Remember Me

Christopher Pike was one of my all-time favorite authors when I was a teen, and Remember Me was one of my favorite books by him. This post on Ruth's Book Blog inspired me to reread it for the first time in I-can't-remember-how-long.

Sometimes nostalgia reading turns out well for me and sometimes it doesn't. My reread of Remember Me did not start off well. The characters were, for the most part, not particularly likable. I rolled my eyes when Ghost Shari described her living self as “pretty superficial” (2). Considering that she had only just finished describing how she looked (her eyes were green, definitely green, and her smile won “Best Smile” in her junior year in high school!), I was willing to bet she was still “pretty show more superficial.”

I pushed on. I gritted my teeth when Shari, a rich girl whose friends were primarily rich, referred to Amanda as “our token pauper” (21). I cringed every time Shari noted her nearly naked brother's muscular physique or admitted that she was jealous of her brother's feelings for Amanda, his girlfriend. Unsurprisingly, so many things felt dated: the writing, the way Shari's brother's diabetes was handled, Shari's birthday gift for Beth.

The nasty drama brewing between Shari and all her “friends” carried me through the beginning, and I became well and truly hooked when I reached the moment I had been waiting for, Shari's death. The period shortly after Shari's death was one of the most emotional parts of the book and, for once, Shari's parents seemed like real people. Still, Current Day Me couldn't help but think of Dead Like Me. I wonder, was that show at all inspired by Remember Me?

I loved the whole murder mystery aspect. Being a ghost, there was very little Shari could do besides follow people and listen in on conversations, at least at first. She was later joined by the ghost of Peter, a boy she used to have a crush on and who died in an accident. Peter was a more experienced ghost and knew how to do things like magically appear wherever he'd like, go through solid objects, and even take control of living people's bodies a little.

One thing that bugged me: this book barely says a thing about how Peter became such an expert on all things ghostly. It wasn't the flying and teleporting that bothered me – he could have figured those out through trial-and-error, and he'd had plenty of time to practice and get good at them. The light and the Shadows were different, however. He “knew” things about those that he could only have guessed at, or been taught by someone, but no teacher was ever mentioned.

So anyway, the mystery. I had fun trying to figure out who killed Shari. Was it Jo, Shari's best friend, who didn't seem nearly as broken up about Shari's death as she maybe should have been? Was is Dan, Shari's boyfriend, who'd been intending to break up with her and start going out with big-breasted Beth? Was it Jeff, Beth's boyfriend, who seemed to dislike Shari?

Despite my issues with the writing and the dialogue (I can't imagine teens ever sounding like the ones in this book – Peter in “We need not bring religion into this” lecture mode was particularly bad), I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Until the end.

The end is craziness. I'm just going to go ahead and spoil it all. You see,Shari and Amanda were switched at birth. Jo's mom, a nurse, was upset at the knowledge that her husband had cheated on her with her sister (Amanda's mother, Shari's birth mother), so she decided to take it out on her sister by switching her baby with another. Because that totally makes sense.

Years later, Amanda and Jimmy start dating. This, of course, freaks Jo's mom out, because Amanda and Jimmy are siblings by blood, even though they don't know it. Amanda overhears her mother praying for them all, which is how she learns that she and Jimmy are related. However, Amanda is still in love with Jimmy and doesn't want to be separated from him. She figures it'll all be okay as long as no one gets between them. So, instead of going after her mother or her aunt, who know the whole truth, she goes after Shari, who she mistakenly thinks knows the truth. With Shari tossed over the balcony and her brains splattered everywhere, Amanda figures she and Jimmy and free to be together. Except they're not, so she concocts a plan to kill Jimmy and then maybe herself. Shari manages to save Jimmy's life by entering his mind.

On the one hand, I am in awe of how Pike managed to make almost every single detail in this book matter. There really was a reason for all that fuss about Jimmy's diabetes and colorblindness, Shari's green eyes, the orange dust on the carpet, and the mentions of how Shari and Jo looked like sisters. On the other hand, aspects of the ending angered me. A lot.

