Book Review of Slumber Party by Christopher Pike
Author: Christopher Pike
ISBN: 0-590-43014-9
Publisher: Point Scholastic
Type of book: horror, suspense, murder, 1985, competition, friendship
Year it was published: 1985
Summary:
Lara thought the ski trip should be a blast. The old gang was getting together again for the first time in years. What could be better than six single girls out for sun and ski and apres ski- plus a huge house and a warm fire? Even with the memory of what had happened the last time, it looked like the perfect weekend. Until things started to go wrong...
It wasn't much at first-a snowman that melted when it shouldn't have, a weird phone call. But then somebody went out for "one last run" and didn't come back. And the storm they heard about on hte radio was getting worse. Lara thought everyone was up there for a good time. But she was beginning to realize that someone was up there for murder.
Characters:
I think there is a lot of information to digest about the characters, and for me personally there's also the cheesiness factor. (Really, true love right away?) The characters are familiar; the tough girl, the girl with no past, the heroine, the wannabees, etc. the two guys in the book barely played any role, although Percy's friend would have been interesting to figure out.
Theme:
Things are not what they seem.
Plot:
This is written in third person narrative from Lara's point of view, and it really resembles The Weekend in a lot of aspects. If you are keen on reading either this or the weekend, do yourself a favor and put off reading the other for a long time. Everything else is simplistic and it required no complications.
Author Information:
Christopher Pike wrote 30+ novels mainly for young adults, the most famous or well known one is The Last Vampire Saga, Final Friends and Remember Me, and his real name is Kevin McFadden. One of his books, Fall Into Darkness was created into a movie. Unfortunately he doesn’t have a website, but there is a fan club that is devoted to him. (http://www.christopherpikefanclub.com/ )
Opinion:
This was Pike's first book and it really shows. The plot is very similar to The Weekend, that of teenagers going on a vacation and instead of fun they almost get murdered but not quite. This, however, was more enjoyable than The Weekend was. For one thing the plot is a lot tighter, there aren't pointless tangents as in The Weekend, and it was a lot shorter than The Weekend. If you want to compare Pike's first few books with his best ones, then by all means it's an interesting comparison. But this book doesn't have the supernatural elements and instead it works as a mystery.
2 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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