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Gimme a Kiss
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Club —now an original Netflix series!
The sweetest words of love can often be the deadliest...
In a riveting tale of vengeance turned to terror, a teenage girl devises a plot for revenge that goes too far—with murderous results.
The sweetest words of love can often be the deadliest...
In a riveting tale of vengeance turned to terror, a teenage girl devises a plot for revenge that goes too far—with murderous results.
152 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 10, 1988
23 people are currently reading
1015 people want to read
About the author
Christopher Pike
262 books5,469 followersChristopher Pike is the pseudonym of Kevin McFadden. He is a bestselling author of young adult and children's fiction who specializes in the thriller genre.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
McFadden was born in New York but grew up in California where he stills lives in today. A college drop-out, he did factory work, painted houses and programmed computers before becoming a recognized author. Initially unsuccessful when he set out to write science fiction and adult mystery, it was not until his work caught the attention of an editor who suggested he write a teen thriller that he became a hit. The result was Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and violent events during a ski weekend. After that he wrote Weekend and Chain Letter. All three books went on to become bestsellers.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
McFadden was born in New York but grew up in California where he stills lives in today. A college drop-out, he did factory work, painted houses and programmed computers before becoming a recognized author. Initially unsuccessful when he set out to write science fiction and adult mystery, it was not until his work caught the attention of an editor who suggested he write a teen thriller that he became a hit. The result was Slumber Party (1985), a book about a group of teenagers who run into bizarre and violent events during a ski weekend. After that he wrote Weekend and Chain Letter. All three books went on to become bestsellers.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 145 reviews
May 20, 2019
Maybe the best of the Pike thrillers without any supernatural elements. Also contains Pike's best VD joke.
January 26, 2022
Christopher Pike was the Southern Californian, New Age, Crystal gazing version of R. L. Stine, the plots of all his young-adult novels are spectacularly convoluted and sublimely trashy. I read "Gimme a Kiss" at an age when I should have been reading "The Westing Game" or "The Giver" or that book about the racist boy who is temporarily blinded when the boat he is on is torpedoed and he has to survive on a lifeboat and eventually an island with an elderly Black man. Instead of such enriching narratives about racial intolerance and healing, or dystopian societies, or murder mystery puzzles I was actually reading a book about an adolescent girl whose reputation is ruined when she writes a sexual fantasy in her journal as fact, she then fakes her death on a school trip (in order to salvage her virtue?) and the body count mounts. If only this novel actively challenged the sexual double standard, instead it is a cautionary tale about Herpes and sexual repression and gives many good reasons for why you should not attempt to flee a burning building in a scuba diving wetsuit.
January 21, 2024
This was a reread of a book I read a long time ago.
Sometimes with rereads my feelings change. They did not with this one.
I almost wish Pike would write a part two. We are left with so many questions.
SPOILERS:
I think this could have been really good if there were more suspects, if someone else nice had survived, if the whole thing would not have been so out there.The motive was pretty outlandish. Also, I have the same questions about the cop. Was he in love with Jane? And how does Jane go on from there with all her friends either locked up or dead?
Not enough meat on the bones to chew on. That does not mean it isn't compulsively readable because it is, only not in the way I'd have liked.
Original review below.
In my rereading of Pike books, there is this.
Gimme a Kiss is not one of Pike's better ones in my opinion. It is perhaps on my least favorite list of his books. All the things that make his other books so great are not present here or at least I did not see them.
SPOILERS:
There are no suspects..I mean..maybe one or two but it is not hard at ALL to figure out what is going on here.
No complexity within the characters. That is unusual with Pike.
Everyone..I mean EVERYONE.. who has an iota of decency dies..except Jane. I mean..poor Jane. Her boyfriend is murdered, her best friend dies her other best friend is the murderer. And that brings me to:
Angel Alice. (WHY are so many dark characters in literature named Alice?) The motive behind Alice doing all this was crazy..I did not buy it at all.
The cop..was he in love with Jane? We really don't know but he does seem obsessed with her in a more then platonic way.
Jane's plan was to complex for what happened. I did not believe she would put herself and everyone she knew through that.
The book just sorta ends. No resolving of conflicts at all.
I must stress how much I love Pike and how many of his books I read growing up. T his one however I wouldn't recommend.
Sometimes with rereads my feelings change. They did not with this one.
I almost wish Pike would write a part two. We are left with so many questions.
SPOILERS:
I think this could have been really good if there were more suspects, if someone else nice had survived, if the whole thing would not have been so out there.The motive was pretty outlandish. Also, I have the same questions about the cop. Was he in love with Jane? And how does Jane go on from there with all her friends either locked up or dead?
Not enough meat on the bones to chew on. That does not mean it isn't compulsively readable because it is, only not in the way I'd have liked.
Original review below.
In my rereading of Pike books, there is this.
Gimme a Kiss is not one of Pike's better ones in my opinion. It is perhaps on my least favorite list of his books. All the things that make his other books so great are not present here or at least I did not see them.
