Book Review: Remember Me by Christopher Pike

Original Review written in September 2016 on Goodreads.

The Review:

It sounds like a simple wish - to be remembered when you die. That is Shari Cooper's wish, but when she falls to her death from a balcony at the age of 18, she didn't have a chance to make her mark. Remember Me is the story of Shari's quest to find her murderer and make some sort of posthumous mark on the world.

This, like Until the End, is one of Christopher Pike's trilogies republished as one omnibus. Also like Until the End, it might have been better as one book. The first of the three - also called Remember Me - is the best part. It's a simple teen murder mystery with a supernatural element. The tension is solid and I enjoyed figuring out who might have killed Shari. I had read this book years ago, but had forgotten who the killer was. What I also enjoyed about the story was its emotion. Sometimes Pike got a little silly when Shari was looking into people's dreams, but there were places - especially when Shari was trying to reach out to her grieving family - that were touching.

Then the other two books happen. In The Return, Pike steps away from the murder mystery format and the books become vehicles for him to share his personal philosophies about death and God. The ideas are very "New Age" - full of talk of enlightenment, Krishna, Buddha, and how all religions are basically the same religion. This is fine, but it seems very out of place. Shari's journey is not coming to grips with the afterlife, but returning to life in the teenage body of Jean Rodrigues to write supernatural teen novels that will save the world. Yup. Very M. Night Shyamalan. Not a lot happens in this one. The bad guy is poorly developed and only serves to force the book to have some sort of climax. There are also some uncomfortable moments of ableism that can't be fully described without spoilers.

The Last Story is marginally better. Shari has become a millionaire author in only 3 years and with her brother, friends, and reincarnated lover, she has basically shed her Jean Rodrigues identity and begun using Shari Cooper as her pen name. Shari is still desperate to be remembered, but pride gets away from her. I was pleasantly surprised by this. I had expected Pike to elevate Shari and spend the whole book on how she saved the world, but Shari completely screws it up. She hurts everyone around her and gets sucked into temptation. She does nothing for the hispanic community and spends more time sneering at those she should be helping instead of doing anything useful. Yeah, Shari sucks. The problem with this one is the excerpts from Shari's stories. Much like the long italicized poems in Tolkien, Shari's stories (one of which is named for another of Pike's novels, The Starlight Crystal), are totally skippable.

If you can find the first one by itself and like teen murder mysteries, then pick up Remember Me. Otherwise, proceed with caution.

 

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