The Lost Girl, or "No, Honey Did Not Sweeten That Horrifying Massacre"

Fear Street lovers, we're back again! I was wondering my favourite second-hand bookstore (shout out to Bailey Books in St. Albert!) when I happened to notice this gem, and realized neither myself or A.M. had read it. Clearly I need to update myself on R.L.'s work. I used to know this stuff like the back of my hand.

The Lost Girl is insane, as I've come to expect, with one of the most creative deaths I've read in a long time. Want to find out about it? Read on...

Ah, Fear Street, where consent is optional, horses are deadly weapons, and time tunnels conveniently exist to prolong generational feuds. Let’s dive into The Lost Girl, a book that asks the important question: What if I Know What You Did Last Summer mashed with time traveling witches?

1950s: When Horse Stables Were Cutthroat

Meet Beth Palmieri, a poor Italian-American girl with witchy powers. She seems to be able to move things with her mind, and uses them to gruesome effect. Her family runs a stable, which apparently is SERIOUS BUSINESS in this town, because their rivals, the Dooleys, are out for blood. 

Enter Aaron Dooley, the whitest marshmallow boy who ever lived, whose defining personality trait is sexual harassment. Two pages in, he’s already dragging Beth into bushes. Naturally, she force-chokes him and nearly makes him swallow his own tongue. I mean, seems like an appropriate response.

But the Dooleys don’t take kindly to a girl defending herself. They also don't like competition, so one night their patriarch, Martin Dooley, kidnaps Beth’s father and unleashes one of the most horrifying deaths in Fear Street history: he ties Dad down, covers him in honey and oats, and lets starving horses eat him alive. That’s right. Horses. The My Little Pony fan in me just DIED.

Beth, understandably traumatized, runs into a cave and disappears...

Present Day: Welcome to I Know What You Did Last Winter

Cut to modern-day Shadyside, where our protagonist, Michael Frost, is living his best snowmobile-obsessed life with his friends Gabe (the gamer), Diego (the jock), and girlfriend Pepper (you know she won't last long). Everything’s chill until a mysterious new girl, Lizzy, shows up. She immediately knows Michael’s name, makes weird pronouncements, and casually steals his blood in a non-consensual finger-pricking ceremony. Um, RED FLAG.

Lizzy invites herself along on a snowmobiling trip, which results in Michael accidentally running over a dude. Oops. Apparently he's a mega-bad guy, Lizzy knows all about him, so they decide to go back and see if he's still alive. But the dude, Angel, is just gone when they return. Ghost? Really angry injured guy? Either way, we’re in trouble.

Meanwhile, Michael’s class goes gravestone rubbing (as you do), and surprise! They find Beth Palmieri’s grave. Michael then starts seeing Angel lurking ominously everywhere. Lizzy keeps making out with him in ways that seem medically unsafe, and someone sends him a lunch bag full of Pepper’s hair. At this point, Michael should be changing his name and moving to another state, but alas, he stays.

One hospital trip and a murder (RIP Gabe, we hardly knew ye) later, Michael discovers Lizzy’s secret: she is Beth Palmieri, who fell into a time tunnel and landed in the future, presumably still pissed off about the horse thing.

Time Travel Feud: Now With More Murder

Turns out Michael is the grandson of Martin Dooley (ugh, genetics), and Angel is actually Aaron Dooley, back from the grave. Lizzy and Angel are both here for revenge and plan to shove Michael into the time tunnel, dooming him to wander through the ages like some kind of Shadyside Doctor Who. But Michael flips the script and shoves them into the tunnel instead. They rapidly age 70 years in seconds and crumble into dust, because that’s how time physics works in Fear Street.

With the murderers-turned-mummies gone, Michael and Pepper go back to their regularly scheduled lives. The book ends with Michael taking a gravestone rubbing of Beth’s name, musing about how they’re bloods. Because nothing says “closure” like making arts and crafts out of your dead maybe-girlfriend’s tombstone.

Final Thoughts:

• Most horrifying Fear Street death to date? Death by hungry horses. Ugh, new nightmare unlocked.
• Biggest red flag? Lizzy stealing blood on the first date.
• Least surprising twist? The time tunnel. There’s always a time tunnel.

Fear Street: where you can get run over by a snowmobile, murdered in a furnace room, and eaten by a horse, all in one book. I give this 9 oat-and-honey corpses out of 12!