SPOILERS:
There are no suspects..I mean..maybe one or two but it is not hard at ALL to figure out what is going on here.
No complexity within the characters. That is unusual with Pike.
Everyone..I mean EVERYONE.. who has an iota of decency dies..except Jane. I mean..poor Jane. Her boyfriend is murdered, her best friend dies her other best friend is the murderer. And that brings me to:
Angel Alice. (WHY are so many dark characters in literature named Alice?) The motive behind Alice doing all this was crazy..I did not buy it at all.
The cop..was he in love with Jane? We really don't know but he does seem obsessed with her in a more then platonic way.
Jane's plan was to complex for what happened. I did not believe she would put herself and everyone she knew through that.
The book just sorta ends. No resolving of conflicts at all.
I must stress how much I love Pike and how many of his books I read growing up. T his one however I wouldn't recommend.
February 10, 2018
Okay I will admit that this was not a book I planned on reading but hey it surprised me and so I think it deserves a mention.
I am sure when you are around a lot of books there comes a time when you see a title (either in a shop or on someones desk or even in my case where I have books donated to me - thats another story) which you would never have normally chosen to read - today it was Gimme A Kiss.
This book is from a number of books by Christopher Pike someone no longer wants and thought I might be able to find a home for (I help out at charity book stores from time to time).
Well either way I picked up the book and 122 pages later I had finished it. I will admit that it started out as a typical teenage read (I guess back in the 90s when it was published YA was not even heard of). However after a few twists a turns it turned it kept my interest and turned in to quite a fun read.
I will not go in to details as spoiler free is my aim however I will admit that even though the cast list was relatively small I did not feel at the end of it that I was cheated in wondering who the villain was (I have read much large and more lavish books and guessed the ending well before the last page before now - and that is disappointing).
I know that Christopher Pike has a certain target audience (well at least from the dozen or so books I have been given) but still it is refreshing to see that even if the cover art is predictable and cliche his stories are not. I will admit that I may be tempted to read another one although I have to keep my eyes on the titles I am trying to complete although as the next entry shows I am failing that abysmally.
I am sure when you are around a lot of books there comes a time when you see a title (either in a shop or on someones desk or even in my case where I have books donated to me - thats another story) which you would never have normally chosen to read - today it was Gimme A Kiss.
This book is from a number of books by Christopher Pike someone no longer wants and thought I might be able to find a home for (I help out at charity book stores from time to time).
Well either way I picked up the book and 122 pages later I had finished it. I will admit that it started out as a typical teenage read (I guess back in the 90s when it was published YA was not even heard of). However after a few twists a turns it turned it kept my interest and turned in to quite a fun read.
I will not go in to details as spoiler free is my aim however I will admit that even though the cast list was relatively small I did not feel at the end of it that I was cheated in wondering who the villain was (I have read much large and more lavish books and guessed the ending well before the last page before now - and that is disappointing).
I know that Christopher Pike has a certain target audience (well at least from the dozen or so books I have been given) but still it is refreshing to see that even if the cover art is predictable and cliche his stories are not. I will admit that I may be tempted to read another one although I have to keep my eyes on the titles I am trying to complete although as the next entry shows I am failing that abysmally.
June 22, 2022
It wouldn't be a Pike novel if there weren't:
a) horn dog teens
b) at least one plot twist
c) more horn dog teens
So without giving too much away, let's just say Jane, one of our main protags, is exceedingly EXTRA. She embellishes stories and invents wild fantasies to write in her diary to pass off as truth which is weird because who actually does that?? Isn't a diary the last frontier where you can actually be totally honest?? Anyway OF COURSE her diary gets stolen and her pages photocopied for the whole school to read. So she devises a bonkers plan to get even with the bitch who stole her diary and her boyfriend who didn't defend her honor when shit hit the fan. Aaand of course things devolve from there.
One of the best Pike's i've read (my fave will always be MONSTER though), and a fast read, at that! Death count is decent and the thrill factor is high. Point deducted for the icky detective and his romantic overtures towards a - AHEM - teenager. Gross, dude.
4 out of 5 totally bogus stories written in your diary can come back to haunt you....or even kill you. Let this be a warning, my fellow diarists.
a) horn dog teens
b) at least one plot twist
c) more horn dog teens
So without giving too much away, let's just say Jane, one of our main protags, is exceedingly EXTRA. She embellishes stories and invents wild fantasies to write in her diary to pass off as truth which is weird because who actually does that?? Isn't a diary the last frontier where you can actually be totally honest?? Anyway OF COURSE her diary gets stolen and her pages photocopied for the whole school to read. So she devises a bonkers plan to get even with the bitch who stole her diary and her boyfriend who didn't defend her honor when shit hit the fan. Aaand of course things devolve from there.
One of the best Pike's i've read (my fave will always be MONSTER though), and a fast read, at that! Death count is decent and the thrill factor is high. Point deducted for the icky detective and his romantic overtures towards a - AHEM - teenager. Gross, dude.
