C: Christopher Pike & CHAIN LETTER

This month, I'm participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme: authors whose work I read when I was younger. Each post will come with a quote and some details and thoughts about something I read by this author. Most featured stories will be YA, though there'll be a few exceptions sprinkled into the mix. The selected authors have an initial matching the assigned letter of the day.

“When you do something because you're angry, you almost always do the wrong thing.” -Christopher Pike, WITCH

CHAIN LETTER (Avon, YA) is the first Christopher Pike book I read.(A sequel came later but I will stick to details of the first book.) In CHAIN LETTER, a group of teens are riding in a car, they have been drinking, they get a little crazy, and the car hits a man out in the desert. When the teens get out, they see the man is dead. Panicking, the teens bury him. Some time later, the teens involved in the accident start getting messages from an unidentified person who claims to know about the sin they committed. This person, who calls himself the Caretaker, seems to know them personally. He demands that each teen perform various tasks (e.g. burn down the school) and when the teens disobey his orders, bad things happen. One teen disappears. Another is killed in a fire. At the end, the teens learn that one among their group is the Caretaker.

This book reminds us to be careful behind the wheel, whether we're drivers or passengers. Beyond that, it also asks: How well do you really know the people you call your friends? 

Have you read CHAIN LETTER? Have ever thought you knew someone and then later realized you really didn't?