Reviews tagging 'Murder'

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

226 reviews

8going80's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

It was a pretty good book but took a while to get in to the meat of the story and then all of a sudden everything happened and the book finished so the pacing was a little bit off. It’s a YA horror book so you’re not going to get the same kind of experience as reading some Stephen King but I think this book did horror pretty well. I will say that the ending is a bit messy with how
the Owl Society were responsible for killings over time and did kill a few of the book’s characters but then Mr Lamont and Ms Keane were responsible for Javier & (finishing off) Tasha and then Kyle killing Charity.
I think the plot lost some of the impact. Overall I enjoyed the book the more I read it
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clovetra's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

i am so confused. i went in thinking this would be a classic slasher horror. it was not!
i’m ngl i went into this thinking in the beginning chapters that this would be a 4-star at least. but the end half of this book went buck-wild in the worst way.
i’ll be nice and go over positives - gay people!!!!! i love the gays. i also love the gen-z language seamlessly worked into dialogue. some authors do such a bad job of imitating gen-z slang but i think it was done really well here! i also loved charity and bezi so much ugh they’re my queens
ok and now on to the negatives…… man what the fuck did i just read. this book was lowkey marketed to be a slasher. suddenly we have…. whatever the ending was! not only did it feel like it came out of left field & was poorly explained, the actual horror was crammed into like 50 pages. cmon it’s a 200 page book you didn’t need to spend 150 pages setting up the end. like if you needed that time to set it up…. make the actual horror element longer? make the book itself longer????????? what are we doing here.
like i still don’t fully understand the ending and the “perpetrator”. bro shit just kept coming out of every where not making any sense. 
plus, when your story takes so long to actually begin the meat of it…. i get bored. like seriously i didn’t need to hear for the umpteenth time that felix & the others are slackers!!! ooooo!! like cmon from the blurb i knew they were dead. you didn’t have to pretend i didn’t know for almost three fourths of this book.
plus the ending……. Huh? like how did they survive…. 
idk man. this book was trying to subvert expectations commonly found in horror stories, and create the perfect “final girl”, but in attempting to do that the actual story itself was not good. charity was characterised super well! but the plot was rushed, poorly fleshed out, and confusing as all hell.
i’m ngl tho even though i just tore this book up i can’t lie and say it didn’t entice me. my ass was sat. esp since a twitter moot recommended it!!!!! like if i could rate the characters? 4/5. some characters fell flat but bro i loved charity. the story? 1/5. in my mind this averages out to my rating. 
hey even if a book is absolute garbage (looking at you twilight) if i have fun it’s going to get a high rating sorry! but as much as i found this fun i cannot look past these flaws. like they bugged me sooooo much reading this. 
i feel like i need a cleansing good horror story after this. i’m gonna have to read fuckjng motherthing or something now like a palate cleanser.
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phoenixlovesbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I absolutely loved this book! The ending took me completely by surprise and I was so into it! This is the first horror book that's actually scared me, and it's set the bar high!! 

Also, there's a Sapphic relationship and a queer guy
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itsheyfay's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

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fast-paced

3.5

Super fast paced and generally liked it. The twist of who is mainly responsible was a lil surprising but another part was a lil predictable. I didn't LOVE the end/epilogue but I didn't hate it either. 
Would've liked a little expansion on Lilliard and whatever his deal was
(like why he was pretty chill with Ms. Keane and why he hated the camp. How much did he know/not know)
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scrubsandbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I know OF slasher movies... never watched them because I tend to not watch horror (I get scared VERY easily) but this was a book I fully expect would have become a cult classic horror movie if it came out as a movie in the 90s. It also gave me major The Quarry vibes (if you played that, you know what I mean... also probably the ONLY horror video game I have ever played). The twist in the end was very interesting and I do enjoy an ending that answers some questions while still leaving a bit of a mystery.
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dexkit10's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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rachelie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.75

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erins_bookrecs's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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lazstearns's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

The first half of this book was phenomenal. It was brilliantly campy, while still managing to create tension and be somewhat scary. When it hit the halfway mark, though, it took a turn that cheapened all the build-up. 
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