Christopher Pike Last Act and Spellbound

In Last Act, Melanie Martin is new to Care High. She is soon befriended by Susan Trels, who encourages Melanie to try out for the school play. Melanie lands a good role in the play, and she now has friends.  During the play Melanie will fire a gun containing blanks at another person.  On opening night, the unthinkable happens when the other girl dies.  Somehow, the gun had real bullets in it.  Melanie is charged with murder and must find a way to clear herself.

This was the very first Pike book I ever read, and it was always a favorite.  I read it several times. As a result, I remembered the villain quite clearly as I began the book.

During this reading, the beginning part did not interest me.  I thought it was slow.  The play characters and real characters are too many and confusing.

Once the murder happens, the rest of the book is excellent.

Overall this book did not hold up well for me since I remembered the culprit too clearly. It didn't have the mystery that it had for me back in 1988.

In Spellbound, Cindy Jones' boyfriend has been accused of killing his old girlfriend, Karen Holly. Her body was found mutilated in the mountain stream.

On page 112, "The second lunch bell had rung already, and the bulk of the school was busy expanding their minds with knowledge they would probably forget before the day was over."  This is actually true.  Most people forget most of what they learned in school.

I did notice some things this time that never occurred to me when I read this book as a teen.  I guess the passage of years does bring a different perspective.  I never considered it strange that Joni and Alex don't find it odd that Cindy is in the woods with a blind parrot attached to her necklace.  To the other teens, Cindy's behavior should have been considered rather bizarre.  I also never found it strange that Ray had a will, but this time I had to wonder.  Why would a teenager have a will?

Even though I knew the ending, this book was still really suspenseful and held up well. This is still an excellent book.  This is one of those books that stays with you.  It is that creepy and unsettling.