Friday, January 1, 2016

Survive the Night

Title: Survive the Night
Author: Danielle Vega
Series: Standalone
Number of Pages: 263 
Date Read: 1/1/16
Genre: Horror, Mystery , Suspense 

Synopsis (Found on Goodreads.com):

 We're all gonna die down here. . . .

Julie lies dead and disemboweled in a dank, black subway tunnel, red-eyed rats nibbling at her fingers. Her friends think she’s just off with some guy—no one could hear her getting torn apart over the sound of pulsing music.

In a tunnel nearby, Casey regrets coming to Survive the Night, the all-night underground rave in the New York City subway. Her best friend Shana talked her into it, even though Casey just got out of rehab. Alone and lost in the dark, creepy tunnels, Casey doesn’t think Survive the Night could get any worse . . .

. . . until she comes across Julie’s body, and the party turns deadly.

Desperate for help, Casey and her friends find themselves running through the putrid subway system, searching for a way out. But every manhole is sealed shut, and every noise echoes eerily in the dark, reminding them they’re not alone.

They’re being hunted.

Trapped underground with someone—or something—out to get them, Casey can’t help but listen to her friend’s terrified refrain: “We’re all gonna die down here. . . .”

My Review: 
So this book was eh. There may be SPOILERS. 
It has a great premise. The characters are trapped in an underground abandoned subway system after a rave gone wrong and something or someone is after them, killing them off one by one. It sounds awesome....except is wasn't. 

First off the main character Casey was a complete dumbass. Sher spent way too much time talking about her ex, Sam, and her dangerous best friend Shana. She let Shana bully her around into doing drugs and she did whatever Sam said. She didn't really do anything productive in looking for a way out. A little background on her: she was a soccer player in school but she had gotten a knee injury. She was given oxy for the pain. She started hanging out with Shana who is into drugs, partying and alcohol, who in turn got Casey into drugs. Some bad stuff happened and Casey had to go to rehab for her oxy addiction which throughout the whole book she denies she has. She had just gotten out of rehab when the book started and she skipped a sleepover with the good all american girls to go out with psycho Shana, pot junkie Julie and Aya. Dumb move. Like I said she doesn't have a backbone and she can't realize that Shana is not a good friend. Shana does some messed up things to Casey and Casey always forgives her because Shana was "there when she needed her and no one else was." Please. 

On to the other characters. I liked Sam the ex boyfriend. He was the only one with a brain. He didn't do drugs or drink. He cares about Casey but couldn't be with her because of her oxy addiction. He doesn't like her hanging out with Shana because she's a bad influence. He actively looks for a way out and tries everything to get Casey out. He still loves her and an if he didn't *SPOILER* die at the end they would of probably been together. And I do have a small rant about his death. The main reason was why? Near the end he was hurt but he managed to carry Casey, who had injured her knee AGAIN, on his back where he was hurt, up a ladder and out of a manhole. Furthermore he was strong enough to hold her back when Casey got the bright idea to go back into the sewer of death to get Shana. But then while holding her and kissing her, suddenly he blood starts flowing freely from his mouth and his back. Suddenly he has a huge six in gash wound on his back where "the raw meat of his back" was showing and "bones poking through a thick layer of blood." Um ok....shouldn't he have died already because of those wounds. And Casey who was on his back as he climbed up the ladder didn't feel those bones or her clothes didn't get saturated with his blood. WTF? NO REASON! This doesn't make sense and there was no reason for him to die. He was out of the sewers and safe! I mean really.

I hated Shana. She was a total bitch and a horrible person. She played chicken with a truck on the way to the party going 95+ mph with four people in the car. Then she complains when Casey puts her seatbelt on. She drugs Casey at the rave and says "you're welcome" when Casey confronts her about it. She pressures Casey to drink just after she got out of rehab. She drinks while driving. During the book there are many flashbacks and in one Shana promised Casey to a strung out druggy so she could score some heroine. She wanted Casey to make out with this nasty guy even though at the time Casey was with Sam. She slept or hooked up with Sam while Casey was in rehab. And this girl is Casey's best friend and the girl Casey keeps making excuses for. Great job picking friends Casey. 

I didn't really care about the other characters. Julie was a stoner and she wasn't really in the book that much. Woody was an idiot and Aya was a complete mess after they found Julie. All she kept saying was "we're gonna die."

This book is supposed to be a horror novel I guess but it wasn't that scary. I thought that a serial killer was after them which would of been better than what really was killing them off which was a "monster." The best way I could describe this monster is that it's a Kraken with tentacles that have huge razor sharp blades on them and huge claws. Apparently it can take over the body of the person it killed as well. So that's that. 

There was a lot of gore in the book but it really wasn't scary. I guess it was there for shock value. Each death was more gruesome than the last, like the author was trying to top herself. The gore didn't bother me. The parts that did bother and disgust me and make my skin crawl was when Aya and the other characters walked around barefoot. Aya's foot was described as black from walking in the streets and that made me gag. Also about half way into the book, the characters get to a tunnel that was flooded with sewer water that smelled and tasted like vomit, and looked oily black and green. So of course they go that way and the rest of the book is spent with them traveling and getting attacked in this disgusting infected water. Just them walking in the water creeped me out more than when the monster killed them. The way it's described how Casey falls under the water and tries to scream but the water goes in her mouth HORRIFIED me. Her, wet nasty hair is described and how her clothes cling to her and how oily the water feels. OMG i'm getting the creeps from just thinking about it. I'm a little OCD with cleanliness- I wash my hand a lot and never go barefoot anywhere, not even my own home (I use flip flops or slippers), so you can imagine how much my skin crawled reading this book. And that's just because they ended up dirty and filthy. The gore didn't bother me, the potential germs and nastiness did. 

The ending wasn't really an ending either. Casey ends up going to the hospital after she and Sam get out of the sewer. She is the only survivor. We get told that in the hospital Casey has ecstasy in her system when she was found so I'm not sure if she hallucinated the whole thing. She said that the bodies of her friends were never found and Shana was blamed for killing everyone. Casey says she sees her dead friends everywhere and tells herself they are not coming for her. And that's it. The end. No answers to why the bodies were never found. No answer about the monster or how it even got there. No mention if she really hallucinated the whole thing. Nada. 

The premise of the book was promising but the book was just ok. It would of been better if a normal human serial killer was after them, not a monster who was in Pirates of the Caribbean. 


Rating:C

1 comment:

  1. Awe sorry to hear this book didn't live up to the premise. It sounds so good. :/

    ReplyDelete