The craziness was okay. I can live with craziness. Although I thought Jimmy reacted surprisingly well to the news that he'd been making out with his sister. Anyway, the thing that made me angry was the whole issue of “real” parents and “real” daughters.

Although Shari's parents raised her, they weren't her “real” parents. Supposedly, a part of her had always felt that way. Her affection for Amanda's mother was explained as natural, instinctual love she felt for her “real” mother. When Shari's parents learned that Amanda was their “real” daughter, they forgave her and got her the best lawyer they could. Never mind that Amanda murdered the daughter they'd raised since birth. Never mind the crushing grief they felt after identifying Shari's body at the morgue.

While I was still sputtering with rage, Shari and Peter finished things up with an epilogue in which they performed a little “say no to drugs” play for the benefit of the junkie daughter of Garrett, the guy who'd been investigating Shari's murder. It was amazingly, laughably awful.

So, there you have it. I can see why Teenage Me liked this book: fast-paced mystery narrated by the ghost of the victim, seances, teenage drama, and a truly cracktastic ending. Honestly, if I still had my old Christopher Pike collection, I'd probably be reading another one of his books right now, despite my anger overthe “real” vs. “pretend” family members issue.

Additional Comments:

This book contains on-page drug use (although not by the main characters) and teens who think about sex a lot. Dan has “excitable bedsheet manners” (32), which is Shari's way of saying that they tried to have sex but he finished prematurely. I suspect this went over Teenage Me's head.

Rating Note:

Rating this was no fun. For the longest time, I thought I'd be giving this a 3.5 star rating. Although I went for 2.5 stars in the end, I think that, if I had truly read this for the first time, without the weight of nostalgia, I'd probably have given it 2 stars. It was readable as heck, absolute popcorn, but there was so much in my "did not like" column.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

I was into this book! I'm sure I read this when I was a kid. I remember really like Christopher Pike. I'm doing a reading contest and one of the books to read was a book that you read from your childhood, so I went with this one. I also love when the main character dies and then the book is from their perspective. And that's totally what this was. Way less sad than "In an Instant" but still a great fun read. And just the old school feel of it. Interestingly enough though, there weren't a ton of references that would make me think that the book was from the '80s or '90s. Can't remember the exact publication date. Good mystery, love the dead person's point of view. I'm thinking it would be fun to read the Chain Letter books that he wrote. show more I can't really remember any books that I read by him, but just that I became obsessed with Christopher Pike when I was younger. show less

This book is self contained even though it’s the start of a trilogy. I do wonder if it was meant to be a trilogy when it was written or if the author decided to revisit the characters.

I enjoyed reading this. It’s part murder mystery, part metaphysical musings. I didn’t find the spiritual/religious stuff to be too heavy handed. I found that it added to the story in a way that felt natural. I’m not religious myself and usually I get annoyed when an author tries to shoehorn in their beliefs, but Pike doesn’t hit us over the head with his beliefs and they actually fit the story quite well.

One thing I learned from my Christopher Pike obsession was several ways to kill people. For example, this book taught me that if you inject an air bubble into a vein, it'll stop your heart. ***The more you know***

This is the story of a ghost trying to solve her own murder. She can't remember how she died--did she jump from the balcony, or was she pushed? She tries to recreate the events of the party that led up to her death, going over and over who was in which room, who had the opportunity to kill her, and who had the motive.

That's the basic plot, but there's a lot more going on here. You get Attending Your Own Funeral, Switched At Birth, Accidental Incest, Flying, Ghosts In Love, Afterlife 101, and more delicious tropes. It has show more sequels, too, but they're not as good as the original.

I still remember my favorite passage. It had to do with Shari's life flashing before her eyes. She sees herself at five years old, with "a spark in her eyes that she'd lose the following year when she entered school." This totally blew my mind in middle school, and it's stayed with me ever since. show less

Three Stars

This is the first of three books in a Christopher Pike trilogy. To be able to really review the books, I'm going to need to describe the plots, which means the next two reviews at least will likely contain spoilers.

