Content warning for stalking, victim blaming, homophobia, suicidal thoughts, on-page drug use and drinking, and graphic discussions of sex.

Jack is a gay teen who likes casual sex and isn't interested in being in a committed relationship. Maybe one day - he isn't completely ruling it out - but definitely not right now. While he enjoys having sex, he doesn't enjoy people gossiping about his sex life, and for some reason his sex life is a hot topic among the gossips at school. When his friend Jenna suggests that he write a sex advice column for her personal blog, he reluctantly agrees. Maybe if he works in some true stories about his sex life, the rumors about stuff he's never done will go away. And the posts will be semi-anonymous, written by "Jack of Hearts," so there's no way some future college or employer will google him and see them.

For the most part, the advice column goes surprisingly well, but things take a turn for the worse in his private life. Someone keeps putting notes in his locker. At first they look like love notes, but as time goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Jack has a stalker.

I got an ARC of this at a conference a while back and only just now got around to reading it. The book came out in October 2018, so that gives you an idea of how long I've had it. It looked good, but I was a little afraid it'd have more sex in it than I wanted to deal with. Now that I've read it, I can say that, yes, the advice columns were extremely explicit and did mention, in graphic detail, some of Jack's past sexual experiences as context for whatever advice he was giving. However, even though Jack has sex multiple times in the story, there were no on-page sex scenes. I appreciated that. The advice columns were one thing, but first person present tense on-page sex scenes, especially in a YA novel, would have felt voyeuristic and gross.

Okay, I'll start with the good. I thought that most of the advice columns were well-done. I could imagine the topics and explicitness crossing lines for some folks - I, personally, thought that the last one about roleplay and BDSM would have been more appropriate in a book aimed at adults than teens - but for the most part I liked the way the topics were handled, with an emphasis on communication and consent. There was even one column addressing the fears of a letter writer who was probably asexual, as well as a column that discussed the fetishizing of gay men by straight women.

I liked Jack reasonably well, even if he occasionally made me want to scream in frustration, and I thought his friend Ben was an utter sweetheart. Although most of the prominent characters in this book were very much into sex, usually casual sex, I liked that there was an effort to say "it's okay for teens to not want to have sex, or to want to wait until they meet the right person or feel like it's the right time." And the story's pacing was good and definitely kept me hooked.

However, here's where I get into the things I wasn't as wild about. The stalking plot had several moments that made me incandescently angry. Yes, I understand that there were teens who would not want to tell anyone if they were being stalked, who, like Jack, would want to just wait and see if the problem would go away on its own. And yes, I understand that there are horrible adults out there who'd react like Jack's principal and not do anything particularly helpful. However, it just kept going on and on and becoming more and more awful. The message the book was communicating boiled down to "there's nothing that could possibly be done to make your situation any better, no one will help you, and even the people who try to help you won't be able to accomplish anything." It did resolve in a positive way, but it felt like a stroke of luck on Jack's part, and even then it almost didn't work out. Things got so bad that I was worried the book was going to end in Jack's suicide.

Jack was so frustrating. Every time one of his friends suggested going to someone for help, he trotted out reasons why that wouldn't do any good or just plain said no. No cops, no telling his mom. Considering the principal's reaction when he was first alerted to the problem, I could understand, but as the notes got darker and more threatening, I had a harder time seeing why he wouldn't try again, with a different adult. His mom would have been perfect, but no, he didn't want to worry her. Jack and his mom often felt more like roommates whose paths occasionally crossed than like parent and child. Giving your son space to grow and figure himself out is one thing, but Jack's mom didn't seem to have any rules beyond "don't get blackout drunk and make sure you practice safe sex." And what good was having a "cool" mom, anyway, if Jack still didn't feel comfortable enough to tell her that a stalker was blackmailing him and making his life hell?

The high school experience depicted in this book was more like what I see in movies than what I remember of my own high school life. It seemed like everyone was having huge parties, drinking, smoking pot, and having sex. Yeah, there were mentions of kids who wanted to take it slower, like Ben, and that asexual letter writer, but the bulk of this was just...are there really people out there whose high school experience is like this?

And while I do think it's good that sex positive YA books exist, there were certain things in this one that crossed the line. For example, there were multiple instances where Jack admitted that he'd used Grindr to find partners, that he'd lied about his age, and that at least one or two of his partners were probably adult men who didn't realize that he was still a minor. The problems with this were never addressed. Honestly, the "hooking up with older men via Grindr" stuff could have been cut from the book without hurting anything - Jack had zero problems finding people his own age to hook up with via parties.

