Customer Reviews

I Know What You Did Last Summer (Puffin Teenage Fiction)

5 star:		(144)
4 star:		(66)
3 star:		(28)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER is a story about a group of four high school students who are involved in a hit and run accident which ends up killing a young boy. Speeding down the road late at night after hours of partying, the group strikes a young boy on his bicycle. Instead of stopping to help, the group drives to the nearest phone and makes an anonymous phone call to the police to report the accident. The group makes a pact not to tell what happened. The event causes the breakdown of fellowship between the four friends and they go their separate ways. About a year later, one of the girls receives an anonymous note that reads "I Know What You Did Last Summer." Horrified, she gets in touch with the other members of the pact and the chase is on. One thing leads to another and before they know it, they're trying to outsmart a killer.

If you've seen the movie, don't be expecting any graphic violence here or a man with a hook. Instead, this story revolves itself around lessons of honesty, revenge, and the dangers of living a lie. The characters are realistic and easy to relate to. Girls will probably enjoy this book much more than guys because of the romantic elements involved, but it has enough who-dunnit to appeal to males, too.

I've read several Lois Duncan books and "I Know What You Did Last Summer" is by far the most surprising and suspenseful of them all. I have once watched the movie "I Know What You Did Last Summer" a while back and remember it to be hardly interesting. The book version however, was much more appealing to the mind than the movie was. The book has the same basic as the movie did with the same four main characters, Julie, Helen, Ray and Barry. It starts out the same with a car accident with a stranger in the beginning that comes back to haunt them the next summer, with threats and later into more killings and suspense than the movie had to offer. The entire story leaves you hanging on the tip of your chair from suspense at its finest. The ending was different from what I had originally expected and I'm sure other readers of this book feel the same. I recommend all mystery/horror and Lois Duncan readers to read this book if they have the time and interest in this type of book or are a fan of Lois Duncan's workings. I rate this book with 5 stars because of my high level of interest and concern throughout the entire book.

A Review by Meghan
One night, while coming home from partying, Barry hit a young boy riding a bicycle. Also in the car were Julie, Ray, and Helen. They all panicked and then called the police anonymously. They made a pact never to tell anyone about the accident. It's been a year now and someone's out for revenge. They all get some sort of sign that someone else knows about it, but who? No one ever told anyone else.

I like how this book keeps you in suspense. The story leads up to the climax very well with everyone getting notes or phone calls. The author doesn't give anything away about the person sending the notes' is, until he reveals himself. You can easily follow when the author switches from one point of view to another. The conflict of someone out to get you seems real because you can kind of imagine someone doing that. The characters Lois Duncan has brought "alive" seem very realistic (especially if you've seen the movie). They were all really believable. I kind of wish the book would extend so you could see what happens after everything has happened.

I would recommend this book to people if you like suspense and mystery. I think this is a really good book. It's easy to follow the book.

I really liked this book. It was not like the movie. It has a great mystery behind what is happening .Towards the end it becomes a C.S.I. put clues together sort of thing, which I thought was great. It begins in early summer when 4 friends were on Mountain Road going too fast and hit a kid named David Gregg and kept driving. Then a year later, when they thought they had gotten rid of the worst summer of their lifes, the threats and deadly reminders come in. Who is behind this sinister plot? Read this awesome book and find out.

I loved this book; it's my favorite book I've read so far. It was very exciting, and I didn't know what was going to happen next. The most exciting part was when, Collie

was in Helen's apartment when she came into it. He was going to try to kill her. She ran into her bathroom and he started to take off the hinges of the door, so she jumped out her second story window.

Julie, Ray, Barry, and Helen where driving way too fast and were paying too little attention to the road, so that's when it happened. That's when all their nightmares started. They could never erase what they did, but they could own up to it.

Now a year later, Julie gets a note with only one sentence on it, "I know what you did last summer." He knows what they did and now he wants revenge!

I think everybody would like this book, adults, teenagers, and children. But it does have a few hard words in it so I think children who are 11 and over would like it more, because they would understand it more

First of all I wanted to say that this book is nothing like the movie. It had the same basic plot, but thats about it. As many movies that are based on books, the book is a lot better. This story is about four teens who accidentely hit a kid riding his bike while they were drunk and speeding, they did as much as they could to cover up the murder, but one year later one of the teens gets a note that says "I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER." Next, the person that wrote the note starts blackmailing them by leaving newspaper articles about the hit and run, and pictures of them standing by the kid after the acident. Eventually he begins threatening them. The teens know that they need to find out who knows what they did, before they are either found out by police, or even worse killed by the blackmailer. This book is very suspenseful and it has a lot of twists in the plot. Its a must read for fans of any book fan.

Lois Duncan is a skilled writer of children's suspense tales and I Know What You Did Last Summer is one of her best or certainly, because of the successful movie and sequal, one of her most famous. I originally read it in the seventies and was thrilled with it and became a fan of Lois Duncan and have since read it in the wake of seeing the movie and the book still holds up in the category of suspense. The lead character is well developed and very strongly written while the supporting characters add nice window dressing to the whole endeavor. People expecting the horror, gore, and death toll of the movie will be dissappointed. This is teen suspense of the old school variety.

The book "I Know What You Did Last Summer," was a suspenseful, yet a horrifying book. In this book the main characters used illegal drugs one night, and hit a kid on a bike. Because the assumed no one saw, they didn't report the accident. One year later they all got something to remind them of what they did the summer before. They all got together to figure out who was sending them messages, and who knew their awful secret. To find out you're going to have to read the rest of the book. Yes, I liked this book, because it is a teenage book, and leaves you wondering in every sentence.

I read this book back in high school, ironically not long before the movie came out. And I must say, the book is worlds better than the movie!! While both share the start of the same premise, four teenagers hiding a hit-and-run from last summer who are now being hunted down by someone who somehow knows about it, the book is full of twists and turns, and a surprise ending. It is thrilling and scary, with a constant question of who is the person who knows, and how does he know? His identity comes as a complete surprise at the end. The movie, on the other hand, was just another teen slasher, with the identity of the killer painfully predictable. Heck, the victim of the hit-and-run changed in the movie, from a small boy on a bike (who died on his way to the hospital)to a grown man crossing the street (who's body they dumped in the river). The book was emotionally engaging, and keeps you reading until the end. I haven't read it in a couple of years, and I can still quote lines! Bottom line: buy and read the book, but leave the movie in the store!

Anyone who saw the movie, knows that it is very 'Scream'-like. What with the fisherman killer, who runs around killing people with a hook. Even two of the main characters were killed. But the book is way different. If you expect it to be somewhat the same as the movie, think again. I do, however, think it makes for a good read. But I don't even know why they put the cover of the movie on it, they are so different!