Friday 16 June 2023

You're not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron (mild spoiler in review)


Charity Curtis has the summer job of her dreams, playing the "final girl" at Camp Mirror Lake. Guests pay to be scared in this full-contact terror game, as Charity and her summer crew recreate scenes from a classic slasher film, Curse of Camp Mirror Lake. The more realistic the fear, the better for business. But in the last weekend of the season, Charity's co-workers begin disappearing. And when one ends up dead, Charity's role as the final girl suddenly becomes all too real. If Charity and her girlfriend Bezi hope to survive the night, they'll need to figure out what this killer is after. Is there more to the story of Mirror Lake and its dangerous past than Charity ever suspected?


Everyone who saw this cover said something very similar; "It looks like Fear Street/Point Horror/ Christopher Pike before he got weird!" And this book is very much in the style of those series. Charity plays the Final Girl at a horror movie recreation, on the abandoned set of a cult horror movie. The final game of the season, always the most fun, is fast approaching, but they're losing staff at a terrible rate, and when a strange woman approaches the camp wielding a shotgun, they realise something has gone very wrong.

This is a great thriller read, though it's slow enough to get to the main part; it's a bit over two hundred pages and at a hundred pages in, they still haven't realised there's a killer. The setting is brilliant, though, and the Monkey's Paw inspired ending is fantastic. There are several character twists, some of which I guessed and some I didn't see coming!

This is a great slasher/thriller and would make an amazing movie - is that a bit meta?



You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight publishes on the 20th of Jun, 2023 in both the US and UK, using the same cover. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.

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