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  • Writer's pictureMichelle

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

The quick cut: A girl playing the final girl at a horror summer camp finds the terror all too real when her friends start disappearing.


A real review:

Slasher films can be fun to watch, but what if your life suddenly became one? Could you survive the killer and make it through to the other side? That's a question for Charity.


Charity loves her summer job as the final girl at a horror summer camp. Each week, a group of people come to live out their slasher fantasies at the site of the classic slasher film named "Curse of Camp Mirror Lake". It's now the final week of the season and while they should be enjoying their final thrills, instead they're seeing their coworkers disappear one by one. Who is making them go? And can Charity survive a real horror scenario?


I do enjoy horror in many venues, but this one has me feeling torn. While I enjoyed the ending of the story, the journey there is quite uneven. The beginning is classic slasher flick, but the back half of the book gets far too deep in the reasons why this is happening. Slashers are never that deep.


Charity is a likeable lead and a diverse one at that, which is a rarity horror wise. That being said though, she isn't developed enough as a character to truly connect with her. You know she hates being home and blames her mom's boyfriend on that. However, what's her relationship with her mom like? I had so many questions about her that it kept me from really wanting to see her succeed.


A slasher horror book that struggles to define itself in one category.


My rating: 3.5 out of 5

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