree.
But first we get a small paragraph about her beautiful long nails that she polishes nice colours (OK?).
Now in regards to her shitty life. Her parents are always on her case and she has no freedom. Poor girl! She's a senior too so surely she's 18 or almost 18. I've had freedom my whole life so I feel for the girl.
Next, she hasn't done an assignment (naughty naughty) and her teacher offers her the weekend to finish it as long as it's in by Monday bc he doesn't want to fail her, bc otherwise she won't graduate! Oh no!
And THEN her boyfriend David, who has been acting weird lately, breaks up with her. Che disastro!
She bumps into her best friend Lucy who she's been friends with since preschool (friendship goals) who apparently has also been having a shitty time at the moment.
Lucy straight away suggests they switch bodies and the pair heads to Fear Street Woods.
Ok this book just launches straight into it I like it! But I want to hear more about Nicole's beautiful long polished nails, hehe!
Anyway they walk for ages through the woods until they come to a long stretch of stony wall, which Lucy informs Nicole was used years and years and years ago by evil people to swap bodies with innocent victims in order to escape their crimes. The wall has never been mentioned in any other books so it must be pretty mysterious, you know? I'm sure if more of our residents knew about it it would be in every book am I right?!
All you have to do is climb to the top and jump over to the other side holding hands! How simple! And that's exactly what the girls do!
And it actually works!
So Lucy is now in Nicole's body and vice versa!
Nicole feels bad bc her life is shit but she's kinda excited bc she likes Lucy's boyfriend. But Lucy is perfectly fine with the change!
So the girls return home after doing a little Irish jig in the woods, but return to eachother's houses obviously so they can keep up their little charade. And when Nicole walks in the door to Lucy's house she's horrified to find Lucy's parents dead on the floor, brutally murdered.
I can't believe how quickly this book jumps into it like it's only chapter 3 holy shit!
She realises she HAS to tell Lucy so they can switch bodies again and scurries off to her own house, but no one is home, not even her parents! She tries to massage her head with her long red nails but remembers she doesn't have them (Nicole's talons for the win!)
So she goes to Kent's house instead, telling him everything that's happened. And he seems to believe her, calling her Nicole and everything. Then Nicole overhears him on the phone to the police, asking them to come. Uh oh. Kent how could you do that? There's something iffy about this whole book like there was barely any set up, and to me that means something is off. Or maybe it is just poorly written who knows.
So Nicole bolts from the house naturally bc she doesn't want to deal with the po-po until she's back in her own body. Good thinking!
She decides to go back to Lucy's house to change and refresh herself and then try contact Lucy. Okeh.
On her way home all she things about is Lucy. Literally all that goes on in this girl's mind is her beautiful long nails and Lucy. Don't believe me? Here's an excerpt from the book. "Lucy I Lucy have Lucy to Lucy find Lucy you.
Lucy beautiful long red nails I beautiful nails have long nails such beautiful red nails terrible long red nails news." Literally.
Anyway she makes it to Lucy's and heads to her room, but is SHOCKED to find that all her clothes are gone! And there's a bloody knife on the dresser!
Lucy WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!