4 out of 5 totally bogus stories written in your diary can come back to haunt you....or even kill you. Let this be a warning, my fellow diarists.
March 9, 2024
This was a pretty straight forward thriller, nothing too special. I was expecting one of Christopher Pikes crazy twists but it never happened. Although, the last quarter of the book was a nail biter!
March 12, 2021
I used to DEVOUR these books as a teen, so revisiting them in my 40s is a trip. So dramatic! Forgot how this one ended and I am DYING. Can’t wait to re read all the rest!
March 2, 2012
I was so psyched when I visited the Nashua Public Library and found that they had a sizable collection of vintage Christopher Pike books. I couldn't remember the ending of this one, and it was really skinny, so I checked it out.
The short plot: Jane vows revenge when she finds that the last page of her diary has been photocopied and passed around the school. What was Jane's secret? Why would she feel the need to go so far as murder? I couldn't remember. So.... SPOILERS!
The girls over at Forever Young Adult did a hilarious post about Christopher Pike's common themes, and this book was one of the ones they reviewed. It was rather funny to realize that surprising as it was to find 8 of his commonly used themes in this book, arson and revenge were used twice, and the whole story reminded me that another of Christopher Pike's books used scuba diving (Bury Me Deep).
Also, in our modern times of cyber-bullying, Jane's embarrassment over a rumor that she had sex seems a bit overblown. Kids today would have made her life a living hell. She would have to deal with more than just a few stray looks and a talk from her guidance counselor that today would have landed him in prison. Aside from this, the story has held up pretty well over time.
The short plot: Jane vows revenge when she finds that the last page of her diary has been photocopied and passed around the school. What was Jane's secret? Why would she feel the need to go so far as murder? I couldn't remember. So.... SPOILERS!
The girls over at Forever Young Adult did a hilarious post about Christopher Pike's common themes, and this book was one of the ones they reviewed. It was rather funny to realize that surprising as it was to find 8 of his commonly used themes in this book, arson and revenge were used twice, and the whole story reminded me that another of Christopher Pike's books used scuba diving (Bury Me Deep).
Also, in our modern times of cyber-bullying, Jane's embarrassment over a rumor that she had sex seems a bit overblown. Kids today would have made her life a living hell. She would have to deal with more than just a few stray looks and a talk from her guidance counselor that today would have landed him in prison. Aside from this, the story has held up pretty well over time.
June 3, 2022
A re-read for me, but it’s been a very long time. I still remembered quite a lot of it though. Pike is the reason I was able to figure out the twist in Gone Girl so early on tbh.
Also, this book is how I learned what a Molotov cocktail was. Thanks, Pike.
Probably one of my favorites of his. Yes, it’s messy and convoluted but that’s what makes it so great! We get…
- A horny (but hella smart) protag who writes smutty fan-fiction diary entries
- An ingenious plan to fake one’s death using scuba equipment (why are all Pike teens expert scuba divers)
- A cold, calculating unsuspecting frenemy
- The most misguided murder motivation I’ve ever seen—so ridic, even Pike knows it
- A cat fight that ends almost as soon as it begins
- All the adults in this town belong in jail. Just saying.
Ends on a bit of a weird note with it almost hinting at the cop being a romantic interest?
I digress. I liked it! Quick, smart, and has its humorous moments.
Also, this book is how I learned what a Molotov cocktail was. Thanks, Pike.
Probably one of my favorites of his. Yes, it’s messy and convoluted but that’s what makes it so great! We get…
- A horny (but hella smart) protag who writes smutty fan-fiction diary entries
- An ingenious plan to fake one’s death using scuba equipment (why are all Pike teens expert scuba divers)
- A cold, calculating unsuspecting frenemy
- The most misguided murder motivation I’ve ever seen—so ridic, even Pike knows it
- A cat fight that ends almost as soon as it begins
- All the adults in this town belong in jail. Just saying.
Ends on a bit of a weird note with it almost hinting at the cop being a romantic interest?
I digress. I liked it! Quick, smart, and has its humorous moments.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 4, 2015
It was good ... all of Pikes books are good.
June 29, 2015
2 1/2 stars. Another great piece of cover art for this Christopher Pike book. Somehow this girl fell off of what appears to be an enormous pirate ship (It wasn't a pirate ship) all the way down to the water and managed to not get anything wet above her waist. Look at that perfectly feathered hair!
This book is about a girl named Jane who writes a made-up story in her diary about having sex with her boyfriend Kirk. One of the cheerleaders at school (because cheerleaders are always bad) somehow gets a hold of the diary and photocopies it, passes it around school, and Jane is humiliated. Because Jane is an apparent psychopath and because 17-year-olds in Christopher Pike books are criminal masterminds with infinite resources, she formulates a plan to fake her own death on a class yachting trip, framing the cheerleader and Kirk for it, then showing up at school several days later to laugh in their faces about it because that is totally equivalent to passing around someone's diary. The plan goes somehow awry and people end up actually dead and then a police officer has to unravel the truth. And you guys, the truth is that this book ends in a totally wackadoo and insane way. After I read the conclusion, I felt like "What. The. Actual. Hell?!" The motive of the villain, the complexity of the plan - it is all crazy.
