Is there anything better than a book you read when you were first falling in love with reading? I grew up as a poor, low-middle class, white girl in Illinois. And when mom started working when I was in third grade and turned my sisters and I into latchkey kids the only upside was a meager allowance. Seven bucks for me, each week, and it was bliss. With fortune in hand I would cross the busy street to what use to be a cornfield and was then partially occupied by a little strip mall. We hated the strip mall, but we loved the little bookstore tucked into it. It was a five minute walk to bliss. In a tiny back room filled with YA paperbacks I met Mr. Christopher Pike and fell in love.
With $7 a week and books costing only half that I was able to quickly amass quite the Pike Collection. Slumber Party was part of that. Sadly my original copy was "lost in the divorce," meaning it was thrown away, but Point Books just published To Die For as a two-fer deal including Slumber Party and Weekend. It's a quick and easy read and far from unpredictable, but Pike is good at getting your heart pumping, because the villain is unhinged and you're not quite sure how it's all going to go down. Pike does, unfortunately have a nasty habit of creating a reading-by-numbers feel. Don't leave so many clues for us Mr. Pike, we're smarter than that. And to be honest, while a lot of the dialogue was spot on for teenagers I found myself often wondering, "Would a teenager actually say that?" It kind of reminds me of the 80's movies wherein all the actors playing teenagers were actually in their early twenties. Fitting because Slumber Party was published in 1985. But still, there's romance and suspense and cat fights and crazy people with lighters. And it's Christopher. And I love him. If you need a few hours of easy amusement, give it a whirl. For me, it's like going home and that's a lovely thing.
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