Remember Me by Christopher Pike
The idea of a ghost who has to solve their own murder from beyond the grave is a slam-dunk. I’ll read or watch any variation of this story, from Patrick Swayze in Ghost to all those early X-Files episodes. So having been a fan of Christopher Pike in my teen years, I’m not sure how Remember Me (1989) managed to slip my notice. But hey, better late than never!
Shari Cooper is dead, thrown from a balcony at a friend’s party. Now her ghost is stuck in limbo, able to see her friends and family, but unable to communicate with them in any way. What’s worse, everyone thinks she committed suicide, the police officer investigating her case is an alcoholic, and there’s a nightmarish monster chasing her through the afterlife.
But at only eighteen years old, Shari knows she didn’t kill herself — someone pushed her off that balcony. And it must have been one of her group of friends since no one else was in the house at the time. But which one?
Remember Me is a vintage Christopher Pike story, with a twisty story, sex-obsessed teenagers, eighties pop-culture references, and two needless sequels. There are also plenty of ludicrous moments, like when the police investigator interviews ALL of Shari’s friends at the same time, in the same room, without their parents, at the crime scene. Pike clearly didn’t know or care about due process.
But if you’re in the mood for a trashy teen horror/suspense, then this will scratch that itch. Shari is incredibly self-centred, but I kind of enjoyed that about her, and a lot of the plot developments kept me guessing. Pike even manages to explore some pretty hefty existential questions such as the nature of God and the meaning of life — not bad for a pulp horror paperback.
The trip down memory lane was a lot of fun, reminding me of how enjoyable these stories were to me and my friends back in the day. They’ll never win any awards, but the fast pace and interesting ideas certainly put Pike up there with R.L. Stine, Caroline B. Cooney and V.C. Andrews when it came to supernatural/Gothic horror for teens back in the eighties/nineties.
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Oh thank you for the recipes! Such a variety - this is going to be fun.
COMMENT Hey, they seem to have added one while I wasn't looking! https://www.valancourtbooks.com/john-blackburn.html
Always my pleasure, Becky! And as I said, there are 19 Blackburn titles currently available on the Valancourt site....
Oh my goodness! I read "A Scent of New-Mown Hay" some time around 1970. It made a huge impression on…