Survive the Night by Danielle Vega

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. . . .”

Where do I even start with this book? Unfortunately, this was not as gripping, terrifying or just plain amazing as Danielle's other books. I had pretty high hopes based off the title, but the story was slow to get going, the characters weren't very developed, and the ending just wasn't satisfying enough.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

So first the story: we start off with Casey in a creepy AF rehab and she's leaving to go home after recovering from her oxycodone addiction. In my opinion, this was the best part of the book. Her rehab-mates are weirdly deformed and mentally scarring. Why we didn't get this story I don't know. (lowkey hoping for a prequel because I would read that in a heartbeat) But anyway, Casey is going to a sleepover at her friend's house to bond with the soccer team she used to be on. Some of her old druggie buddies show up and whisk her away to NYC for a night of fun and partying. All of this is fine and good except for they end up getting stuck in the abandoned subway tunnels at a rave: Survive the Night (why's it called that...we don't know!!! It's catchy, but as far we know no one else is dead??). BTW - it took about half the book to get here plotwise, Casey and her friends are not very interesting; that part dragged like nobody's business. One of their friends is found strung up (Jesus-like) and dead. Cue the chaos for the rest of the book.

Now reading that back I would still read that story because the set up was so good! I really kept wanting to be horrified but I just wasn't. When we finally figure out what was in the tunnels it was weirdly anti-climactic and not very terrifying; not to mention it didn't really make sense with what happened in the beginning of the book. The set up was just so misleading in my opinion.

About the characters...they were the high school cliches, which is fine for the teen horror genre, but I honestly forgot most of their names about halfway through. All Casey does is whine about Shana and Sam so they were the most memorable, but otherwise until someone died I pretty much forgot about them. Also, when they died I didn't really care. Wanted to, but didn't.

Lastly, the ending. It was terrible. I hate when suddenly there's an alien or 'monster' without any reason for it. Once we find out that there are tentacles in the tunnels - that's what's killing everybody I'm intrigued, but we never know how they got there, why they're there, or if it's even part of some giant octopus. It's always just 'the tentacles'. End of story. I really had a feeling that Casey was high the whole time and Shana went crazy and killed everybody. The ending kind of alludes to that, but it's one of those 'what ifs' and literally the book just ends. THE END. I was so frustrated and now I'm mad that I bought the book before reading the reviews. I trusted the talent of the author and she let me down this time.

Don't get me wrong though - this book may have been a bust, but I'm definitely going to finish the rest of The Merciless series - those are AMAZING!!!

3 stars