Fright Night

by Maren Stoffels

Other authorsLaura Watkinson (Translator)

Paperback, 2020

Genres

Horror

Fiction

Collection

bit.ly/GLLI-Translated-YA-Book-Prize-shortlists

Description

"When a group of friends spends the night in a forest, they're confronted with their greatest fears. One of the friends won't survive the night. And one of them is a killer. . . "--

Publication

Underlined (2020), 224 pages

User reviews

LibraryThing member DarthTindalus

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)

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