Friday, June 27, 2008

Double date or "Super Killer Threesome!"

I love the taglines on the cover of Fear Street books. Flat out LOVE them! For example, on the cover of this Fear Street book, Double Date, the tagline reads: “Two’s company. But three can be murder.” Awesome. Really sets the tone for suspense and possibly for a three-way gone terribly wrong? On the back, the tagline is even better:

“2 cool
2 live
4 long”


Beat that. I DARE YOU. There is a reason why R.L. has sold so many books. The man is a literary genius! I also feel that the illustrator really captured the styles of 1994. One of the twins (creepy background twin) appears to be wearing her pants around her armpits, which I’m told girls did back then. Her two timing sister (Miss Melancholy up front) is wearing an off the shoulder shirt, choker, AND a butterfly tattoo on said exposed shoulder. I can only assume this tattoo is a press-on, which really makes it that much better. Moving on! And I’ll try to keep it shorter this time, O wise commenter :)

R.L. introduces us to our main character, total douchebag Bobby Newkirk. First off, I hate the name Bobby, so this doesn’t bode well for me liking the book. I haven’t finished reading it at this time, but already… I kinda hope he kicks it. Just saying…

Bobby basically thinks he’s the shit, and the first few chapters are about how he dates girls, dumps them and they all still love him. Now I know what you’re thinking. Is he the captain of the football team?! No, R.L. threw us a surprise and decided to make him the leader singer of a band! “They had just changed the name of their band from The Cool Guys to Bad to the Bone.” …UM… Really? This is the most popular guy in school, able to use and abuse girls at will? BAD TO THE BONE? R.L. really wasn’t even trying there, was he? So we meet the other band members: Best friend Arnie, and Paul, who doesn’t really take Bobby’s crap. We also meet Arnie’s GF, the lovely Melanie, who is described as “a little chunky”. Nice. Surprisingly, Bobby dated her last year and regrets breaking up with her so this probably means she will be important later on in the book. The twins of the book are also introduced, Bree and Samantha, the quiet one and the extroverted one respectively.

Basic premise is that Bobby makes a bet he can go on dates with the two twins both in one weekend. So he stalks down his first pray, Bree and pressures her into going on a date with him on Friday. A date to come see his band. Ugh, that’s not a date. When I go out on dates, I don’t spend a few hours silently staring at my boyfriend while he entertains a roomful of people. That’s called an invite to openly stalk Bobby. He phones the girl’s house later and gets Samantha and convinces her to go out with him on Saturday, even though Bree is really excited about her Friday date. Samantha? Kind of a bitch.

So Friday comes, Bree watches him play in his band, Bad to the Bone, and afterwards they go for a drive where Bree basically pounces on him. I think R.L. wants us to think these twins are easy! “’Bobby the Man scores again!’ he cried out loud. Wow, he’s that excited he got to kiss a girl? I wonder what these books would be like if they actually included basic sex acts a la Christopher Pike. I bet there would be a whole lot less murder in every book.

Saturday at the mall date. Samantha is pretty much cooler and more easy-going than her sister… and also a compulsive shoplifter! Cool! She and Bobby get chased through the mall after she steals some earrings and Bobby thinks about how reckless but COOL she is. He lets her drive his rad ride and she drives too fast for him… okay Grandpa! Anyways, she takes him to River Ridge, the “make out” spot for the teenage crew. Did anyone actually have these “make out spots”? Wouldn’t it be kind of … awkward? Like your parked there, having a good time, and all of a sudden you catch a load of Jock McNasty’s asscrack in the next car over? Haven’t these kids hear of “watching a movie in your parents basement but secretly kind of doing it”?

Samantha creepily warns Bobby to be careful with Bree, calling her fragile and “a little strange”. Well at least she’s not purposefully dating her sister’s date, SAM. Suspiciously, Bobby gets a threatening phone call the next day. And by threatening, I mean, a person whispers “Two’s company, three’s a crowd. You’ll pay. You’ll pay double!” HA! So the murderer is the man who thinks up the taglines for Fear Street novels?

Just kidding! We turn the page and realize the voice was Arnie. They discuss how “a little chunky” Melanie is real pissed that Bobby is dating both twins. If I was Arnie, I’d be a little pissed my girlfriend cared so much about what her ex-boyfriend was doing!

We get a little exposition about Bree and Sam. Bree suspects Sam is hiding a boyfriend (which she is) and comes over to talk about it with Bobby while Sam demands that Bobby dump Bree. He doesn’t want to dump either… Dude, dump them BOTH. These girls are cra-zay! Samantha again forces him to shoplift at the mall for their date, but runs off with Bree when they spot her. Bobby the man goes to leave but sees his two front tires have been slashed! (dun dun dunnnnn)

Next week at school we get a clue on how to tell the girls apart! Sam shows Bobby her super sweet shoulder tattoo of a butterfly… so I guess that makes the girl on the cover sitting with Bobby, Sam! Gosh, I’m like a detective! Ugh Samantha also shows Bobby her science project, which consists of giant cannibal ants. I bet we know where that is leading! O R.L., king of foreshadow.

