I think we all have memories of books that we read when we were in our tweens. They were passed around from girl to girl, each one devouring it before passing it on to the next one in line. When I was about 11 or 12 years old the literary crack of choice was Christopher Pike.

I'm not sure why but it feels like my generation of readers have all gone nostalgic at the same time. Maybe it's the Twilight mania that is making us remember our own crackliture. It seems everywhere I turn these days I'm seeing remembrances and rereadings of Christopher Pike.

Oh we read his contemporaries as well. There were plenty of R.L. Stine's that got passed under desks as well. But Chrisopher Pikes books were a bit longer and meatier. Christopher Pike introduced our tweenage selves to the murder, mayhem and supernatural episodes as can only happen among upper-middle class Americans. Drugs, murder, coming back from the dead, abortions, sex - yes he had it all.

Sadly, Like Pike hasn't been updated since May but just looking at the list of books in the sidebar sets me back at my sixth grade cafeteria table. Nothing is held back in those reviews so if you want to reread (or read any of those books for the first time) maybe save it for later. Oh but how well I do remember Remember Me. Yes indeed, Shari was cool.

I don't think I ever read Monster but it was the first Pike book that Cait at Escape Through the Pages read.

Monster was not only the first Christopher Pike book I read (starting a love of his books that continues today), but it was also my first thriller book. I have a fear of horror/thriller movies, but that fear somehow doesn’t continue over to literature (thankfully), which I discovered when I picked this book up in my grade seven classroom to read for independent reading.

Dannie took a look at one of the books I remember the most clearly - Die Softly. I love her take on Pike's writing style. http://readingwatchingliving.blogspot.com/2009/11/book-review-die-softly...

Die Softly is a strange kind of mystery. It's kind of like you saw it coming, but you didn't see how is came. Possibly one of the strongest characteristic of Pike's writing, he's able to let you think you won, but then flips it on it's head and makes you feel like a moron. In a good way.

Jenn at Young Adult Revisited remembers Whisper Of Death vividly - it got her in trouble in sixth grade.
http://yarevisited.blogspot.com/2009/10/whisper-of-death-christopher-pik...

Whisper of Death holds a fairly special place in my heart because it once got me in trouble. My little group of sixth grade friends and I chose the book for our reading group and made the mistake of discussing it in the classroom. A classmate (damn you Luke!) ran and told our teacher that we were reading a book about abortion, cussing and sex. The teacher took one look at the book and banned all Christopher Pike books from our classroom for the rest of the year. It’s kind of sad when you think about it…

For Halloween YA authors Diana Peterfreund and Carrie Ryan paid hommage to Christopher Pike on the Book Smugglers blog. I loved how Peterfruend mentioned doing an bit of an internal squee when she saw her book on a shelf at a bookstore right beside Pike's books. And I loved the point that Ryan made about what she learned about writing from Pike.

Carrie: I think reading Pike then expanded my understanding of how far authors could go. It’s exactly what you said – no one’s safe, which I think added to the thriller aspect. I mean, there’s a comfort in reading a romance where you know things are going to work out, you just don’t know how. They’re still page turners because it’s the figuring out how that’s fascinating, but with Pike… all bets were off.

No one was safe and even when you thought that you knew what was going to happen, you never really could be sure. His explanations were always plausible...well plausible enough in Pike's world. And that was good enough for us.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey was very disappointed she couldn't find any recent posts about "Witch." She also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.