A review by mfrisk
You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

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

4.0

I loved getting to know the characters in this book so I really didn’t end up minding that it took a little bit for the action to ramp up. I felt like it gave me a bit more time to be invested in the characters and better understand their motivations as we delved into the story. We do also get some subtle lesbian representation in this book from Charity and her girlfriend Bezi which is great to see. I can understand the mixed reaction to the ending and the reveals but it felt fitting to me when thinking about some of the horror movies it references. 

I’d highly recommend this book for fans of Scream, AHS: 1984, Friday the 13th, Black Christmas (2019), Final Girls,  and of course Fear Street. This book really is a love letter to cheesy 80s and 90s horror movies and those who’ve been inspired by them since. 

The only reason I’m rating this 4 stars and not 5 is because I think similar to even some of my favorite horror movies this read suffered from not spacing out the reveals enough at the end. While I saw some of the reveals coming like Lamont being involved and connected to the Owl Society I wish we would have had more time to even register the Owl Society itself as a concept and that we could have gotten more background on the killings by Lamont. It felt like we could have potentially seen some flashbacks in the story to better flesh out some of this information because I genuinely wanted to know more. I really loved this book and felt like the characters really came to life so I look. forward to future horror reads from this author for sure.
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