Review: "You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight" by Kalynn Bayron

You're Not Supposed to Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron
Published June 2023 via Bloomsbury
★★★

Note: Some spoilers below

A lot of things I loved about this: summer job working as a final girl—until somebody actually starts a bloodbath on the premises? Sign me up. (Umm, for the book, not the experience.) Characters who are queer and POC and snarky? Double sign me up. I don't know what happened to make me this way, but I love a good murder-murder-in-the-woods story, as long as it stays on paper.

So a lot of this is a win for me. However—and spoilers start here—horror that suddenly turns supernatural almost always takes me out of the story. I suppose I must be something of a skeptic, because even if a book has had me gripped for the last two hundred pages, as soon as a cult or an evil spirit—evil owl?—or whatever pops up, I lose interest. Like, it's a great magic trick! Brings my heartbeat back to normal in an instant! But although it might work for many readers, it's never going to get me in the way that something with zero paranormal elements, in which the baddies could exist in my real life will.

A worthy summer-camp-horror read, but not a favorite for me.