Survive the Night by Danielle Vega // A Book That Threw Me Into a Three-Month Reading Slump

Survive the Night, by Danielle Vega
Publication: May 24, 2016, by Razorbill
Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Contemporary, Horror
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Source: Purchased
Rating: ½

Just back from rehab, Casey regrets letting her friends Shana, Julie, and Aya talk her into coming to Survive the Night, an all-night, underground rave in a New York City subway tunnel. Surrounded by frightening drugs and menacing strangers, Casey doesn’t think Survive the Night could get any worse...
...until she comes across Julie’s mutilated body in a dank, black subway tunnel, red-eyed rats nibbling at her fingers. Casey thought she was just off with some guy—no one could hear her getting torn apart over the sound of pulsing music. And by the time they get back to the party, everyone is gone.
Desperate for help, Casey and her friends find themselves running through the putrid subway tunnels, 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 Aya’s terrified refrain: “We’re all gonna die down here.”

My Thoughts:

I am a huge fan of Danielle Vega's debut novel, The Merciless, which is now becoming a series with four books (which I don't really know what to think about) so I ultimately couldn't wait to pick up Survive the Night. A standalone horror story? I was so in. However, when picking this one up in March, I quickly discovered that I was just bored. Eventually, school came in the way, and I lost interest in reading a cliché horror story about a group of reckless teenagers doing drugs and dreaming about having boyfriends. Whoops. *shrugs* But please: don't get me wrong; I love books full of drama as otherwise they wouldn't be entertaining. But when picking up this standalone of Vega's, I had different expectations. I expected to read a story that will scare the jeepers creepers out of me, which The Merciless did. This is a book that's more fantasy-like, with some abnormal creatures making a quick appearance. Emphasize the 'quick' part of the previous sentence. This was not a scary novel whatsoever. 

So after I realized that this book was boring and not my type, life got in the way and I never had time to read anymore. Or maybe this book gave me that illusion, as I realized that if I wanted to read, I would have to read this book to get to read those other anticipated novels on my bookshelf. So, I fell into a reading slump, which totally diminished my opinion of this book. I now decided to get back into it, as I suddenly have the urge to read, and I am still kind of disappointed.

This book is about seventeen-year-old Casey, who is slowly heading back to her old life with her old friends after she spent some time in rehab, recovering from her suspected 'drug abuse.' Her badly-influenced friends suggest the idea for Casey and them to head to an underground rave in New York City called Survive the Night, where they ironically are forced to survive the night as people begin dying and are hunted by an unknown creature.

Eh. *shrugs for the fifteenth time* I didn't find anything special about the premise of the story. I found that I honestly have the potential to come up with this kind of story. You know those books that are so masterfully polished and created, that you start to wonder if the author is a human prodigy for coming up with something like that? Sorry to say this, but Survive the Night wasn't part of this description. It wasn't my cup of tea. I'd probably recommend this to younger teens who are being introduced to the YA genre, and specifically, horror stories. This may frighten them. But it didn't frighten me or leave me traumatized. That's kind of what we always look for, don't we, when we read "scary" stories or even watch horror movies? We always seek the adrenaline and crave more. This was really Disney Channel-like, if that description makes sense.

Danielle Vega's Survive the Night was not terrible and the most outrageous book I've read, but it surely wasn't her best work. I'll soon be picking up the sequel to The Merciless, ready to judge if my tastes have changed, or if this book was the sole problem. 

What are some GREAT YA horror stories?