Final Friends Book 1: The Party, by Christopher Pike (review)

Since I’m not really in the mood for an Opinion Blog, I’ll post the review I’ve promised in my last entry: The Party, first book of Christopher Pike’s Final Friends trilogy. Christopher Pike is a children’s books and young adult author I used to read when I was a pre-teen and young teenager. I read him now out of nostalgia, but also out of genuine interest; because he’s still a reference in the YA/crime/paranormal genres for me. And if not romance, then that’s the kind of novels I’d like to write.

The whole country was in love with phonies, she felt. The bimboes on sitcoms, the rock dopers on MTV, the rich liars in D.C. It made her sick just going into the supermarket and having to look at all those fakes on the covers of People magazine. One day she’d like to start a magazine of her own where she could interview people like herself, people who knew it was all a big joke.

- Final Friends Book 1: The Party, Christopher Pike (Pocket Books, 1988)

Moreover, it’s interesting to note that my obsession with writing about love and relationships greatly developed through reading Pike. I think I have already mentioned my late discovery of modern romance (I was already in my twenties). Before that, of course there had been Jane Austen, and the Brontë sisters, and Charles Dickens, but as far as contemporary stories went, there had mostly been Pike. I already wrote a review for his novel Weekend: for those who can read French, it was published in the e-zine Les Romantiques on page 43.

So, in each of Pike’s YA novels, there is a love story. And not just a love story, but general talk of couples, attraction, sex, breakups, jealousy and betrayals. This is something I appreciate, not only in my romance reader’s quality, but from a purely realistic perspective. You remember how it really was in high school. Everybody was busy having a crush on someone, trying to go out with them, or gossiping about who had sex with who, and the popular guy or girl’s latest conquest. I’m not judging whether this is superficial or immature, just stating that this is the way it was. One major reason why J. K. Rowling totally lost me when Harry Potter grew up and remained desperately virginal and ignorant. (Teenagers watch porn. They talk about sex and tell sex jokes all the time. All the time.)

“I’ve been in there a couple of times. I never saw you. Is it a part-time job?”
“Fifty hours a week.”
“Wow.” He lived in a different world, she realized. He made money, carried his own weight. She charged everything, ran up the phone bill. And from what he said, he watched out for his mom, when all she did was fight with her parents about nothing. She lived such a superficial life.
But what can I do? I’m already spoiled.

- Final Friends Book 1: The Party, Christopher Pike (Pocket Books, 1988)

Mr. Pike shows all that, but with a subtlety, good sense and humour which prevents him from lapsing in either a condemnation or an apologia. While reading Final Friends, I was impressed once more at his ability to grasp and paint seventeen-year-olds’ feelings and concerns. While each of his many characters seem to fit in a different stereotypical category (the shy geek, the nice pretty girl, the cheerleader, the good-looking jock, the artist, the chubby sister, the sarcastic best friend, etc.), as the plot thickens all of them lose their apparent unidimensionality. Behind and besides their universal hope of getting laid, more serious and touchy subjects arise.

“You and your parents are illegal aliens, aren’t you?”
She trembled, ever so slightly. “Yes,” she whispered.
“There were a lot in my old neighborhood. [...] What’s the big crime? They’ve loosened the laws. Stay here a few years and they’ll make you a citizen.”
“That’s not how it works. We got here after the amnesty deadline. In Washington there’s talk about changing the requirements, but until then we could be sent home anytime.”

- Final Friends Book 1: The Party, Christopher Pike (Pocket Books, 1988)

Now, because I’ve read many other Christopher Pike YA novels, from the start I could see similarities with his other works. Or maybe I expected them. In the end, I found myself surprised at the ways the story unfolded, lost in the layers the author kept adding, which were as many possible clues and red herrings. I still managed to guess right at the victim’s identity, but as for the culprit, Pike’s left us in proper darkness. I suspect him of pulling a paranormal trick on us, although The Party was completely free of supernatural. In fact, this first book ends in an absolutely classical, delightful mystery novel atmosphere, with the main male character drawing a map of the house where the crime was committed, and reviewing the people present with the police lieutenant. Maybe my favourite part of the book, which made me long for more good crime novels… and even more for the two next Final Friends books, The Dance and The Graduation. I hadn’t experienced such suspense in a while.

Do you still read the books you used to like as a child or a teenager? Do you have any mystery novel recommendation for my readers and myself? Do you more easily relate to puritan teenagers or sex-obsessed ones?*

* Pike’s main characters are always romantic and decent kids, though. Just… red-blooded too.

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