Part 2: The murderer.
Oooooooooh. *plays ominous music*

Pinned to the dresser by the blood caked knife is a confession written by Lucy. "I had to kill them. I couldn't take it anymore. Lucy K"
K. And it takes about 394 paragraphs for Nicole to realise Lucy set her up to take the fall. Duh. Great friendship choices. 
Before she can escape or even do anything, there's a knock at the door, and Nicole peers out the window to see 2 detectives out front. Jail time!
A Fear Street book set in jail wouldn't that be good? Fear Street is the New Black.
They're not in uniforms so she's just assuming they're policemen but let's go with it.
She escapes through the back door but is spotted by the two men running away, who give chase. Nicole manages to hide from them though, and then ventures over to the school where she'd left her car and drives here there and everywhere looking for Lucy. After what seems like hours and hours she spots Lucy (in Nicole's body of course) eating pizza with Their two other friends, Margie and Hannah. Cute! Squad goals!
Margie and Hannah are all "hey Nicole what's up?" As she approaches and Nicole flips, bc obviously Lucy has been telling people about their switch. She demands to speak to Lucy, but the girls tell Nicole she was never there, and Nicole is surprised to realise Lucy is no longer sitting at the table!
So naturally she assumes that her friends are all conspiring against her, I mean obviously Margie and Hannah are in on it right? Nicole runs off and continues looking for Lucy before the other two can stop her.
She finds Lucy waiting at her car in the parking lot. Finally. I'm bored.
As she gets closer it turns out it's actually Margie not Lucy, who tries to calm her down and stop Nicole from getting away, but she manages to escape in her car. Hannah's there too and the pair still refer to Nicole as Nicole and not Lucy. Even though she's in Lucy's body. So Nicole reminds herself again that they must be in on the Lucy's plans, and decides to go over to Kent's again. Bc she suspects that Lucy will have told him where she was planning to run off to. They were dating after all. She hears loud music coming from his house so knows he's home alone, and sneaks into his house through the kitchen. Then grabs a knife. Her plan is to "act" crazy and frighten him so that she can get the information she needs. Hunni there's no acting here you are crazy. Psycho.
Anyway she heads to the living room where she finds Kent dead with his head sliced off laying a few feet from his body. Brutal. As she stares at it one of the eyes droop down, winking at her. Hahahahaha.
She looks up to find the two detectives peering in at her through the window. Uh oh.
Now these guys also call her Nicole. Which wouldn't make sense.
So now I'm thinking Nicole is literally a mental patient or something and Lucy isn't real (or is maybe dead now) and is just A hallucination!
She manages to escape through the basement and runs back to the changing wall in the Fear Street Woods, where she ponders how Lucy could do this to her once again.
Bc Nicole was such a good friend. She stood by Lucy even when she was mean to her. And when she had her car accident, and everyone, including her family and the doctors had given up on her, it was Lucy who was by her side every day until she woke up.
But I'm gonna go ahead and assume Lucy never woke up. Nicole your crazy, girl!
She finds her own wallet in a little fanny pack around her waist (why wasn't this mentioned before? A fanny pack? Yuck! And why would Lucy have Nicole's wallet? It's more and more obvious they didn't switch bodies) and digs through it to find an old photo of Lucy. She then jumps off the wall with it hoping she would revert back to her own body. But it doesn't work. Aw. I can't wait for this crazy bitch to realise she was never in Lucy's body.
She ends up sleeping there at the wall and the next day goes back to her own house to change and eat. She waits for her parents to leave, noticing they look worried and dishevelled, but she refuses to think about that. She can't be seen by them until she's in her own body goddamn it!
She takes her savings from her room and heads off to school, intending to talk to Margie. There's guards at the front and back entrance of the school so she waits for them to leave before sneaking in and hiding in the closet in the girls changing rooms. Now she has to wait til 4th period when Margie has sport class! Boring.
Finally 4th period rolls around and Margie has leg cramps so she sits down while the other girls head out to the gym.
Nicole steps out of the closet and demands to know where Lucy is, but someone comes in before Margie can reply and Nicole has to hide in the closet again.
When she exits once more, Margie is dead on the floor, her skull having been bashed in with a shot put.
Fkn hell these deaths are brutal!
Nicole escapes the school without being seen, and heads back to the wall where she sleeps once more.
The next day she's buys a ticket to Conklin, where Lucy's Grandma Carla lives, bc they're very close and she figures that's were Lucy would have headed! Good logic!


Now part 3: The Reunion.
I bet this won't be very intense.
Grandma Carla is surprised to see her, even more surprised when Nicole asks "where's Nicole?" Bc of course she's pretending to be Lucy.
But this makes Grandma Carla act weird, and after settling Nicole she disappears into the other room, and a snoopy Nicole overhears her on the phone calling for help. Not again!
After a brief struggle with Grandma Carla, she runs out of the house and hides in the barn, where she finds Lucy! Finally!
Only this girl, in Nicole's body, claims her name is Nancy and Lucy made her swap bodies!
Nicole falls for it, and "Nancy" laughs, revealing she was lying.
Gee who'd have thought.
Lucy then runs outside with Nicole close behind, but Nicole is suddenly tackled by... Kent!
Who's not dead! They watch as Lucy hurries into the nearby well, holding on to the edge.
But she's losing her grip and starts calling for help!
Kent tells Nicole "let her drown" and soon enough Lucy falls and drowns.
As the pair walk back to the house, Lucy suddenly appears and gross and wet from the bushes.
Fkn hell does this never end?!
She then pulls off Kent's head. So he's dead again?
Then the two detectives pull up, along with Lucy's parents, Kent, and Nicole's own parents, and they all swarm the poor girl while Nicole's mother informs Grandma Carla of what's been going on.
Since Lucy's death three years ago, Nicole has been having identity problems, imagining Lucy is still alive etc etc. She also has hallucinations of horrible deaths and so on. The detectives are also actually hospital workers trying to help Nicole. She's been fine for almost a year, so I bet it was her mean boyfriend breaking up with her and the stress of her homework that started it all up again.
Anyway the final chapter reveals its six months later, and that Lucy is fine now. She's still in the hospital, but she's sure the doctors will let her out soon! Bc she realises it was all in her head.
But what she reckons has helped her recovery most of all, is her daily visits from Lucy.
*insert shot of Nicole with a twitchy eye*
The end.


That was kind of painful. Very predictable. You're kind of dumb if you didn't guess that the body switch wasn't real bc there were literally more references to it being all in Nicole's head than there were to it being real. But I liked it in some ways so...
3 winking severed heads out of 6!

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