Sandra Scoppettone: "Playing Murder"

Title: Playing Murder [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Sandra Scoppettone [Blog | Goodreads]
Genres: Thriller/Mystery
Year: 1985
Age: 12+
Stars: 2/5
Pros: Easy to follow. Nice, well-drawn setting. Lead has a pleasant voice.
Cons: Many themes are touched but not analysed. Characters are mostly sketched, though not total stereotypes.
Will appeal to: Mystery lovers who don't mind an old-fashioned story. Fans of sibling rivalry tales.

Blurb: When one of the players in a murder game is killed, seventeen-year-old Anna and her twin brother realize that their circle of friends may conceal a real murderer. (Amazon)

Review: Sort-of-disclaimer: I read the Italian translation of this book, so I can't really judge the writing style. Also, I don't know if any parts of this novel have been cut off in my version. 
Since the above blurb is really lacking, here is a short recap of this novel. Seventeen year old Anna (the lead) and her family move to a small town in Maine, after Bill (Anna's twin) stole some money at school because he wasn't able to deal with his own problems. Despite having a boyfriend (Tony) at home, Anna falls for the popular boy, Kirk, whose family helps running a restaurant owned by her parents. When Kirk is killed during a game, Bill is charged with murder, and Anna tries to clear his name, opening a whole can of worms in the process.
I decided to buy this book after reading Trying Hard to Hear You from the same author - which I loved. Also, that novel was even older than this one, and still managed to be great IMHO. But unlike his predecessor, Playing Murder, while a pleasant little read, suffers from old age. My biggest peeve against the book is the fact that it touches many themes - from teen angst to sibling rivalry to domestic abuse - without examining any of them in depth. We sympathise with Bill because he made a mistake out of teen angst, and now he has to bring the stigma. We sympathise with Anna, who is mad at him for said mistake, especially because it is the main reason for their family to relocate. We sympathise with another character that I won't name (no-spoiler policy) for being abused from a very close person. But none of these issues is actually brought to the next level - mostly, they are touched but not delved upon. [...]

Christopher Pike: "Remember Me"

Title: Remember Me [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: Remember Me (1st of 3 books)
Author: Christopher Pike [Facebook | Goodreads]
Genres: Afterlife, Supernatural, Thriller/Mystery 
Year: 1989
Age: 12+
Stars: 5/5
Pros: Likeable lead. Interesting set of characters. Emotions ring true. Story sucks you in.
Cons: Not the glamorous, imaginative afterlife you find in nowadays novels, since lead still walks the Earth. Very little action (if you prefer a faster pace).
WARNING! Moderate sex references (if they upset you at all).
Will appeal to: Everyone who doesn't care for very fast-paced books or romance-centered ones.

Blurb: When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. Then the call came from the hospital. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital. There she found herself lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The police said that it was suicide. Shari knew she had been murdered. Making a vow to herself to find her killer, Shari embarks on the strangest of all criminal investigations: one in which she spies on her friends, and even enters their dreams - where she comes face-to-face with a nightmare from beyond the grave. (Amazon excerpt)

Review: My first review had to be about the book that introduced me again to YA Lit in my adult age...
First off, I mean to remind you that RM came out long before "dead girl books" became all the rage. Shari's story may sound simpler and less glamorous than the most recent ones about girls in the same predicament as hers. There's no fancy afterlife scenery - you could say there's no real afterlife scenery at all. Like most dead girls in YA Lit, Shari was beautiful, popular and rich in life - but the narration doesn't really dwell upon that. She doesn't come across like a spoiled little brat with a lesson to learn...on the contrary, she's a lively, likeable, lifelike character (OK, I didn't plan on describe her with an alliteration and a bunch of parent words, but it sounds clever on my part, doesn't it? LOL just kidding). She has a truth to unveil though: how she ended up dead. She feels compelled to know, despite her fellow ghost-friend Peter's efforts to steer her toward the Light. Can you blame her?
Pondering about it, the real magic of this book is not in the story itself. The final denouement may surprise you (it did surprise me, though it's not that unpredictable. I probably let the book suck me in to the point where I couldn't see the killer's imprints anymore!), but it's not like Pike came out with a highly original scenario. It's simply a new twist of one of the oldest themes in literature. So, you know, the real magic in the book comes out of Shari. You gotta love her. You follow her and see the world through her eyes, like you were in her shoes. You care for her, dead or alive. You love her brother Jim through her. And so on. [...]