Anyway, it was a quick read, but I definitely had issues with it and am not really sure I enjoyed it. I could see the advice columns being helpful to some readers, though.

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

For the first time since their last fateful slumber party when they were all about 9 or 10 years old, Nell, Lara, Rachael, Dana, and Mindy are getting together again. The difference is that this time Nicole, Nell's little sister, won't be there. When everything went horribly wrong all those years ago, Nicole ended up dead and Nell was badly burned. Celeste, a quiet and shy new girl, is with them instead.

Lara is looking forward to skiing, maybe kissing a cute boy, and catching up with her old friend Nell. However, something has her on edge. How did that snowman in the shade manage to melt and refreeze? When one member of their group disappears, leaving behind a single ski and a patch of dirty ice, Lara starts to wonder if there's something supernatural at play.

This was incredibly tedious. At least half of the book was Lara and Rachael snapping and growling at each other over something - either over the upcoming homecoming queen vote, or Percy, a cute guy they'd met. Dana was their fat friend (who actually said, out loud, "I wish anorexia was contagious and I knew someone who could infect me." (16)), and Mindy was their stupid friend. For some reason Mindy insisted on fighting with Dana about a second guy, Cal, even though Dana made it clear that she wasn't interested in him. The problem was that Cal was very much interested in Dana, or at least in groping her, whether she was willing or not. Cal was gross, despite Pike's weak efforts to reform him at the end of the book.

The book's big twist was both painfully obvious and more than a little far-fetched. Pike tried to complicate things with the melted snowman and Dana's disappearance, but it didn't work out very well and felt at least as weak as his attempt to make Cal look like a decent person at the end.

I can't remember if I ever read this when I was a teen. It wouldn't surprise me if I had and then immediately forgot about it. It's definitely not one of Pike's better works.

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

Sharon McKay is on trial for her best friend Ann Rice’s murder. Never mind that there’s no body, no real witnesses, and no evidence. Sharon and Ann’s friends saw them hike up to the cliff that night and heard Ann scream “Don’t!” before she either fell or was pushed off the cliff. Everybody seems to be convinced that Sharon killed Ann.

Scenes of the trial from Sharon’s POV alternate between scenes prior to the accident/murder from Ann’s POV. What Sharon didn’t know was that Ann was obsessed. Ann’s brother, Jerry, had loved Sharon and had killed himself after their relationship ended. Ann blamed Sharon and wanted her to suffer. What better way to do that than frame her for murder, thereby ruining her bright future? (I’m sure you can think of better and less risky ways she could have gotten her revenge, but just roll with it.)

I loved Christopher Pike’s books when I was a teen. They haven’t held up quite as well for me now that I’m an adult, but I can understand why Teen Me loved them: they almost always have shocking revelations and riveting banana pants moments.

The first half of this book was a straightforward murder...story. I can’t really call it a mystery, because everything was laid out for readers to see: Ann’s motive, her plan, who she decided to involve. All of it by page 32. The main question seemed to be “Did Ann survive her regrettably complicated plan or not?”

However, I trust Pike to always find a way to complicate things, and about halfway through the book he did just that. Bad things happened during Ann's plan. A character I hadn’t paid much attention to did something unexpected. Yes! Great fun up ahead!

Except not so much. Honestly, this book could have used more banana pantsery. Pike used up what little there was too quickly and put everything out in the open too fast. The ending was just...boring. And a little too silly to take seriously. I couldn’t help but laugh at all the kiss-related dialogue at the end. Paraphrasing: “You’re a bad kisser!” “No, you are!” “That was the best kiss I ever had. Really!” Oh, just stop it.

I almost missed the epilogue because the last couple pages were slightly stuck together. If anything, the epilogue actually made things worse, adding “depressing” to “mediocre” in the list of words I’d use to describe this book. I was not a fan of the implication that Sharon might have to pay her lawyer back with sexual favors, or settle for a lesser lawyer. I suppose the “it’s going to cost you” could have been referring to money, but there were a few lines earlier on that suggested otherwise. In general, I’m not surprised that the ending was changed for the made-for-TV movie (although Wikipedia’s description of the changed ending makes it sound like more of a mess than an improvement).

One more thing: I imagine the courtroom scenes would make actual lawyers and judges cringe. I’m pretty sure that real lawyers can’t get away with telling objecting lawyers to shut up (yes, he actually said that out loud, but the judge was so dazzled by the story he was laying out that he didn’t say anything).

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