You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight
Ratings62
Average rating3.6
This was my 100th book read this year so that means I've completed my reading goal for this year with 2 months to spare. This book was recommended to me by a friend in a Discord group I'm a part of. I have seen this book around and I was interested in reading it but I tend to reach for romance over everything else, so I never picked this one up until now because October 2024 is the month I decided I was finally going to read books I don't normally pick up. I ended up buddy reading this one with another friend DB and overall, we both enjoyed it. I can't talk about this book without some minor spoilers so if you haven't read this one yet then please don't read any further. The first thing that stuck out for me when I started reading it was how much the characters were aware of all the stupid things people do in scary movies. This continued on throughout the book which I loved. Of course, they did some stupid stuff to but when they did, they were aware what they were doing was stupid, but it was the only option they had. Things don't really start to happen until we are about 40% into the book. I didn't see any of the plot twists coming even though I probably should have. There was a cult introduced in the book and that just seemed to come out of nowhere. I wish that there would have been more backstory on them because as is it just felt random and unneeded. I also wish that more of the murders would have actually happened on page. Now for the ending. I liked the ending but at the same time I'm not the biggest fan of open endings. I don't like being left with questions. I don't won't to interpret how I think things went after the ending the author leaves us with. While I did have some minor complaints overall this was a really enjoyable read.
i ended up DNFing because the second half twist just completely lost me. i liked the set up and beginning a lot though, like “fake horror camp ends up experiencing real murders” is a concept i really like. one of my favorite psych episodes is about that! but unfortunately when the twist came i just couldn't do it.
maybe if this book had been written in the spirit of hot fuzz + sean of the dead, or even scream (which is referenced) where it wholeheartedly embraces how campy/goofy it is, the story would have worked for me. but from what i read i really don't think you're supposed to take this as a comedy and therefore what should have been really scary moments just didn't work. like the scene where charity sees porter's corpse. instead of being terrified of that, i kept thinking about the fact that there's a grown ass man in an owl fursuit standing right next to it.
i still gave it three stars because i love the concept and i liked the characters, i liked charity + her friends/girlfriend being qpoc/poc. i think bayron is really good at setting up a creepy atmosphere and writing gore. the supernatural element tho just really undermined the whole thing.
also have to say, the casual transphobia in the very beginning made me :/. if charity was outing herself to javier anyway, she could've just said she had a girlfriend instead of her and porter making jokes about only liking a certain type of genitals. there are obviously women with penises and men with vaginas. and usually i would let it slide because they're meant to be teenagers and teenagers are cringey/aren't the most informed, but if you want me to believe there's a giant owl god out there granting wishes to people killing children then i think even the teens could be a bit more informed on that front.
My wife had “You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight” by Kalynn Bayron on her TBR list, and we decided to give the audiobook a shot. Boy, are we glad we did! The story unfolds in a creepy camp where the main character, Charity, and her crew scare guests by reenacting scenes from a horror movie filmed on that same location. The whole setup gets chillingly real as the plot thickens.
Kalynn Bayron does a fantastic job of creating a spooky atmosphere that's perfect for the setting. The characters were all really well developed, making you root for them as things start to spiral, but also written well enough to make you trust that they are all suffering the same fate. The plot twists are smart and keep you on your toes, building suspense in the best way.
The audiobook was a real delight. Pace was spot-on, and the voice work was just right — not exaggerated, but still intense enough to bring the scary bits alive without having to get dramatic.
Though I found the ending a bit too revealing (without putting any spoilers), it didn't detract from the overall experience. It also sets up some intriguing possibilities for a sequel, which I would certainly read.
Overall, if you're looking for a good scare or just a thrilling story, this audiobook is a great pick. It keeps you engaged and delivers a solid mix of suspense and character depth. Five stars from me—definitely a worthwhile listen!
this is such a fun, fast-paced slasher! it was a little short so i feel like we didn't get the full explanation for the occurrences that were happening but i enjoyed the horror and the characters a lot!
SO first of all I will say that this book did genuinely have me scared at points. For the good middle half of the book I had to play silly youtube videos in the background to keep me calm because I made the wise decision to read this at night. It does do a good job of building dread and having you on the edge of your seat for the middle part.
The rest of it...was pretty lacking.
