Rereading My Childhood - Fear Street

The Boy Next Door

Men are a menace. To everyone - women, children, and other men. The worst ones are entitled men. Men who think they are owed something. They think they are owed something simply for being a man. Because a woman dates them, they are entitled to her body, her time, her expression, and everything about her. And then they wonder why women don't want to talk to them. They wonder why other men won't befriend them. Maybe they'll get over themselves and learn to make real change. Or maybe they buy a gun and shoot people. (I'm not talking about a specific event because there are too many for me to reference as I live in a hellscape known as America.)

It seems that entitled men are the focus of this week's review. Since this book's publication, entitled men haven't gone away. They've just gotten more access to like-minded idiots on the internet and firearms. So buckle up and meet one of the worst antagonists in Fear Street.

Like many Fear Street novels, we start with a first-person killer cam. Actually, get used to this killer cam - we're going to get a lot of it. There is no mystery here. We know who the killer is and we know about his motivations by the third page.

His name is Scott Collins and he's at his girlfriend's funeral. He killed her because she started wearing make-up, saying that it was "No way to behave." Remember this, because it's his terrible mantra.

Then we switch to the third person. Crystal and her best friend Lynne are trying on lipsticks and talking about boys. I know this character type. I'm bored of them already.

They hear some commotion outside. There's a new family moving in next door and they have a hot son - and he's in the bedroom right next to Crystal's! They peep at him changing his shirt and they think he saw them. In the same chapter, it switches back to Scott's first-person perspective. He knows they were staring at him and he's very angry they were doing it. Not because it's a clear invasion of his privacy. No. That's not the issue. The issue is that they were wearing lipstick and low-cut leotards. Yep. I'm very happy we get to spend time in this dingus's head. I'm being sarcastic if you couldn't tell.

The next day before school, Crystal is judging her sister, Melinda.

How could she expect to attract a guy's attention in those awful brown sweaters and sloppy, wrinkled jeans? It's as if she were terrified of looking good, Crystal thought.

Well, well, well, if it isn't my old friend Insecurity. First of all, the notion that one must wear revealing clothes to attract boys must have come from boys themselves, because in my experience, any girl can get a boy without much effort. Boys are everywhere and they're more desperate. And even if they weren't, dumb boys are useless anyway, and the good ones don't care what you wear as long as you're happy. They don't care if you wear ugly sweaters or short skirts. What matters to a good dude is your happiness.

Anyway, Melinda is another stereotype - the bookworm who only reads old books. Look, I like Pride & Prejudice also, but most of the books I read are contemporary. I believe this stems from both a male author's lack of knowledge regarding current female authors and the publishing industry's relegation of female authors to frivolity. Literary fiction written by women is often referred to as a genre that fails to carry the same weight as "literary fiction." Since modern fiction for women isn't regarded as serious enough, the girls in these types of books have to read classic literature like Jane Eyre (another book Melinda mentions). See, Melinda is a serious girl who reads serious books, but nothing new because it's not serious enough, even though there were authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Eve Ensler, and Toni Morrison in the '90s, and those are the ones off the top of my head.

Although, if Melinda was reading The Vagina Monologues, the Karens would clutch their grocery store plastic pearls in abject terror. A story about a girl's first menstruation is not appropriate, but you know what is appropriate? The story of a man who keeps his ex-wife in the attic while he tries to pick up the tutor.