Remember Me (Remember Me Series #1) by Christopher Pike, Patricia MacDonald (Editor)

From the Publisher

SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THAT SHE WAS DEAD.

When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. They didn't hear a thing she said. They wouldn't even look at her. Then the call came from the hospital. Her father and brother paled. Her mother started to cry. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital. There she found herself lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The police said that it was suicide.

Shari knew she had been murdered. Making a vow to herself to find her killer, Shari embarks on the strangest of all criminal investigations: one in which she spies on her friends, and even enters their dreams — where she comes face-to-face with a nightmare from beyond the grave. The Shadow — a thing more horrible than death itself — is the key to Shari's death, and the only thing that can stop her murderer from murdering again.

Publishers Weekly

Shari is dead, and she knows that she didn't kill herself. So rather than merging with the cosmos as other spirits do, she lingers near the world of the living, determined to find her murderer. Fortunately for Shari, she is not alone in the hereafter. She finds a kindred spirit in Peter, the ghost of a boy she went to high school with. The ethereal duo discover Shari's killer in time to prevent another murder. But their techniques are not typical: rather, they solve the mystery by spying on old friends, attempting to communicate through a Ouija board, entering people's dreams and confronting the darker aspects of their own souls. The novel's central mystery, though somewhat contrived, moves along briskly. Plenty of action combined with several creepy seance scenes keep the pages turning. However, although the novel makes it clear that both Peter and Shari would rather be alive, some may question the prudence of presenting young readers with such a seductive vision of life after death. Ages 12-up. (Apr.)

Heather Robertson - Children's Literature

Imagine what it would be like to have to solve your own murder. That is exactly what Shari Cooper has to do in the first book in the "Remember Me" trilogy. Shari Cooper is a typical high school student. She is concerned about grades, friends, her boyfriend, and, most of all, looking good. After a party one night she wakes up to find herself dead, a victim of a fall off a balcony. Worse, everyone believes that she jumped! Now she exists in a shadowy half-world where she can only watch what happens around her but can't influence it. She is not alone, however. Peter, her old lab partner (and crush) who died the year before, finds her and tries to help her adjust to her new state. Together the two of them try to solve the mystery and find a way to escape The Shadow, the embodiment of fear that stalks them. As a mystery, this is a gripping book. It has enough twists and turns to keep the story interesting. The reader tries to keep track of the clues as eagerly as the main characters. The characters in the story are believable and interesting and readers are satisfied at the end. Be warned, though, that there is an element of the occult and anyone who finds that offensive should steer clear. 2002 (orig. 1989), Simon Pulse/Simon and Schuster,

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