Something Wicked Comes: Chain Letter

This is my second post in the Something Wicked Comes event that is running through out October. In my first  stop I featured Seraphina by Rachel Hartman an amazing paranormal read, but not a scary one. Since we are getting closer to Halloween today I am featuring a true Halloween Read.

The Book

Chain Letter
by Christopher Pike

He knows their secret and he wants to play...

Chain Letter
When Alison and her friends start receiving chain letters demanding dangerous and impossible deeds from them, they figure it is just a sick joke. Until one by one they start to go missing ...

Chain Letter - The Ancient Evil
Just when they thought they were safe, the letters start being delivered again. This time demanding even more horrific tasks from them in return for their lives. Can they survive long enough to uncover the sender?

The Review

Chain Letter 
Last Summer Alison and her friends got involve in an accident and a man got hurt. They decided to bury this deadly secret deep in their minds and never talk about it again, but someone else knows, he calls himself the Caretaker. He has started a chain letter and for each of them to stay safe they have to do whatever he wishes. With every request Alison will find out things about her friends she never knew, get closer to the boy of her dreams and be forced to face her worst nightmares.

I loved this book. It's the first Pike book I've ever read but it surely won't be the last one. It started out reminding me of I Know What You Did Last Summer (big horror fan here) but still I loved every minute of it. Alison was a great character and she took control of the situation when noene else could. She is a real fighter. We also get a few chapters from Tony's POV, her love interest, who is also another great character. He has so much guilt in him and so much pain but never lets it show.

Now, about the story, it unfolded perfectly. The Caretaker was someone you don't wanna mess with. And there were bits and pieces that would make everyone a suspect but if you paid close attention from the beginning till the end you can figure it out, just like I did. Whenever I read a book when I know we will get to guess who the bad guy is I keep my eyes open for every single clue.

I loved the creepy mood of this book and the action scene at the end. It was just like a horror movie. I literally couldn't sleep until the book was over, so I stayed up till 4am to finish it. So worth it! Now I can't even begin to imagine what will happen in the next one.

★★★★★

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The Ancient Evil
In the second book of the Chain Letter Duology, the remaining members of the gang receive another chain letter a few months after the events of the first book. But this time the Caretaker is asking them to do some unimaginable things and the consequences are grave, deadly.

First off, let me start by saying I would have been perfectly happy if there wasn't a second book in the series. I just want to erase the memory of it cause I loved the first one but this one didn't live up to it.

The book starts with Tony and Alison, my favorite couple, fighting about going into different colleges while on the other side of town the chain letter is being discovered by its first victim. I thought that after they found the chain letter, they would put their differences aside and try to survive this Caretaker, but no such luck. There was a lot of teenage drama. Tony was turning into an insecure jerk and I just wanted to punch him. Besides the drama, there was this whole cult, satanic theme that was so uncalled for. It felt like it was there just so the author would have something more to write about.

Now, on to what I did like. Eric, a new character, who is kind of a PI, not exactly really but he was pretty awesome. Smart and curious, just how I like them. He was the one who help Alison discover the mystery behind the man in the desert and well, everything else after that. He was my favorite character in this book. Since Tony had turned into a jerk and Alison didn't have the spark she did in the first book.

Another think I enjoyed about the second book is what happened when someone broke the chain, made it so much more serious. But still I prefer the first book, with all the mystery, real mystery, and the action scenes in the end. This one's ending felt a little bit rushed to me, not much action or horror movie scenes.

★★★☆☆

Overall the Omnibus Edition was really great but I wouldn't mind having read just the first book. But I do love the way this book looks on my shelve.

★★★★☆

book 51           book 31

book 9

The Giveaway

I am offering one of you a copy of the Omnibus edition of Chain Letter.

Open wherever the Book Depository Ships.

a Rafflecopter giveaway