Chain Letter and The Ancient Evil, by Christopher Pike

This book is two novels, a first and its sequel, in one printed book. Therefore, I have done a review for each book, in the same document.

Title: Chain Letter

Author: Christopher Pike

Target Audience: Young Adult

Pages: 278 (1 – 278)
Chapters: 18

Rating: 7/10

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Person: Third

Tense: Past

Blurb (quoted):

“Seven friends, one secret deadly chain letter. One by one they will regret they were ever involved.”

My Summary:

A group of high school teens have a dangerous secret: they killed someone – accidently of course.

But now someone knows, and they’re intent on making them pay for their crime in a sadistic manner told through a private chain-letter that has them all shaking in their boots. When they realise their life-or-death choice between doing the Caretaker’s deeds or hoping for survival, life becomes a finger-pointing game without answers until the final showdown when all is revealed and they have to use wits to work themselves out of a tight-spot.

Judgement:

This book was a little hard for me to read – I don’t know if it was because I was busy and distracted or because the content just didn’t hold me, but I had to check the book out twice to finish it.

However, the storyline is definitely interesting and I can’t call it a bad read; I would say it’s well thought out and planned, and has a definite structure.

The character I think annoyed me. They seemed a little inconsistent and not the type I prefer to read about, but they had personality and specific traits, even though they were all stereotypes.

The ending didn’t make much sense to me. It just didn’t gel with the rest of the story and seemed quite abrupt – it was the only part of the novel that seemed like it was thrown in and made up at the last minute as a desperate attempt to close the story.

What did keep me reading it, and even compelled me to renew the book was the curiosity it sparked. The writing makes the reader desperate to know who’s behind these incredible and disturbing letters that are tormenting the main characters. The story begs for an answer the whole way through but it isn’t given one until the last couple of chapters – and that part was a confusing disappointment.

I wouldn’t advise against reading it, or say it isn’t enjoyable, but it’s not something I’m likely to remember a year or even a few months down the track (not now that I know the ending).

Title: The Ancient Evil

Author: Christopher Pike

Target Audience: Young Adult

Pages: 223 (281 – 503)
Chapters: 18

Rating: 8/10

Genre: Mystery / Thriller

Person: Third

Tense: Past

Blurb (quoted):

“Seven friends, one secret deadly chain letter. One by one they will regret they were ever involved.”

My Summary:

The horror is back when Fran receives a chain-letter in the mail from the caretaker – after the supposed-caretaker’s death. Now it’s a fight to figure out who the new threat is before they’re forced to choose between something dear to them, or their life. With two friends dead, Alison accepts the help of an outsider to follow the trail in hope of saving their souls.

Judgement:

The surprise factor comes when the book seemingly starts over (anew) with a first chain letter, though it maintains the characters and includes reference to the previous story. This time, the novel focuses more on who is behind the torment – even though the culprit is supposedly revealed at the end of Chain letter, it is apparent someone else is in fact responsible.

This novel I consider to be better than the first; it makes more sense and has more clues as to where it’s heading, rather than keeping the reading completely in the dark from start to end. It is also considerably more thrilling – the first one had the fear-factor, but this one is far more worthy of nail biting as the stakes are much, much higher.

I thought there was a little more inconsistency in the characters again, mainly the main character who I felt had inexplicably changed – it’s like she’s one way at the end of the first book, and a different way at the start of the next one.

Parts of it seemed somewhat unrealistic to me, and other parts were downright frustrating. But again, it gave me that need to know what was going on – though it did become painfully obvious somewhere in the middle, it managed still to give a surprise at the end.

Speaking of the ending, it made a hell of a lot more sense than the first and was much more satisfying.

Overall, I’d say this book was readable and interesting, but perhaps could have used some work on the construction side.