As with other Christopher Pike books, there is an uncomfortable amount of slut-shaming going on. The main characteristic of the cheerleader is that she is "easy" or "loose." When the police officer takes notes on her, he describes her as "sexy bad girl" and points out (appreciatively) how girls are developing so much earlier now. (He is 33, she is 17 or 18 - and he is supposed to be a good guy.) When Jane's journal entry starts circulating around the school, her boss (who also happens to be her friend's dad) actually pulls her aside and scolds her for what she has done, how she needs to straighten out her life, how she has been weak. And he says that he actually was going to fire her (because she had sex with her boyfriend !!!- which she actually didn't!!!) but he realized that her heart was still pure. !!!!!! It was such a creepy scene, but I don't think it was supposed to be. And then there was a counselor at school who stopped Jane in the hallway in front of everyone and praised her for what she wrote in the diary because she seemed so "at home with her sensuality." OH MY GOD!!! I guess he was supposed to be like the hip counselor or something (He later gives Jane and her friends boxes of condoms), but it was again super creepy and weird. None of the adults are concerned with Jane's humiliation or the fact that she is being bullied. Everything about it made me so uncomfortable. Ugh.
And yet - for all of its craziness, this book was still a page-turner. I really couldn't put it down. It jumped right into the action and kept barreling along all the way to the wacky end. No time for any characterization whatsoever! (Seriously, even at the end of the book, I couldn't tell the difference between the two non-Jane female characters. And Kirk has no characteristics at all other than his muscular chest) Oh well - it was worth it for the craziness.
p.s. This is ANOTHER Christopher Pike book where scuba diving plays an important role. Fortunately, I have already read Bury Me Deep, so I have a pretty sophisticated understanding of everything that goes into your standard dive.
This book is about a girl named Jane who writes a made-up story in her diary about having sex with her boyfriend Kirk. One of the cheerleaders at school (because cheerleaders are always bad) somehow gets a hold of the diary and photocopies it, passes it around school, and Jane is humiliated. Because Jane is an apparent psychopath and because 17-year-olds in Christopher Pike books are criminal masterminds with infinite resources, she formulates a plan to fake her own death on a class yachting trip, framing the cheerleader and Kirk for it, then showing up at school several days later to laugh in their faces about it because that is totally equivalent to passing around someone's diary. The plan goes somehow awry and people end up actually dead and then a police officer has to unravel the truth. And you guys, the truth is that this book ends in a totally wackadoo and insane way. After I read the conclusion, I felt like "What. The. Actual. Hell?!" The motive of the villain, the complexity of the plan - it is all crazy.
As with other Christopher Pike books, there is an uncomfortable amount of slut-shaming going on. The main characteristic of the cheerleader is that she is "easy" or "loose." When the police officer takes notes on her, he describes her as "sexy bad girl" and points out (appreciatively) how girls are developing so much earlier now. (He is 33, she is 17 or 18 - and he is supposed to be a good guy.) When Jane's journal entry starts circulating around the school, her boss (who also happens to be her friend's dad) actually pulls her aside and scolds her for what she has done, how she needs to straighten out her life, how she has been weak. And he says that he actually was going to fire her (because she had sex with her boyfriend !!!- which she actually didn't!!!) but he realized that her heart was still pure. !!!!!! It was such a creepy scene, but I don't think it was supposed to be. And then there was a counselor at school who stopped Jane in the hallway in front of everyone and praised her for what she wrote in the diary because she seemed so "at home with her sensuality." OH MY GOD!!! I guess he was supposed to be like the hip counselor or something (He later gives Jane and her friends boxes of condoms), but it was again super creepy and weird. None of the adults are concerned with Jane's humiliation or the fact that she is being bullied. Everything about it made me so uncomfortable. Ugh.
And yet - for all of its craziness, this book was still a page-turner. I really couldn't put it down. It jumped right into the action and kept barreling along all the way to the wacky end. No time for any characterization whatsoever! (Seriously, even at the end of the book, I couldn't tell the difference between the two non-Jane female characters. And Kirk has no characteristics at all other than his muscular chest) Oh well - it was worth it for the craziness.
p.s. This is ANOTHER Christopher Pike book where scuba diving plays an important role. Fortunately, I have already read Bury Me Deep, so I have a pretty sophisticated understanding of everything that goes into your standard dive.
September 13, 2016
This is the second book I've read on the "Proof That Christopher Pike Wrote Some Pretty Fucked-Up Books For Teens" list... Follows the same kind of pattern as the first book, but still another awesome twist at the end!
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katangus/sex...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/katangus/sex...
May 9, 2025
Oral hygiene/Christ freak gets cold sores from kissing a boy and takes advantage of her horny friend’s own convoluted revenge plan to smite the bastard who gave her The Gift That Keeps On Giving. Shoulda just used some Orajel.
