You’re Not Supposed To Die Tonight by Kalynn Bayron

You’re Not Supposed To Die Tonight is a horror novel about teenagers working at an immersive horror summer camp experience who suddenly get more scares than they bargained for. Charity is playing the final girl at Camp Mirror Lake, filming location of a famous slasher film and now a full contact horror experience during the summer. As the season draws to a close, other employees start disappearing and Charity thinks she’s seeing figures around camp, but surely it’s just the spooky atmosphere, or so she thinks until it turns out Camp Mirror Lake has more of a history than she realised, and it’s up to her, her girlfriend Bezi, and anyone else left to try and stay alive.

Though this was badged as young adult horror, it’s definitely a crossover book, as despite having a teenage protagonist it doesn’t really feel like young adult fiction, more just like general horror. The plot starts off seeming like it is going a standard slasher route, but it actually goes off in a different direction partway through, whilst still playing around with having characters who are meant to understand horror tropes because they reenact them all the time. The narrative is pretty fun and, most notably for me, I did find the early parts of the book quite scary, with a real sense of them being out in the woods alone with something unknown going on. 

It’s a pretty fast-paced book and is fairly short too, meaning that it is mostly tension and doesn’t get boring. There’s some elements that could’ve had more explanation, but it comes together pretty well, and the ending is fitting, making it a good horror read especially for fans of slashers that don’t do a straight slasher or fiction that plays with the summer camp goes bad vibe.