Review: Your Lonely Nights Are Over

 

I have two slightly silly bones to pick with this book before I get into the actual meat of the review. First, it’s pitched as “Scream meets Clueless.” I disagree; I think it’s much more like Scream meets Heathers, with its sardonic social commentary and campy theatrics. So take that for what it’s worth, marketing team.

Second, and somewhat more meaningfully: the title of the book stems from the story’s serial killer’s schtick, which is to leave a note on the bodies of his victims saying “Your lonely nights are over.” The serial killer is nicknamed Mr. Sandman, after the song “Mr. Sandman,” where the line your lonely nights are over ostensibly came from. Except…it’s not? I happened to hear the song purely by coincidence while I was partway through the book, and the line is definitely “your lonesome nights are over.” I checked every single version and cover of the song I could find, including the original from 1950-something, and in every one it was lonesome, not lonely. And I simply do not understand why, if it’s meant to be a reference to this song, the author/editors wouldn’t just change it to lonesome. Is there some kind of bizarre copyright thing here? I don’t know, but it really bugs me. Not that it makes a real difference in terms of story and writing quality, but just.Why.

Okay, moving on to things that are actually meaningful. There was a lot I really liked about this book. First and foremost, I loved Cole and Dearie’s friendship. It’s very unusual to see such a close friendship between queer men in media that doesn’t eventually become a romantic relationship; I’ve read more than one YA book that seems like it’s all about queer friendship until all of a sudden a romantic relationship between the two gets shoehorned in. And that wasn’t the case at all in this book; romance in general was really on the sideline. Cole and Dearie both have romantic and sexual relationships, but they aren’t the focus of the book, which I really liked.

Similarly, I appreciated the exploration of the dynamics between the different queer students involved in the book. Too often there’s an assumption that all queer people will get along or will have each other’s backs, but that really isn’t the case, especially when there are other forms of privilege at play – for instance, Cole is dealing with the effects of both racism and homophobia throughout the book, and the other queer students are often responsible for his marginalization. In general the book does an excellent job of showing the complicated relationships between different people with different experiences – who are also high schoolers dealing with all the awkwardness and struggles that come along with that.

But it isn’t too heavy or beating a dead horse, either; it very much feels like a campy 80s/90s slasher, complete with creepy jump-scare-esque scenes and a big, overly dramatic final confrontation. I would absolutely love to see a film adaptation. It plays with a lot of genre tropes in really clever ways as well. Probably my one criticism and the thing that kept this book from being perfect for me was that Cole and Dearie’s voices weren’t quite distinct enough. I kept forgetting whose perspective I was reading from and who had which relationships. Just slightly stronger character voices would have made this book just about perfect. Still, would very much recommend.