Read a synopsis here!
Number of pages: 789
Seeing as this is an omnibus of three stories, I will give a general plot of the first one and then talk about what I did and didn't like.
In Remember Me, Shari Cooper is a teenager in high school and for the first half of Remember Me recounts the events leading up to her death. (Going to a party and at the party attempting to contact the dead with 5 or 6 other friends. At the party she becomes upset with what she hears from the "realm beyond" and goes out to stand on a balcony where she finds herself plummeting to her death)
Once Shari "wakes up" she follows around different members of her family to discover what really happened to her. She has a hard time accepting the fact that she was dead and she learns that everyone in her town thinks that she committed suicide. Shari knows that she did not and goes on an adventure to avenge her death and find out who really killed her.
I liked the first book Remember Me, I thought it had plenty of action, even if it was a little slow at times. It was also an original plot that I thought was almost believable in a sort of supernatural sort of way. However, after finishing Remember Me and starting the second book The Return, I immediately thought that the story was being extended, way to far already. Then, I started The Last Story and realized that this whole omnibus should have been made into just one story. It kept going on and on, and most of the time I kept thinking "When is this going to be over??". (This is why it took me so long to put a review up; the story was just boring! However, I wanted to finish it because of course, I wanted to know how it ended and I figured I came this far I might as well finish)
Maybe my expectations were a little high (I thought this would be more like the Night World series by L.J.Smith) but it was just far to long! The books also had large paragraphs about more biblical and spiritual topics that I honestly skipped over because I felt they were unnecessary for the story.
I wish I could have liked this story more, but it just was too long and too...boring. The first story is great and if you don't feel like reading an entire trilogy then I would say only read that one, otherwise, you're in for the long haul.
Now that I think about it, it almost seems as if the author was pressured to write another two stories to make more money. (This is only a guess, I have no idea if that's true!!) I gave this a two out of five stars on Goodreads, but I would say at least check out the first book.
See you soon!
Paige
Now that I think about it, it almost seems as if the author was pressured to write another two stories to make more money. (This is only a guess, I have no idea if that's true!!).
ReplyDeleteHi, Pike fan here...and you're right. He recently admitted as much on his FB page. RM was originally born as a standalone book, back in '89 - then Pike was asked to write sequels (which came out in '94/'95) and he apparently thought "why not? my publishers will be happy, and there can be more money in it for everyone"...so he went along with them. It's a pity, because RM was a great novel - the forefather of all the "dead girls books" to come...Personally, I didn't hate all the New Age references in the sequels, and I thought they were relevant to the story - but I'll admit one can get bored by them. Also, there are other issues I have with the sequels, but it would be a long story. You'll see it yourself if you ever happen to read my own reviews about them (I actually started my blog with posts about the RM trilogy). To cut it short, I gave 5 stars to RM and 2.5 stars to both sequels. Not a biased Pike fan ;).