Monster

A monster is by definition something which can be frightening and intense. But a monster is not always something external. It can be something which grows within a person until they become that which they fear.

The first point about this book and Christopher Pike’s writing style is that he likes to get down to business. He states it clearly with the first line and lays it on the table. `It began with blood’. It starts right in the thick of the first scene, right in the action and if you’re an impatient reader who struggles with long beginnings then his style is just for you.

The first scene is about violence and about change. The main character witnesses a crime at a party committed by her own best friend `Mary’ against the more popular kids in her class and you get the feeling she would not believe what was happening if she wasn’t seeing it. In the beginning scenes and events Pike gives you a front row view through the eyes of `Angela Warner’.

The main thing about `Angela’ is that she doesn’t seem all that remarkable. In fact she seems like someone who might not have been popular much at all if it wasn’t for her association with `Mary’. A newcomer to the town, she has been taken under the wing of someone beautiful and popular and you feel that she has been more of an observer than a participator in her life. When Mary is arrested Angela begins to gain more ground and starts to realise that her friend might not have just gone insane but realises the logic in her convictions. Over time she grows closer and closer to `Jim’ Mary’s boyfriend before she was arrested. But as Angela keeps visiting Mary and hears more accounts of the bizarre behaviour of the three most popular people in the school, the more you start believing that she was right to pull out the shotgun.

There’s a lot of imagery in this story, particularly focused on blood and hunger which hints at the direction in which the tale is going but it’s accounted in an easy to read way which a reader doesn’t struggle so much to read. Anyone who reads Pike knows he uses a lot of dialogue in his books, but the way he splits up action with dialogue keeps the pace and tone of the story at an uneasy knife-edge throughout. The stakes are high, the sexual tension reaches a peak and Angela’s own transformation is so gradual that you accept the bizarre without disregarding it as unbelievable. The main talent of this writer is set strange events in such believable settings that the reader believes in monsters and aliens. The reader believes in the relationships between the characters and that the gorgeous Jim Kline is a devil in disguise.

`But maybe he’s my kind of monster’.

Only Angela’s most intense thoughts are highlighted, the rugged scenery and raw chemistry adding to echo of the betrayal of one’s own self into decadence.

The only character that you feel is truly the victim in this is the poor `Kevin’ whose affection for Angela is discovered too late. The climax is explosive in this book and you do feel it was the only way to end such an intense adventure. Veils are lifted and answers are given. Overall a worthy read if you like shorter, more addictive books and a good job from Pike that ends exactly as he tells you it will in very first lines.