O I forgot to mention that the band changed their name from BAD TO THE BONE to the DESPERADOS, which really isn’t much better. Let’s be honest. So they have a show in front of the school, and Bobby gets electrocuted. I don’t know much about electrocution, but do your “arms flail helplessly about [your] head”? Sounds like he’s just trying to play off some bad dancing!

The next few chapters are mostly him going on dates with the two of them and being confused. The girl that says she’s Samantha doesn’t have a tattoo! Then she does! Bobby isn’t a rocket scientist but he knows enough to realize something fishy is going on. However, he’s not THAT smart because when Samantha suggests that to get rid of Bree they just KILL her… he agrees. Only to shut her up mind you, but he continues to date her. After she confessed her murderous plot!

When Bobby tells Bree about Sam’s murder plan, she spills the beans that they aren’t twins. They’re identical TRIPLETS! (which happens like, never, no matter what Mallory Pike tells you). Anyways, Bree says this “Jennilynn” (worst name ever?) is crazy and tried to kill them, so she must be back! When Bobby talks to Samantha about this, she tells Bobby that Jennilynn is made up by Bree when she’s about to go off the deep end. Like trying to plot to murder her twin, SAM?

The next day Samantha picks him up and brings him to the cabin (you know, where she’s plotting to murder her sister). Why did he get in this car again? Anyhoo, she hits him with a bottle and it turns out she’s JENNILYNN!! OH NOES! She ties him to a chair in his underwear (riskay!) and pours honey on him when he wakes up. I bet you see where this is going… she unleashes the cannibal ants! Who proceed to consume him, putting him and myself out of our misery.

JUST KIDDING, but that ending would have been awesome. He gets free and Melanie miraculously appears to save him and take him to the twin’s home to hopefully save them in time too. Bobby bursts into the living room in his underwear, covered in honey, desperate to save his sociopathic sweethearts… and it turns out it was all a joke. There’s no Jennilynn (I knew that name couldn’t be real!), the ants aren’t cannibal, they don’t even own a cabin! All the girls he dated and dumped teamed up to turn him from “Bobby the Man” to “Bobby the Pig”! So the twins and Melanie knew about this the whole time. So they slashed his tires, ELECTROCUTED him, KNOCKED HIM OUT, tied him up and poured honey and ants on him… as a joke. That ended with him being in his underwear in front of girls. FOR REALS?? For reals. I give this book a 10 out of 10 for wasting my time! My precious time...
A.M. Stine

11 comments:

Drew said...

first post!
you know whats a joke? this book!
seriously how did the band not chose the name: "bobby and the two-timers" it wouldve been perfect, though a slightly inaccurate description since bobby is the one who two-times.

love the cover analysis! i totally forgot about the tag lines, and it has caused me to look more closely at tag lines in general.

Anonymous said...

Oh man, that twist made this book awesome!

Anonymous said...

I laughed out loud so many times at this post. This is my favorite snark so far.

Anonymous said...

I totally remember this book! My copy actually had a page full of temporary butterfly tattoos for those times when you want to pretend to be a psychotic multiple! It was awesome.

Anonymous said...

Wow...I would have been really pissed at the ending...

P.S. I just found this blog and I am loving it! But I'm trying to read the posts from the beginning, so it'll be a while before I catch up.

A. M. Stine said...

Haha I'm glad you like it! Don't worry, I've been slow posting all month so you won't be missing much :)

Anonymous said...

I remember the free temporary tattoos! This book seemed so important because they linked it with a real-life medium (or however my ten year old self thought about it)...the whole book I kept hoping and hoping to find out what the tattoos meant.

I also thought the ending was great, because (if I'm remembering right) all these past characters we never saw after their books got to be in a room together (I think even Corky Corcoran, my fave character). It was all very bad to the bone.

Thanks for the blog...I'm slowly reading through and fearfully realizing how badly I got owned by this series.

Read MacGuirtose said...

They’re identical TRIPLETS! (which happens like, never, no matter what Mallory Pike tells you)

For the record, roughly 1 in 500,000 births results in identical triplets. It's very rare, but it happens.

Broken1again said...

My book has the tatoos in it too, im surprised I never used any of them back then....I remember liking this book too when I was younger because it was so confusing with who was who. I wish I could do something evil like this to my jerk off pig of an ex!!!!

Gillty said...

This story reminds me of the movie "John Tucker Must Die" how the three girls all gang up on him and humiliate him for cheating on them. Maybe this book is where the plot for the movie came from. But the movie was way better than this book. Their form of revenge was much more satisfying too.

RecallerReminder said...

Its weird find FS books with a male protagonist, too bad this one was definetly the worst character ever. And also is one of the rarely ones which end up being just a prank instead of a typical murder story. Still, i liked pretty much this one. Bobby got exactly what he deserved Hahaha. Nice!