FREE ESSAY ON SPELLBOUND BY CHRISTOPHER PIKE

SPELLBOUND BY CHRISTOPHER PIKE

The book I read was Spellbound by Christopher Pike. In this book, a teenage girl named
Karen Holly, was killed at the top of a nearby mountain with her skull smashed in. The
only witness to this horrible murder was her boyfriend Jason Whitfield who said that a
grizzly bear killed her and scratched him across the face when he tried to stop the bear
by hitting it with a stick. He later goes to the police with his story and tells them
where to find her corpse. When the police get to the top of the mountain they do not find
her body where Jason said that it would be, but instead discovered the corpse in a nearby
stream.
After a few weeks people start to think that Jason is hiding something about that
terrible night, some people even think that Jason himself killed her. These conspiracies
are fuel by many things such as the fact that there was flesh found underneath Karen's
fingernails or that Jason now has a new girlfriend named Cindy Jones. The town decides to
have a trial because of all of the conspiracies so that they can set the record straight
on what happen that night.
A couple days before the trial Jason, Cindy, Cindy's brother Alex, Alex's date Joni
Harper, Cindy's best friend Pam Alta, and a foreign exchange student who is staying with
Pam named Bala decide to go to the top of the mountain. Jason wants to do this because he
says he wants to face his fear of the mountain that he got after the night Karen was
killed. At the top mountain, Jason says he wants to show them a secret cave. After
walking for about ten minutes they have to go over a log to cross the stream. While
walking on the log Cindy falls off and into the stream. Alex and Jason run to try to save
Cindy but suddenly Bala dives off a high cliff into the water, grabs Cindy and pulls her
to safety. 
The next day at school, Alex and his best friend named Ray get in a fight because Alex
finds out that Ray is going out on a date that night with Joni Harper. That is the last
time Alex ever see's Ray alive because that night after Ray's date with Joni he is killed
the same way that Karen was. This happened only a day before Jason's trial. 
As the plot thickens, Jason asked Cindy to appear at the trial in his defense. The
morning of the trial a reporter from the local newspaper who thinks that Jason killed
Karen comes to Cindy's house and talks her into thinking that Jason is hiding something.
Two hours before the trial Cindy decides to go up the mountain to see what she can find.
When she gets to the place where she fell, she finds that there was oil on the log which
caused her to fall. She concludes that Jason did this so that he could save her to clear
his name by making people think he is a hero for saving Cindy. 
The main characters in this book where Jason Whitfield, who is the only witness to the
murder of Karen Holly, and Cindy Jones, the new girlfriend of Jason Whitfield. Other main
characters are Bala, who is a foreign exchange student for Africa and Joni Harper, who
turns out to be the one who kills Karen and Ray. Some secondary characters are Alex
Jones, Pam Alta, and Karen Holly. The setting takes place in a small town in the Rocky
Mountains at present day time. 
My favorite part of the book is when Cindy goes up into the mountains and discovers that
Jason had put oil on the log to make her fall. This was my favorite part of the book
because Cindy had just discovered that Jason may have killed Karen after all. The
scariest part of the book was when Bala was in the hospital because Bala was very strong
and smart and it would take a lot to hurt him, but something had. My opinion of the book
was that it was great. I would recommend it to anyone who likes scary books or
Christopher Pike books.