That Night

Can we just talk for a minute about books that make us paranoid?  When I was in seventh grade, my best friend Sherry gave me her dad’s copy of The Amityville Horror.  I snuck around and read in the dark living room that was nowhere near the family room in our house.  And no, I did not live in a big house.  It was about 2000 square feet.  BUT.  The living room was upstairs and the family room was in the basement, and there was a lot of dark between me and said basement.  You can imagine how many times I hallucinated red eyes floating in the doorway that led to the stairs.

That was the first book.

I just finished That Night by Chevy Stevens.  It was the second book to cause paranoia and a touch of hysteria.

The only problem is that this time the entire thing is totally plausible and involves mean girls in high school.  The plausibility of the plot and watching a poor girl suffer through years of bullying was what has caused the hysteria.   We have three teenagers.  THREE.

Hysteria and paranoia aside, I enjoyed the book and read into the wee hours of a summer evening to find out what happened.

Don’t worry, I won’t tell you.

You need to read it for yourself.  I don’t read much in the thriller/suspense genre, but I liked this book.  And isn’t that why we read?  To enjoy stories?  I love a good story with a likable protagonist.  Toni is a rebellious first-born daughter that is a little rough around the edges, but still likable.  She falls in love with Ryan which puts her squarely in the path of Shauna and her underlings.  What could possibly go wrong?

I’ll tell you.  A lot.  A whole lot.  I don’t read a lot of suspense/thriller fiction because I tend to get a little stressy and jumpy, but I enjoyed this.  Because the story moved quickly, I read quickly, and therefore the stressy, jumpy, mania I suffered was short-lived and worth the discomfort.

Here is a brief synopsis from the publisher:

As a teenager, Toni Murphy had a life full of typical adolescent complications: a boyfriend she adored, a younger sister she couldn’t relate to, a strained relationship with her parents, and classmates who seemed hell-bent on making her life miserable. Things weren’t easy, but Toni could never have predicted how horrific they would become until her younger sister was brutally murdered one summer night. Toni and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of the murder and sent to prison. Now thirty-four, Toni, is out on parole and back in her hometown, struggling to adjust to a new life on the outside. Prison changed her, hardened her, and she’s doing everything in her power to avoid violating her parole and going back. This means having absolutely no contact with Ryan, avoiding fellow parolees looking to pick fights, and steering clear of trouble in all its forms. But nothing is making that easy—not Ryan, who is convinced he can figure out the truth; not her mother, who doubts Toni’s innocence; and certainly not the group of women who made Toni’s life hell in high school and may have darker secrets than anyone realizes. No matter how hard she tries, ignoring her old life to start a new one is impossible. Before Toni can truly move on, she must risk everything to find out what really happened that night. But in That Night by Chevy Stevens, the truth might be the most terrifying thing of all.

*I received a copy of That Night through SheReads.org in exchange for an honest review.