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Slumber Party
Christopher Pike Scholastic, Inc. © 1984 |
Slumber Party starts with a group of six friends getting ready to have a weekend of fun with skiing and a sleepover. From the beginning, you see that each girl has a different personality and that there is tension between them. The main character is Lara, who is supposed to be the sweet one. Dana is the chubby, boy-crazy best friend. Rachael is the pretty, popular, stuck-up blonde. Mindy is the dumb one, Celeste is the shy one, and Nell is the friend with a bad-temper. Nell also comes from a rich family and they are all staying at her family’s big home near a ski lodge.
Celeste is new at school but the other friends have known each other for years, and you find out they have some secrets. The last time they had a slumber party when they were little girls, it ended in disaster – one that no one wants to talk about. As the weekend progresses, strange and scary events begin to occur that no one notices or cares about except Lara. While Lara tries to put the pieces together, all the secrets come out and this slumber party turns into another nightmare.
Although there are a lot of mysteries and tensions between the girls in this book, there is not enough drama to make you actually want to read it. One reason is because non of the characters are very likable. They are made out to be silly teenagers who think about nothing except boys and sex. For almost the entire book, Lara and Rachael are in competition over who will be homecoming queen and who can have the cute boy they both barely know. Meanwhile, Dana and Mindy fight over the boy’s friend, who only wants to grope them. Also, teenage girls are made out to be very shallow, with the idea that Nell is capable of murdering her friends because they are pretty and she is scared. Not to mention how dumb the girls seem since they are unable to recognize a long-lost friend.
I definitely would not recommend this book to students of any ages. It is inappropriate for middle school students because it will give them the wrong idea about sex and alcohol and other high school students will just find it a waste of time.
~ Rachel Woolf, grade 11, Matthews High School