Book Review: A Night To Die For by Lisa Schroeder

Title: A Night To Die For
Author: Lisa Schroeder
Publisher: Underlined
Publishing Date: March 1st, 2022
Read: March 24th, 2024
Pages: 288
Audio Length: 6 Hours 31 Minutes
Genre: YA Mystery Thriller
TW: cancer, bullying, underage drinking, child abandonment
Series: Standalone
Source: Audio

What it's about:

The Night Of meets Carrie when a boy finds a girl's body in the ditch on prom night...and becomes the primary suspect in her murder.

All Mario wants is one normal night before he graduates. He's spent most of high school riding solo and gaming with his only friend, Lucas. But when his mom asks him to take Elana Dexter to the prom as a favor to her father, his mother’s boss, he figures this might be his chance to be less of a loner.

Only, the night takes a turn quickly. First, Mario gets crowned Prom King alongside the school’s it-girl, Maribelle Starr. Which is weird enough. But what’s weirder is that when they put the crown on his head, hundreds of worms slither out of it and all over Mario. Just when Mario thought the night couldn’t get any worse, he sees something on the side of the road while driving Elana home. That something is Prom Queen Maribelle Starr—murdered and left for dead.

All Mario wanted was to go to prom...but somehow, he ended up in hell.

What I thought:

I liked this book for what it was, granted I really had no idea what I thought it was going to be. Something more slasher-y because of the cover being all bloody and stuff. So that was a bit of a let down. It was a quick read filled with teen angst and mystery.

I read this months ago and have read quite a few books in the meantime so I'm sorry this isn't a super in depth review. 

Cover:

The cover is okay to me, it's kind of boring and doesn't really match the book. I would've maybe done like a crown and sash in a ditch or something. I don't know, I'm not an author.

Story:

The story was okay. I liked the mystery until it became too... Like it didn't really work. It got really confusing and kind of hard to follow. 

Pace: 

It was a fast read, so I liked that. If it was a longer book I couldn't do it. 

Writing: 

The writing was okay. It felt way too angsty and was really hard to follow. 

Characters: 

There was so many characters I couldn't keep them straight, and I didn't particularly like any of them. YA is hard for me, being a 31 year old adult, and I often find them too whiny and immature. This was exceptionally whiny and immature. 

 

World building: 

I gave it a 4 because it's a real life world and it was easy to follow and descriptive while reading.

 Ending: 

It really feels like the ending and the whole who dunnit was kind of thrown from left field. I felt like it didn't really make sense and there was other ways this could have gone that maybe would have worked better.

Narrator:

There was a lot of narrators and I love full cast books.

Overall:

It wasn't bad, it wasn't great. It's more of a 3.5 rounded up to 4. It was a quick easy read and I was entertained most of the book. 

A little Snippet:

“And I think…I think I want to live like that.”

― Lisa Schroeder, A Night to Die For

Possible books of likeness:

Author's info:

Lisa Schroeder is the author of more than twenty books for kids and teens. Her latest novel is A NIGHT TO DIE FOR, a YA murder mystery. She lives in Oregon where she works full-time and writes when she can.

website: https://www.lisaschroederbooks.com/

twitter: www.twitter.com/lisa_schroeder
instagram: lisaschroeder15

Other books I've read by this author:

I haven't read any other books by this author, I do have one of her others on my TBR I want to read eventually.