Last summer, seven teens from the same high school went to a concert and, for various reasons, ended up riding back together (oh man, that car must have been cramped). They were drunk, rowdy, and stupid and ended up running someone over in the middle of the desert. Although a few of them wanted to talk to the police, in the end they all agreed to just bury the guy and forget about him.

In the book's present, one member of the group, Fran, has just received a creepy chain letter from someone calling themselves "Your Caretaker." The Caretaker says that Fran must perform a task that will be listed in the newspaper classified ads. Then she must cross her name off of the Column I list in her letter, put it at the bottom of Column II, make a copy of her letter, and send it on to the next person in the list, who is another one of the seven people who were in the car when the man was run over. The next person on the list must receive the letter within five days of Fran getting her letter.

The tasks the Caretaker asks them to do are initially relatively painless. Fran has to alter her painting of the school mascot in the gym. Kipp has to flunk an exam. However, the instant someone decides to defy the Caretaker and refuse to do their stated task, the Caretaker makes it clear that they mean business. If these teens want to avoid getting hurt or killed, they'll have to do what the Caretaker wants, no matter how much they'd prefer not to. The only other way out is to figure out who's behind the Caretaker. Is it one of them? Someone outside their group, watching their every move? Or possibly even the man in the desert. What if he wasn't really dead when they buried him?

I'm pretty sure my first Pike book ever was Chain Letter 2: The Ancient Evil. I don't recall anything about it and I don't think I ever went back and read Chain Letter, because nothing in this book felt familiar. Now that I've read Chain Letter, I can't for the life of me imagine a sequel, especially one with the subtitle like that. But it's Pike, so who knows, maybe reincarnation is involved.

Honestly, Chain Letter wasn't very good. Despite the title, the chain letter aspect felt tacked on, and Pike never took advantage of the classic "if you don't send this to X people in X amount of time, X will befall you" aspect of chain letters. The classified ads had a more prominent place in the story, but I suppose Classified Ad isn't a particularly thrilling title. Then again, neither is Chain Letter.

I did sort of enjoy seeing what the Caretaker would ask the teens to do next, but most of the tasks weren't particularly interesting and a few were even insulting (one task required the person to spread a rumor that they were gay). I also found it difficult to believe that officials at the school wouldn't have gotten wind of at least the earliest tasks - the very first one even used the first name of the person it was assigned to, although the Caretaker got a bit smarter and reverted to initials and code for later tasks.

I correctly guessed most of what was going on before I'd even gotten halfway through. I've either reread too many Pike books and have finally internalized his logic, or Pike just gave away too much too soon, I'm not sure. At any rate, I spent most of the book hoping that the details I'd noticed were just red herrings, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. I outright groaned when Pike bent over backwards to make the ending a combination of bittersweet and happy. Even if you take the Caretaker stuff out of the equation, those seven teens did in fact kill someone, after which they buried the body and never told anyone what they'd done. A happy ending did not feel appropriate.

There was one scene in the book that I really liked, the part where Alison was alone at home. It was good and genuinely scary. I wish more of the book had been that gripping. I didn't hate this, but it was pretty forgettable. (Hey, maybe I did read it at some point and just forgot everything about it!)

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)

Honestly, Scribd is the best. It has audiobooks, ebooks and more for one low monthly price of $8.99, but of course if you sign up through my link, you can try it for FREE for two months. It would mean a lot if you gave it a try.

Scribd has everything, from bestsellers, to old and new books and just a large collection in general. Just at a glance, I can see that they do have some new releases as well. I went to one of my  "want to read" list on Goodreads and found a bunch of those books on Scribd! It's pretty amazing.

https://www.scribd.com/gt/4zt6yx 

I recently enjoyed: 

Highly creepy novella, disturbing, but also sad and heartbreaking for several reasons. A trigger warning kind of book.

I've also enjoyed several R L Stine books through Scribd, some Karin Slaughter, VC Andrews & much more!

I am looking forward to listening to:

Mr Rogers & LeVar Burton!? (He's the guy from Reading Rainbow...two things from my childhood coming together.)

**Signing up through my link doesn't give me $, but it does help toward my subscription fee.**

"Girls, I am not sure it is a great idea to read this book to you while I'm babysitting!"

"Who brought the random head?"

"I guess we can read this, but you sure you don't want to pick another book?"

"What are you whispering about, Belle? Pay attention! You guys asked for this, after all."

"Hope, Alice... this is too scary for you, right? Fine...fine, I'll read it!"

The dolls are:

Tor, and her best friend Owen Bloch are on the fringes of High School society, until the night that changes their lives for good. On her way home during a storm, Tor hits and kills a boy. Fueled by guilt and driven by scientific curiosity, Tor brings the dead boy to her late fathers laboratory and is finally successful in her attempts to reanimate a dead body. Adam (because what else do you name someone who has no recollection of anything prior to waking up in a saline bath) becomes Tor's greatest triumph, but one that she can't share with anyone besides Owen.

Tor and Owen try their best to help Adam fit into High School, but it's not the easiest thing they've ever done. Adam imprints on Tor, relying on her for everything from his history to the need to "recharge his batteries" by being electrocuted. And when Adam gets involved with the football team, which is a second religion in small town Texas, it becomes even harder to pretend things are normal. Until the murders start happening. Body parts being harvested from High School aged boys gets plenty of attention, and Tor begins to wonder if she could have a part to play in the murders.

Teen Frankenstein has a great story, but there were some very, very slow parts which failed to keep my attention. There is also a scene in which Tor is drugged with the intention of being raped, and the entire community dismisses Tor's being drugged as her fault. The scene was pretty disturbing, and perpetuates the belief that when someone is drugged and raped, they did something wrong, and it is the victim's fault. I was very disappointed to see this in a book marketed towards HS aged people.

I can't recommend this book in good faith, knowing that a rape stereotype is being perpetuated. The book was well written, but that scene ruined it for me. I wanted to stop reading, but I felt I had a responsibility to finish, so that I could give an honest review.

I was given an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn't bad, but unfortunately the concept was better than the actual book.

We're not really looking at a completely normal "Frankenstein" story, here, as should be evident from the synopsis of the book. This isn't a pieced together monster, this is a dead guy.

Also, the main character, Tor, is insane.

Mad scientists are kind of a trope that I admit to not being particularly fond of. Tor fits it to a tee, even better, perhaps, than Victor Frankenstein himself. She has absolutely no qualms about lying, torturing, and pretty much destroying lives. She's also extremely careless, which causes a large chunk of the problems in the book.

I don't generally fall into the camp of "you must like the main character to like a book," but I just don't quite care enough about Tor to have much interest in following her. She's unscrupulous without it being interesting, unscrupulous in a fussy way that keeps her so detached from her work and the reader that it is hard to get invested in what is going on at any point. Add to it that Tor herself causes pretty much all of the problems that need to be solved because she has some kind of God complex and also makes a crop of mistakes, and we've got a really awkward set-up as our driving force of the novel.

Owen is a much better friend than Tor deserves, and I regret that he wasn't the main character.

I was hoping to enjoy this more than I did, but this felt like Frankenstein with all of the moral questioning and actual feeling ripped out, and unfortunately that was what I enjoyed about the original.

This book was provided to me for free via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.