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Premise

Charity doesn’t have the best home life, which is why she loves spending her summers working far away at Camp Mirror Lake, a full-contact terror-simulation experience wherein guests pay for more thrills than they can usually handle as they try not to get fake-killed in a slasher scenario based on a classic horror flick. And this year, Charity’s finally been promoted to the Final Girl role. What could go wrong? Apart from a boss who dumps all the responsibility on her. And a few no-show employees just before the final game. And the dead owl on the roof. Frustrated and in need of backup, Charity calls in her girlfriend and their bestie to help out with the game. Little does she know, though, the game is long over… but the slaughter is just beginning.

Full Review (SPOILERS)

The Killer(s)

Spill the blood on the ground, dump the corpse in the lake, recite the words. Not necessarily in that order.

I have never found secret societies to be a particularly interesting or scary trope (especially with hyperbolic dialogue, like: “We are all that is left, and if we cannot salvage our Order, it will cease to exist.”). Unsurprisingly then, when this turned out to be the first big twist, I was a little disappointed. That said, I took it in stride and kept reading.

The urgency and gore were present, it just didn’t really feel like a slasher anymore. Just a bunch of people in robes, sacrificing teenagers to gain power through supernatural means. More unsettling than terrifying, but a fair enough twist of the crazed man in a mask trope.

There is also Mr. Lamont, Nancy, and Kyle. This trio of side-killers better fits the slasher, which loves to spotlight psycho family units (a-la TCM, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Devil’s Rejects). Their motive has a unique and storied history. It’s Kyle’s motive that is lacking. Can someone please explain to me why he killed Charity? He claims his motive is to get his grandparents out of his life, but they were already dead and in the lake when he sliced Charity, so… WHY??!

I’m lost.

The Terrible Place

We cannot go in there.

Camp Mirror Lake is a great setting. Meta too, since in the book, it’s where an actual slasher was shot, decades prior. It’s also the site of a bloody massacre that took place before the movie was shot, but for some unexplained reason, no one knows about it… until they search the news archives… so, people used to know about it?

I’m lost again. Moving on!

Guests paying for a full-contact night of thrills, just for bragging rights if they avoid the fake-Killer long enough, is a fun idea and I’m sure many horror fans would line up in droves for something like this (myself excluded).

The setting is used well, having the characters leverage props and secret pathways that only they, as employees, should know about. That said, I was really rooting for them to go all out, and use the environment and weapons (because they use real weapons for a reason I cannot make sense of) to completely turn the tables on the Order, going after them one by one. This simply wasn’t what Bayron had in store for us, though. I’m trying very hard to forgive her.

Weapons/Shock Value

I begin to scream. I cannot stop myself.

Insides on the outside? Check!

This one had a fair amount of gore, but most of it was after the fact, as our characters encountered their friends bodies. This softened it a bit for me, which I’m always grateful for. As I’ve said in other reviews, I come to slashers for the Final Girls, not for the gore, but I accept that it’s part of the package. If you’re looking for blood, look no further.

As for shock value: not a ton of jump scares, or tension. There were some excellent plot twists, but also a lot of predictability. I guess that’s true of most slashers, though, come to think of it.

The Victims

I’ve been playing the part of a girl who escapes a serial killer every night for months. It’s not a game this time.

It isn’t just a bunch of the kills that are off screen, it’s a lot of the victims themselves. I think this hurt the plot by making it predictable (the missing characters we never got to meet are dead?! No way! Who’d’ve thunk it?!).

As for the victims we did get to know, they are a diverse group of people who we also don’t know a ton about, except of course, for Charity: Our would-be-but-not-quite Final Girl. The fact that Charity is killed at the end comes as a huge shock, given that she is our protagonist, and spends the entire ordeal intentionally thinking and acting like a Final Girl, based on every horror movie she’s ever seen. But what we learn in this book is that you can do everything “right,” and still die. Unless your girlfriend finds a way to get her hands on the Order’s supernatural ritual instructions and brings you back from the dead a year later.

Which brings us to Bezi: Ostensibly, the girlfriend; but ultimately, the real Final Girl.

The Final Girl

I only play a final girl at Camp Mirror Lake; I don’t actually want to be one.

Early in the book, Charity jokes that despite playing a Final Girl at work, she doesn’t want to be one in real life. Well, Charity, wish granted; you are NOT the Final Girl. Be careful what you wish for.

Instead, that (un)coveted title goes to her girlfriend, Bezi, who is only at the camp because Charity calls her in to help out at the last minute, on the night of what turns out to be a massacre. It’s hard to say what type of FG Bezi is, given that we don’t get any time in her head until the epilogue. But throughout the ordeal, she makes a few helpful observations/suggestions, and at one point, even heroically takes down one of the killers, saving Charity’s life. Unfortunately, she only pulls this off once, and is busy playing dead when Charity is actually killed right next to her.

This is my biggest gripe with Bezi. There’s no shame in playing dead to save yourself, but I would have loved to see her rise up and save Charity a second time! But alas, she lied still and quiet while Kyle killed her gf and dumped her body in the lake.

But she does eventually kill Kyle, using his death as a means to bring Charity back to life. Happy ending (sort of).

Final Thoughts

I enjoyed reading this one. It was fun, it didn’t take itself too seriously, and it had a diverse cast of victims and killers. The twist of having our protagonist NOT be the Final Girl definitely surprised me, but it means we don’t really get to know our real Final Girl, which is a bit of a letdown. There were also a couple plot holes that left me scratching my head by the end, but what a great nod to Pet Cemetery!

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Read this one? Share your own thoughts in the comments!

And for more bloody good fun, join my Final Girl Bookclub on Fable to read along with me. See you in the threads!