September 9, 2023
When you finally realize what the title’s all about, you’ll pretty much die laughing. Well played, Christopher Pike, well played.
June 5, 2016
This one's much different than Pike's other works. His black humor shows through as always, even stronger, particularly with one of the more bizarre villain motivations I've read. It's an interesting enough story - a girl gets humiliated at school when some kids pass around pages of her diary, and then takes revenge by faking her death on a cruise - and is told mainly through the eyes of Jane to a police captain after people really do die in her rescue. Pace wise, the story moves swiftly (it's a shorter book for him, a mere 152 pages), with enough bumps and oomphs to keep the scenes speeding along. It's easy when reading this study to remember the angst of high school days, trials, and tribulations
As always Pike writes with a creative pen, this time a little less aptly in some parts, but hey - maybe I just think that because I didn't care much for the book. I mentioned the villains motivation being bizarre, and while it may have been meant as a huge joke, I didn't find it humorous. It was more stupid to me than anything else. I know Pike has much better stuff in his imagination, I've seen it. The characters didn't draw me as much as usual, either, instead just existing as plot pieces.
However, there were some scenes that stand out. The boat scene was an amusing mishap, and the house scene with her friend was nail-biting. Suspense is always done well in his books, whether I enjoy them or not. I would never call this a full-fledged mystery (as again the motive makes no sense), but the curiosity was there too to keep me reading along. Overall I'd say to stay away from this one unless you're already a fan, and start with his other works instead.
As always Pike writes with a creative pen, this time a little less aptly in some parts, but hey - maybe I just think that because I didn't care much for the book. I mentioned the villains motivation being bizarre, and while it may have been meant as a huge joke, I didn't find it humorous. It was more stupid to me than anything else. I know Pike has much better stuff in his imagination, I've seen it. The characters didn't draw me as much as usual, either, instead just existing as plot pieces.
However, there were some scenes that stand out. The boat scene was an amusing mishap, and the house scene with her friend was nail-biting. Suspense is always done well in his books, whether I enjoy them or not. I would never call this a full-fledged mystery (as again the motive makes no sense), but the curiosity was there too to keep me reading along. Overall I'd say to stay away from this one unless you're already a fan, and start with his other works instead.
Read
February 27, 2018My friend Alex sent me a surprise care package of Christopher Pike books. We had been talking about how we both devoured them years ago. There used to be few things I loved more than Christopher Pike books. Unless it was VC Andrews books. Or Sweet Valley High. Or Babysitters Club. Or Stephen King. I had eclectic taste. As I reread this, I compared it to VC Andrews. As in, another author I totally shouldn’t have been reading so young. My parents were pretty strict with most things except books. They never monitored or inspected what we were reading. Looking back I wonder if my mom was just so happy we were giving her peace and quiet that she didn’t care. I didn’t remember the Pike books being so batshit crazy but they really are. It was hilarious taking a trip down memory lane.
December 31, 2018
Supremely dated trashy cheesefest thriller. The plot is absolutely insane - and could have been avoided with a decent sex ed class. Could do without the insane amount of slut shaming and creepy old men though.
December 28, 2025
Jane Retton is a teenager who uses her diary to imagine a slightly better life for herself. In her diary, when Kirk, her friend Alice's ex-boyfriend, asked her out, it was super-romantic and perfect. She's in the process of writing about their perfect first time having sex (in reality, Jane has never had sex) when she's interrupted. She forgets to put her diary away, which, unfortunately, soon leads to Patty, a cheerleader who hates Jane's guts, getting hold of the most recent entry, making copies of it, and passing it around school.
Jane is deeply humiliated. It doesn't help that Kirk doesn't deny the events mentioned in the diary and adds fuel to the fire by confirming that the handwriting is Jane's. But then Jane has an idea, a way to temporarily get back at both Kirk and Patty. Except something goes horribly wrong. Now Alice, one of Jane's friends, is the only one who can say what really happened. But did she actually know everything, and is she telling the police the full truth?
Yes, it totally makes sense to deal with humiliation by Absolutely. So yeah, the Christopher Pike banana pantsery is baked right into the premise of this one. It's still fairly mild, though, because additional revelations, while ridiculous in their own way, don't make things that much more outlandish. There are much wilder Christopher Pike books out there.
None of this gave me a sense of deja vu as I was reading, so either I never read this as a teen or it just wasn't memorable enough to stick in my brain. As a mystery/thriller, it had some nice pieces that readers could put together to figure certain things out, with zero supernatural elements to complicate things. Whether it was all believable was, uh, another thing entirely.
All in all, this was an okay read. Needed even more banana pantsery. And ugh, I hated that I could absolutely imagine the 33-year-old cop proposing to [redacted] after rescuing her in the end. They would have the world's most unhealthy and turbulent relationship, ending in either a messy divorce or murder.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
Jane is deeply humiliated. It doesn't help that Kirk doesn't deny the events mentioned in the diary and adds fuel to the fire by confirming that the handwriting is Jane's. But then Jane has an idea, a way to temporarily get back at both Kirk and Patty. Except something goes horribly wrong. Now Alice, one of Jane's friends, is the only one who can say what really happened. But did she actually know everything, and is she telling the police the full truth?