I have been looking for Christopher Pike books for a while. I was fairly obsessed with his books when I was in high school; they weren't horribly written, they were quick reads, and the characters (as I recall) were pretty interesting and dealt with some odd stuff. They were meant for, I believe, high school students, but they talked about things like sex and abortion. No chaste Twilight-level stuff here. At least, not that I can recall.

I found this trilogy (in one GIANT volume) at Powell's today. 300 pages later show more and I'm done with book one, Remember Me. I definitely have read this before, as bits and pieces stood out as familiar.

Remember Me follows Shari Cooper. She's dead, and everyone thinks she killed herself, but she didn't. And she's pissed about that, so she's trying to figure out a way to solve her murder and essentially clear her own name. The killer could be one of many people, including her best friend or her boyfriend. In the end, her killer tries to kill Shari's brother as well, and that sequence is a bit thrilling but also kind of weird.

There's obviously a supernatural component to this, but it's mostly set as much in reality as it can be. And despite the final (seemingly unnecessary) weirdness, I actually really enjoyed this book, and not just because of the nostalgia factor. The writing isn't horrible. It's not great, but I didn't ever catch myself rolling my eyes. I think it helped that the book is written in the first person, so this high school student's observations actually feel pretty true to what an 18-year-old straight rich white girl might think about her own boyfriend, her best friend, her brother's girlfriend, the girl who might be stealing her boyfriend, and her parents. She's superficial, but realizes it.

One thing that is a bit disturbing is how Mr. Pike addresses economic differences. All but one of the main characters comes from a well-off family, and you can imagine that the one who doesn't is the one who becomes the biggest suspect. Mr. Pike also doesn't seem to have the best understanding of nuance in terms of how young women relate to each other - are women always just jealous of each other because of men? That perspective is probably not the best thing for young kids to be reading.

The book isn't ground-breaking, and at times it veers into the super weird. But I still enjoyed it, and I'm looking forward to reading book two. show less

Ho letto questo libro per la prima volta anni fa, me lo prestò mia cugina, e mi piacque così tanto che da allora l’ho sempre cercato per poterlo comprare, solo che pare non lo pubblichino più. Per fortuna però c’è aNobii, e sono riuscita a comprarlo da un’anobiana! :)
Avevo quasi un po’ paura a rileggerlo, paura che potesse deludermi a distanza di tempo. E dopo un incipit bellissimo, devo ammettere che stava diventando un po’ noioso. Per fortuna si è ripreso presto, e l’ho riletto con grandissimo piacere!
L’idea della vittima che indaga sul suo stesso assassinio la trovo geniale, era questa sicuramente la cosa che più mi aveva colpito alla prima lettura, e che anche adesso mi ha affascinato moltissimo. Alle indagini show more si alternano le varie scoperte (piacevoli e non) di Shari su questo suo nuovo stato, e anche questa parte l’ho trovata molto interessante. Anche la componente “gialla” mi è piaciuta, è ben fatta, allo stesso tempo molto semplice (non è che ci sia molto tempo per scervellarsi ad immaginare il colpevole, si vagliano indizi e testimonianze, e poi di botto arriva la prova decisiva) e complicatissima (per quanto riguarda il movente).
I personaggi, tranne la protagonista, sono forse trattati un po’ superficialmente, anche quelli più complessi, ma d’altronde è pur sempre un libro per ragazzi e per questo, nonostante il tema, leggero.
Adesso sono veramente molto curiosa di leggere il seguito! :) show less

After falling to her death—or so everyone thinks—Shari Cooper wakes up as a ghost. Her death is ruled a suicide, but Shari knows there’s foul play and decides to solve her own murder from the other side. As she uncovers secrets among her former friends, she realizes some may have betrayed her. Remember Me is a gripping blend of supernatural suspense and teen drama, exploring betrayal and justice beyond the grave.