Bingo Square: Pajiba (review here).
Shari Cooper is dead. She went to a party and woke up in her own bed not knowing how she got there. Her parents and brother ignore her. A call from the hospital makes them all upset, and Shari gets no answers until she sees herself lying in the morgue. Then she remembers.
They say it’s a suicide but Shari can’t believe it. She’s determined to find out who killed her and why. Which of her friends could possibly want her dead? She embarks on an odd investigation, even entering her friend’s dreams to find out the truth. Along the way she encounters an old love and The Shadow, a terrifying entity that supposedly holds the key to her death.
This was the first Pike book I read when I was around ten years old. I just visited my mum’s and all my old Pike, Point Horror and Nightmares books were still in her attic and in need of getting rid of. There were probably at least a hundred. Not all of them made it across the ocean with me, but this one did. It’s not quite as good as I remember from my childhood. It was my favourite of his and I read it a lot until I aged out of those books. It’s pretty dated though and some of the writing…sheesh. Shari’s friends seem to care not a jot that she’s died and can we talk about this description of (the terrible, terrible boyfriend) Daniel?
I must talk about his dashing body. It was smooth and hard. It had great lines, like a great race car. Except Daniel wasn’t red. He was tan. He hugged the road when he moved. He had legs, he had hips. He had independent rear suspension.
He had legs! And hips! I mean, I guess yay that a man is the subject of this kind of literary ogling but really no one needs it.
Also, when Shari dies and her parents go to the hospital, they’re not taken into a separate room first to be told the bad news, they are led down to the MORGUE where there is only one conclusion to make, by a snotty intern no less. It’s horrible and surely cannot have been standard practice even in the late eighties.
I still enjoyed reading it and I have a few other Pike books to reminisce with. I think young adult has come a long way though.