Yes, it totally makes sense to deal with humiliation by Absolutely. So yeah, the Christopher Pike banana pantsery is baked right into the premise of this one. It's still fairly mild, though, because additional revelations, while ridiculous in their own way, don't make things that much more outlandish. There are much wilder Christopher Pike books out there.
None of this gave me a sense of deja vu as I was reading, so either I never read this as a teen or it just wasn't memorable enough to stick in my brain. As a mystery/thriller, it had some nice pieces that readers could put together to figure certain things out, with zero supernatural elements to complicate things. Whether it was all believable was, uh, another thing entirely.
All in all, this was an okay read. Needed even more banana pantsery. And ugh, I hated that I could absolutely imagine the 33-year-old cop proposing to [redacted] after rescuing her in the end. They would have the world's most unhealthy and turbulent relationship, ending in either a messy divorce or murder.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
July 30, 2022
Re-read. This is a shorter one from Pike, and not one of his better ones. While it has the propulsive readability of classic Pike, the story itself is pretty preposterous. A girl - Jane Retton - is shamed by a fake story of losing her virginity getting out (which she penned as a fantasy in her own diary). So she decides to do the obvious thing to punish the perpetrators and her boyfriend Kirk for going along with it: she will fake her own death in an overly elaborate scheme to make them feel guilty. As if this isn't enough already, we enter the story from the perspective of Lieutenant Fisher who is interrogating one of Jane's friends Alice - apparently the only survivor of a night that got way out of hand, and likely holding onto some secrets herself.
There is just one word I can use to describe this story: unhinged. I can't believe the amount of insane action/drama Pike packed into these 152 pages. Topically, however, the book unfortunately hasn't aged too well: teens today would either yawn over something that caused Jane the deepest shame, or they'd be way, wayyy meaner to her than the kids in this book.
Similarly, one of the plot points revolves around a young person misunderstanding the exact nature and transmissibility of sexual diseases - god, I hope teens today aren't so under-educated. I hope!!
Extra points though because this book was one of the first to show me the cool uses of scuba diving equipment and dental records in the execution of crime and escape from it.
There is just one word I can use to describe this story: unhinged. I can't believe the amount of insane action/drama Pike packed into these 152 pages. Topically, however, the book unfortunately hasn't aged too well: teens today would either yawn over something that caused Jane the deepest shame, or they'd be way, wayyy meaner to her than the kids in this book.
Similarly, one of the plot points revolves around a young person misunderstanding the exact nature and transmissibility of sexual diseases - god, I hope teens today aren't so under-educated. I hope!!
Extra points though because this book was one of the first to show me the cool uses of scuba diving equipment and dental records in the execution of crime and escape from it.
December 2, 2020
This was a fun read! I found Christopher Pike’s work decades ago while in middle school. I’ve read the majority of his titles. I want to end this year on a fun note, so I decided to revisit this story to see if it held up decades later. It does!
The story is a quick read. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I enjoyed every word of it. My only issue is I couldn’t find it in electronic format. I like to read in soft light and I use my kindle’s light to avoid eye strain. This meant that I could only read this book during the day, but it was worth it!
Don’t approach this book with high expectations of a layered and serious plot. Just go with the flow and have a nice time. This is a good read!
The story is a quick read. It’s absolutely ridiculous and I enjoyed every word of it. My only issue is I couldn’t find it in electronic format. I like to read in soft light and I use my kindle’s light to avoid eye strain. This meant that I could only read this book during the day, but it was worth it!
Don’t approach this book with high expectations of a layered and serious plot. Just go with the flow and have a nice time. This is a good read!
November 20, 2021
Nothing better than spending a Friday night revisiting some of your favorite YA pulp thriller books while also getting slightly tipsy on good craft beer. Better than following tonight's news, at least.
I loved "Gimme a Kiss" when younger. Still do. Jane Retton is a freaking awesome badass. In some scenes, she's practically John McLean-esque. She's not good, though, mind you. But her faults are my faults, and her strengths my strengths (or at least what I imagine my faults and strengths to be).
Best Line: "Let's die and put yourself out of my misery."
Christopher Pike always struck me as a someone who must be deeply, fundamentally weird. But at least he wrote books about girls who DID things. Amen to that.
I loved "Gimme a Kiss" when younger. Still do. Jane Retton is a freaking awesome badass. In some scenes, she's practically John McLean-esque. She's not good, though, mind you. But her faults are my faults, and her strengths my strengths (or at least what I imagine my faults and strengths to be).
Best Line: "Let's die and put yourself out of my misery."
Christopher Pike always struck me as a someone who must be deeply, fundamentally weird. But at least he wrote books about girls who DID things. Amen to that.
July 2, 2024
Re-reading these as an adult has been a trip. The plots are wild, and the ending of this one made me face palm (in a good way), but they are entertaining as hell. Crazy to think I was probably 10 or younger when reading most of these for the first time.
