The Grave: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

To allow you to understand where i am coming from, let me first say that I have read almost all of CHristopher Pike's book in the past, and throughout my years have considered him to be an extremely fine writer. That said, let me now go on to describe why The Grave is CP's worst effort to date. And you can't even say, "Well it's still better than a lot of other stuff out there," because it's NOT! It's THAT BAD! The characters are two dimensional, the incredibly boring revivals of characters we've encountered in the past - the interesting, soulful guy, the cute but still sexy in her own way poor girl next door, and the good looking but evil for whatever reason (usually b/c of something that happened in the past or an alternate universe) bad guy(s). The plot is terrible too. it lacked suspense and was incredibly uninteresting. at least before, in CP's earlier books, everything felt somewhat believable, the way he could incorporate mysticism and spirituality with the madness of science. but this book!!!! this book falls flat on its face!!! i don't know if he was even trying - i have to agree with the other reviewers that said his books have started to take an ugly turn for the worse. I mean, I hated his Final Friends series, but at least those were written with some kind of style. This one is a horrible remashing of things he's written before, and the only reason it got published is because it's under the Christopher Pike name. But diehard fans will still read this and buy it, and fans who have yet to have an discerning judgment will still crow that "This book is the best!" But for those of you who find it harder to find books worthy of rave reviews, steer clear of this one! Among my favorite CP books are The Remember Me series (well, the 3rd one wasn't so hot), The Midnight Game, Whisper of Death, and any others from around that period. For the newbie fans, steer clear of the earliest ones and the most recent ones. The middle ones were his hey-day. You can tell he really hit his groove then. Oh and if you want a REALLY awesome read, read the Anita Blake series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Wooo those things are hard to put down!

People have written some pretty bad reviews about this book, but it isn't so terrible. He has done better, I will admit that, but this is not a bad story. It is still original and innovative with an interesting plot and ideas involving DNA. This is also more of a science fiction novel than a horror novel, and this might throw some people off.
The characters are maybe the weakest point in what is otherwise a decent story. The main character, I think her name is Lara, something with an L, I can't remember and I don't have the book to look it up, is not incredibly sympathetic. Her problems are realistic, and will make negative people realize that they could have it so much worse. Her mother and her boyfriend are for the most part, well done. Most people throughout their lives have had boyfriends\girlfriends who would give their left arm to help what they think is the love of their life, and the feeling is sadly unreciprocated. So, that part of the story was okay, although their love came to a bad end.
Now the poorer points of the novel. Dara was a stereotype of every other femme fatale that Christopher Pike had ever written about, her motives were there, and they held, but towards the second half of the book she became almost laughable. The whole story became slightly laughable, but it still held together. And you thought that your family had problems. Try having a DNA harvesting father who screwed up making his terminally ill daughter immortal, who then killed her brother. They all needed Oprah in the worst way, or maybe Jerry Springer. The name of the show would be "I am a DNA science nightmare".
Also, as the novel progressed and Lara? began to change, I felt that this had all been done before in Monster. My reaction, was great, another bimbo who got involved with the dark side and is scarfing down 10 big macs in one sitting. Ooh sexy! At least the food was cooked this time, I think. That part of the story became tiring, but it also made me laugh out loud. This book doesn't take itself seriously either, which is a very redeeming quality.
But,I don't feel that this book was a waste of my time at all, because I HAVE seen worse out there. I also don't really believe that Christopher Pike has ever written anything that is truly terrible. Brutal maybe, but terrible no.

I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I really can't see why these other people didn't like The Grave. It was such a good book! Yes, parts of it were a bit confusing, but if you actually READ IT ALL TO THE END, it's quite understandable. It really gets you into it. I couldn't put it down. I highly recommend this book and this author.