Friends Dylan, Quin, and Sofia all decide to partake in Fright Night over their summer break, a night that promises to make you face your greatest fears. However, dark secrets from the past threaten to become unearthed as this night of scary fun takes a much more sinister turn.

As far as suspenseful, YA thrillers go, Fright Night had the page-turner effect nailed down pretty well, and with a shorter, sub-200 page count, it thrusts you into the action in almost no time. The characters are, also, pretty likeable for the most part, which is a good thing considering some books in this genre tend to just throw a bunch of snooty, unlikeable characters at you and you really could care less if they bite it in the end. Despite its page-turning effect, though, the book's plot does seem a bit jumbled and "coincidental" -- as in a lot of the events that happen seem to be a bit contrived. This isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's an effective part of lots of storytelling, of course -- but it didn't always land 100% of the time here. Also, the prospect of the Fright Night event itself seems almost like a backdrop for scary things to happen and nothing more. It's not fully explored, and as such the title and description might cause you think the story is a bit different than you expect. The biggest thing that causes me to feel mixed, though, is the use of subversion, but I feel like the author pulled it off well enough where it is believable, if a little contrived. In all, this is a fun suspenseful YA book that makes for a quick read, and has some good characters -- but doesn't quite hit the mark in it's storytelling. Props to the author for using it as a method of providing insight and understanding into mental health and abuse, though; that is always good to see when an author ties their story into a greater meaning.

Content Concerns: Mentions of abuse and violence, and we see a few scenes where some blood is shed. There are also 7 uses of vulgarity: 3 "b-tch," 2 "h-ll," 1 "sh-t," and 1 "-ss."

(May 25, 2023) ( )

Well that was a short and predictable story with not enough chills for me. That being said, I think I would be petrified if I was actually in the woods at night when I knew people were waiting to scare me. I remember playing ghost in the graveyard as a kid with my siblings and screaming in terror when I was the searcher, and that was around my own house!

Apparently the author did some research on the illness described in this book so I would assume it is a fairly authentic representation. I actually think this might be popular in a high school library so I'm glad I read it. ( )