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February 1, 2025I dont even know what to say. This book is insane😂.
February 8, 2025
’Sheltered religious girl goes on a petty revenge killing spree because she got herpes and thinks all STDs are deadly’ is such a fucking good slasher motivator. John Kramer WHO?
August 9, 2024
A fun, easy read. Pure brain candy.
June 6, 2019
I only finished this book because I was doing it as part of a youtube video. Otherwise, I would have dnf'd it within the first 30 pages. This book definitely showed its age because the way it approached sex was really outdated. The main character was treated like a slut or a horrible person because everyone saw a diary entry about one sexual experience. Plus, in terms of the thriller aspect the reveals were all rather predictable. Then the ending was once again a sign of the age of the book. I don't want to spoil it, but it doesn't work with a modern audience.
April 1, 2025
5/10⭐️ this book was an easy read (only 150 pages). The set up was so good and I was hooked from the beginning, but the ending sucked butt. It was trying to be funny, as they were breathing in gas and were “high” but it took all of the built suspense and threw it out the window. I was actually excited to see where it would go, but it did not work for me.
February 23, 2021
It's been a while since I've picked up a Christopher Pike novel. And I'll admit, there's a nostalgia factor that got me to start searching them out at used book stores and thrift shops. Something just so strikingly late 80s/90s about the cover art overlaid with that iconic script second only to the likes of Goosebumps and Stephen King.
But I'm getting off track.
When I read novels like this when I was the age of the characters I think I found them frankly more unbelievable than I do now. The motivations of the protagonists always felt incredibly dramatic. Funnily enough, at 26, I get it. At least in this case.
Exactly what you're promised on the back cover is exactly what you get: through a series of what seem like unfortunate coincidences, the bad girl at school gets Jane's diary entry in which she had fabricated a sexual encounter with her boyfriend. Surprise, surprise, the bad girl spreads this around the school and Jane is deeply embarrassed. So embarrassed, in fact, that she, logically, comes up with a 'foolproof' plan to get revenge. The plan works, and... she immidiately regrets it after the real consequences catch up to her.
There's a twist to all of this, of course, but we'll get to that.
A plot that woud have seemed so insane to my 16-year-old self, rings absolutely true to me now. I not only believe fully that a teenager would think of what happened to Jane as the end of the world, I think they'd absolutely come up with a completely out of proportion method of getting revenge, and I am convinced that if they ever played it out they'd only later realize that the reason they wanted revenge wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
I normally have issues with the messaging in horror novels with protagonists like Jane. They tend to punish characters for not wanting to be bullied, implying that if they would just 'suck it up, buttercup,' then their lives would be better. And that trying to escape from bullies is somehow the 'wrong' thing to do.
'Gimme a Kiss' does it right. Not only does Jane have enough of a character arc to see clearly why her response to the diary entry being spread around was overboard (pun intended), but the negative consequences of her actions are what lead her to this conclusion.
Ok, so that was the good stuff. Let's talk bad stuff.
Horror and sex have always enjoyed a slippery relationship. The 'final girl' is almost always a virgin, and the 'slutty girl' is villified and/or killed off. Yeahhhh, we get a lot of that here with very little nuance, and the twist at the end very much plays into long-established horror and female sexuality tropes. Though here, the 'sexual deviance' is put on both hypersexuality AND sexual inexperience, so...way to go 2/2?
Overall, I thought this was a fun ride, Jane gets a good, solid character arc, and the clever ways she responds to different situations are genuinely enjoyable to experience with her even if the ending doesn't break any new ground.
But I'm getting off track.
When I read novels like this when I was the age of the characters I think I found them frankly more unbelievable than I do now. The motivations of the protagonists always felt incredibly dramatic. Funnily enough, at 26, I get it. At least in this case.
Exactly what you're promised on the back cover is exactly what you get: through a series of what seem like unfortunate coincidences, the bad girl at school gets Jane's diary entry in which she had fabricated a sexual encounter with her boyfriend. Surprise, surprise, the bad girl spreads this around the school and Jane is deeply embarrassed. So embarrassed, in fact, that she, logically, comes up with a 'foolproof' plan to get revenge. The plan works, and... she immidiately regrets it after the real consequences catch up to her.
There's a twist to all of this, of course, but we'll get to that.
A plot that woud have seemed so insane to my 16-year-old self, rings absolutely true to me now. I not only believe fully that a teenager would think of what happened to Jane as the end of the world, I think they'd absolutely come up with a completely out of proportion method of getting revenge, and I am convinced that if they ever played it out they'd only later realize that the reason they wanted revenge wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
I normally have issues with the messaging in horror novels with protagonists like Jane. They tend to punish characters for not wanting to be bullied, implying that if they would just 'suck it up, buttercup,' then their lives would be better. And that trying to escape from bullies is somehow the 'wrong' thing to do.
