If you go to a summer camp and there isn’t a dark history of hauntings or a slasher on the loose, what's even the point?! Okay, sure, I guess survivinIf you go to a summer camp and there isn’t a dark history of hauntings or a slasher on the loose, what's even the point?! Okay, sure, I guess surviving the experience without a traumatic time is better, especially when a bit of twisted fun devolves into a hellish nightmare as it does in Kalynn Bayron’s YA horror novel You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight. Meet Cassidy, The Final Girl. Well at least she plays one every night throughout the summer at Camp Mirror Lake’s slasher survivor experience where guests play to take part in a survival horror game in honor of a classic movie filmed at the camp where the staff prides themselves on realism and fear is guaranteed. Except there might be more to the camp than the teenage staff realizes, and Cassidy might have to put her Final Girl skills to the test and truly survive when real blood starts to be shed. And suddenly the idea of being the “final” survivor is more frightening when her own girlfriend is also a potential victim. A fun and frightening romp that pays homage to horror tropes while using them in exciting ways, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight keeps the tension building, the twists coming one after the next, and will have you frantically flipping pages as if to keep ahead from a killer hot on your trail.
‘I’ve been playing the part of a girl who escapes a serial killer every night for months. It’s not a game this time. The consequences are real, but we still have to play.’
I couldn’t put this one down. It’s a breeze of a read that teases you forward with mystery after mystery and keeps building tension that ensures you can’t look away. Like the games the staff create, everything seems a bit manufactured but easily ignored when caught up in the thrill. Sure, some of it is a bit of a stretch in order to make the plot work, but Bayron does a good job at checking the perimeter of her plot and ensuring to address those concerns within the narrative. It works and adds to the fun, plus its a horror thriller and as long as the main inner-logic plays out in an enjoyable way that's what matters most. Honestly though, if you are doing a tribute to horror film tropes, you are allowed plot holes because plot holes are more or less a horror film trope.
It does take a bit to get really going, but it keeps you on your toes and she does an excellent job and brewing up tension. By a quarter of the way in I was already screaming “get the hell out of there--go, go, go!” because lets be real, I see someone tossing bodies in a lake, I’m saying fuck this job and I’m fucking off down the road. Say hi to the killer for me! Okay, but the missing staff bit combined with the fact that abruptly up and leaving isn’t really a thing you can just do did seem like a way overlooked red flag someone should have checked on, but whatever its fun and I enjoyed the all-too-relatable humor of shit talking the people who left you short handed. Also the humor that addresses group dynamics such as, say, your tough guy boyfriend leaves you to be caught by the killer so he can escape. Girl, leave him.
I enjoyed the nods to different slasher films that all felt natural to the story instead of a *wink wink, look at what I know about* namedrop, particularly the character Paige rattling off horror film logic and the rules to surviving a la that one kid in the original Scream where being a virgin is ironically the only good thing he has going for him. Oh and I enjoyed that this doesn’t shirk from the blood and gore and also doesn’t go over the top with it. Heads up if you are squeamish, there’s some good quality massacring here.
It all comes together pretty well with a shadowy past and equally shadowy villains to uncover that falls into the supernatural side of things. There is a convoluted climax scene that sticks the landing well enough and I must admit I got my fun and frights from this one. I also enjoyed the characters—plenty of Black and queer representation in this one—who managed to be fun and varied without being annoying or overly tropey (okay, Cassidy is a total Final Girl cliche but it leans into that because its sort of the whole point of the book). You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight is an exciting ride that will work well for a wide audience from teens to adults and while it might show its own inner mechanics a bit, it does so in a way that works itself into the plot as if painted in camouflage. So are you brave enough to survive the night at Camp Mirror Lake?
s.penkevich
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