My first issue was the pacing. This book is 15 chapters and shy of 300 pages and as a consequence pretty much everything feels a bit underdeveloped. Things didn't even start happening until chapter 7, which is halfway through the book. The first half of the book felt like the first ten minutes in an actual horror movie but even more stretched out. It still kept me engaged, because the premise of working at terror experience was interesting to read about if nothing else, but the horror aspect definitely should've kicked in earlier.
The pacing and short length of the book also ties in with the character development. I don't feel like we spent enough time with any of these characters to care if or when they die; we got two or three details about them and then they just went into the thick of it. The only one who escaped this treatment was Charity, for obvious reasons as the MC.
The rest of my gripes are spoilers:
Kyle's betrayal was underwhelming because, while I could see one or two moments where he was sus looking back, the book like I said just wasn't long enough to build up to it and have it be satisfactory. We needed more screen time with him, more hints to the fact that he's hiding something, just MORE of everything. Doubly so with his grandparents. His grandma was literally only “crazy old evil lady” and his grandfather got ONE appearance at the end when he was revealed and then his big villain monologue and that was it. It just fell really flat for me.
And being brutally honest, I do not like that the big plot twist was a super rich secret society. I feel like that storyline is tired and never done satisfactorily. It also pretty much wiped out all the fear and tension that had built up in me beforehand. When I thought there was a killer at the camp I was on the edge of my seat. When I thought there was some sort of supernatural owl creature killing them I was freaked out and looking over my shoulder. Finding out that the “big bad” was just a bunch of rich cultists doing blood sacrifice to get more rich? Boring. Also not what this book was advertised as. I was expecting a slasher that would be rife with confusion and misdirection because it was happening on the set of a terror simulation. I wanted a killer that used the environment against the employees so they were questioning things up until the very end and the gradual sense of terror in the survivors that this was REAL and not a prank or a joke. Instead, we got rich people in robes.
The smallest of props for foiling the final girl narrative by killing Charity, and then the props are swiftly rescinded when Bezi uses the Owl Society powers to resurrect her. Oh well.
Overall this wasn't a BAD book, I've read worse, but this just very much wasn't what I wanted.
4.25 ★
holy shit. i have no words to describe what i'm feeling right now. this was so good, so amazing, so wow!!! it had everything, from the callbacks to iconic pieces of horror media, to a great supernatural plot, down to the originality and unexpected twists. this book does exactly what the scream movies do, it takes the clichés and uses them in their favor, which works so well. i don't read a lot of horror books, so i thought this would be a great start since it falls a lot more under the murder mystery and thriller genres, and i'm so glad i chose it. another thing i absolutely loved was SPOILERS the owl society !!! listen listen listen, as a dc comics reader and lover, i loved the similarities! i don't know if it was on purpose or accidental, but seeing the owl society being used in a way you never see anyone use dc's owl society was groundbreaking. i am going insane with how much i loved this book.
This book is a nod to 80s horror and it wa amazing! The way the story was and the setup and the slight humor was enjoyable. It was a fast read but an great read!
This book annoyed me in the same way Slasher fan characters in slasher movies annoys me, but I think that's part of its charm
This was incredibly boring I'm so sorry. Absolutely nothing happened then it was just all gore with some story crammed in there when it was just wayyy too late. Unfortunate.
I started with really enjoying the story, mentally noting everything I thought, would be used against the characters, or that they could use against the killer. The twist threw the expectation and trope right out the window.
While I accept that there are characters within the horror genre of a similar nature to this one, I didn't feel like there'd been enough foreshadowing offered, and it felt like a cheat.
Sadly, because the story was very solid and otherwise enjoyable.
definitely recommend!!
quick, to the point, addictingly binge-able.
the ending was the only weak part but it was still a solid read!
There were a couple of fun creepy moments around the halfway mark, but otherwise this was just bad. The escape room camp theme is abandoned after only one round and seems to only exist to make sure there are no kids at the summer camp. The characters are really bland - I kept forgetting Paige even existed until other people brought her up - and the ‘plot twist' was goofy and borderline offensive.
Unfortunately the biggest sin to me in a slasher, aside from maybe the first two the kills were boring. A good slasher should be about over the top people being killed in over the top ways and this was just like “oh he's dead I guess”.
Very fast paced, but didn't like the direction it ended up going. I liked the setup and idea of a full-contact experience and I wish more of that would have been explored. I didn't feel attached to any characters so the stakes didn't feel too high. Maybe 50 more pages or shrinking it down to a novella would have been better. I did like the epilogue where the “final girl” charity diesbecause it was unexpected.