'Gimme a Kiss' does it right. Not only does Jane have enough of a character arc to see clearly why her response to the diary entry being spread around was overboard (pun intended), but the negative consequences of her actions are what lead her to this conclusion.
Ok, so that was the good stuff. Let's talk bad stuff.
Horror and sex have always enjoyed a slippery relationship. The 'final girl' is almost always a virgin, and the 'slutty girl' is villified and/or killed off. Yeahhhh, we get a lot of that here with very little nuance, and the twist at the end very much plays into long-established horror and female sexuality tropes. Though here, the 'sexual deviance' is put on both hypersexuality AND sexual inexperience, so...way to go 2/2?
Overall, I thought this was a fun ride, Jane gets a good, solid character arc, and the clever ways she responds to different situations are genuinely enjoyable to experience with her even if the ending doesn't break any new ground.
May 19, 2009
Did I really have such horrible taste in books back in my teen years? I’ve attempted to reread three Christopher Pike books and finished only two. One of them was pretty darn good, the other was so awful that I couldn’t finish it, and then there is this one. Gimme a Kiss falls somewhere in between the other two. I was able to finish reading it, but just barely.
It is never a good sign when you start getting characters mixed up and that is what happened to me. Which one is Jane again? Oh she is the protagonist…right! Jane has a fake diary where she makes up steamy stories about her boyfriend (uh crap forgot his name now too). Anyone who writes this kind of diary and leaves is sitting around is asking my trouble in my opinion. The reason that she left her diary sitting open on her desk did not win cool points with me. Jane spots a cat outside trying to eat her pet bunny so she runs outside and throws a rock at the poor kittehs head! GRRRRR!!! At this point in the story I was ready to jump into the book and beat Jane to a bloody pulp. You never ever mess with the cat people…ok?
So where was I? Oh yes, Jane attacks a poor innocent kitteh and her friends Sharon and forgothername come over and read her diary. The next day the entire school is walking around with a page of poor Jane’s diary. Jane is so embarrassed that naturally she feels she only has one option, to fake her death and blame on the people who caused this humiliation to occur. Jane tells her awesome friend Sharon about her plans. Ok so I’m only saying that her friend is awesome because her name is Sharon but , come on people everyone knows Sharon’s are great! Jane is going on a boat trip with some friends and before they leave she hid some scuba equipment underneath the boat. Once they are a mile or so out, Jane picks a fight with some idiots and falls overboard. After faking her death Jane hides out in a cabin in the woods. Her plans to hide out and reveal that she is in fact alive in a few days are thwarted when someone comes to the cabin and tries to kill her! I should also mention that Jane discovers while watching the news that her boyfriend died during her rescue attempt. He was such a jerk and a boring character that I almost forgot to mention this part of the story.
Jane makes it out of the cabin alive after leaving poor Sharon to die. It is at this point in the story that Jane figures out who tried killed her boyfriend and attempted to end her life as well. It turns out it was forgothername all along! OH the scandal! Jane’s friend used to date her boyfriend and he gave her herpes. *gasp! This explains everything now! STDS make teens kill! Sex before marriage is bad! Mmmmmk?
It is never a good sign when you start getting characters mixed up and that is what happened to me. Which one is Jane again? Oh she is the protagonist…right! Jane has a fake diary where she makes up steamy stories about her boyfriend (uh crap forgot his name now too). Anyone who writes this kind of diary and leaves is sitting around is asking my trouble in my opinion. The reason that she left her diary sitting open on her desk did not win cool points with me. Jane spots a cat outside trying to eat her pet bunny so she runs outside and throws a rock at the poor kittehs head! GRRRRR!!! At this point in the story I was ready to jump into the book and beat Jane to a bloody pulp. You never ever mess with the cat people…ok?
So where was I? Oh yes, Jane attacks a poor innocent kitteh and her friends Sharon and forgothername come over and read her diary. The next day the entire school is walking around with a page of poor Jane’s diary. Jane is so embarrassed that naturally she feels she only has one option, to fake her death and blame on the people who caused this humiliation to occur. Jane tells her awesome friend Sharon about her plans. Ok so I’m only saying that her friend is awesome because her name is Sharon but , come on people everyone knows Sharon’s are great! Jane is going on a boat trip with some friends and before they leave she hid some scuba equipment underneath the boat. Once they are a mile or so out, Jane picks a fight with some idiots and falls overboard. After faking her death Jane hides out in a cabin in the woods. Her plans to hide out and reveal that she is in fact alive in a few days are thwarted when someone comes to the cabin and tries to kill her! I should also mention that Jane discovers while watching the news that her boyfriend died during her rescue attempt. He was such a jerk and a boring character that I almost forgot to mention this part of the story.
Jane makes it out of the cabin alive after leaving poor Sharon to die. It is at this point in the story that Jane figures out who tried killed her boyfriend and attempted to end her life as well. It turns out it was forgothername all along! OH the scandal! Jane’s friend used to date her boyfriend and he gave her herpes. *gasp! This explains everything now! STDS make teens kill! Sex before marriage is bad! Mmmmmk?
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