You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight: A Setting Wasted | Book Review

Hello, everyone! Happy December. 🙂 Up until very recently, it’s been quite a while since I had enough to say about a book to formulate a whole review. In my most recent library run, I picked up three books:

So far, I adored Before the Devil Knows You’re Here, have yet to start Black Sheep, and have just finished You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight. I had fairly high hopes for this YA slasher and am really disappointed to say that it did not work for me.

Set at a camp designed for a sort of haunted house experience, You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight immediately has bounds of innate material for a great slasher. The opening chapters of this book are action-packed and quite entertaining, establishing the setting and environment of the story. The reader gets to experience the terrorizing game and it’s definitely an excellent start to the story — especially when its in the midst of one of these games/performances when things first go awry.

However, after this first instance, a bit of time passes before the real horror takes place, and when it does, it barely exerts the devices of its setting at all. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of utilization of the camp being secluded much like–perhaps almost too much so–Friday the 13th (think cut phone lines, no one around for miles, unhelpful police). But where there’s an opportunity to have the antagonist steer the cast into a terror game of their own design, a completely different path is taken.

Without getting into spoilers, this book is compared to the 2021 film trilogy Fear Street (a series I loved, by the way!) which makes sense, especially noting the dark conspiracy spurring the events of that story. Perhaps my disappointment is more on me in hoping this would go a more classic one-killer approach. That being said, though it would’ve been nice to have the well-utilized setting as the spin on this story, the actual twist would be more fulfilling if it felt a little more grounded. As is, the clues pointing to the end start off a little later and take away the feeling of a full circle reveal. On top of this, the antagonizing forces come off cartoonish and, frankly, stupid. The revealing of information through overheard dialogue is silly and stilted, and ultimately detracts from the thrill of a well-executed third-act monologue.

Maybe the turn this novel takes would be a little more satisfying if there was any thematic weight to the events at all. Now don’t get me wrong–slashers aren’t really meant to be intellectual think-pieces but if you’re going to implement bigger ideas into your story, if there’s no significance, then it comes across gimmicky and flat. Ultimately, the story does point to the theme of unwanted and/or forgotten people, those left unprotected and susceptible but this doesn’t amplify the story because you don’t feel this theme strongly enough earlier and throughout.

Alongside the lacking themes, the characters are not fleshed out enough for you to really care when they go. Naturally, the ones you spend the most time with (Charity, Kyle, maybe–maybe but not really–Bezi) garner a little more sympathy but the ones beyond them are completely trite, feeding exclusively into stereotypes if even that. (Additionally, this fact trivializes the ending even more and kind of made me ask, all of this for what, then?)

For a novel as short and fast-paced as You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight, I don’t think I should’ve been as bored as I was. I considered DNFing earlier into it and, honestly, I probably should have. It would’ve saved me a lot of disappointment.

Finally, for a slasher, the gore level was kind of nil. This probably has to do with the novel being marketed in the young adult sphere but still, I’d expect a little more than just saying “their insides are on their outsides”. The point of slashers is, yes, the building anticipation and terror of it all, but also blood and guts. A bit macabre, I know, but that’s sort of the point. A non-grisly slasher is sort of a romance without love. It lacks the promise of the premise. (That being said, it wasn’t completely without some of these details, which is a plus, but I think it could’ve done more on that front.)

Ultimately, this novel started off in a good place and had a lot of potential but lost itself with ridiculous, far-fetched (or, paradoxically, too obvious) reveals and twists. The lacking themes, characters, and gore made this one fall a little flat for me. For those interested in the horror/slasher genre but are less familiar with the devices and tropes of it, this novel may work better for you. I know a lot of people really enjoyed it and you may as well! This one just didn’t do it for me.

Have you read You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight? Did you like it? Why, or why not? Do you have any recommendations for other slasher-style books? Or do you prefer to avoid horror altogether? I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

[DISCLAIMER: Several photos in this post are paired with Amazon affiliate links, meaning I’d earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. Thank you for your support!]