Book Description 

Scream meets Clueless in this YA horror from Adam Sass in which two gay teen BFFs find their friendship tested when a serial killer starts targeting their school’s Queer Club.

Dearie and Cole are inseparable, unlikeable, and (in bad luck for them) totally unbelievable.

From the day they met, Dearie and Cole have been two against the world. But whenever something bad happens at Stone Grove High School, they get blamed. Why? They’re beautiful, flirtatious, dangerously clever queen bees, and they’re always ready to call out their fellow students. But they’ve never faced a bigger threat than surviving senior year, when Mr. Sandman, a famous, never-caught serial killer emerges from a long retirement—and his hunting ground is their school Queer Club.

As evidence and bodies begin piling up and suspicion points at Dearie and Cole, they will need to do whatever it takes to unmask the real killer before they and the rest of Queer Club are taken down. But they’re not getting away from the killer without a fight.

Along the way, they must confront dark truths hidden beneath the surface of their small desert community. When the world is stacked against them and every flop they know is a suspect, can Dearie and Cole stop Mr. Sandman’s rampage? Or will their lonely nights soon be over . . .

My Review 

During my Xennial schooldays, the YA genre was not nearly as well developed as it is today. But we did have one thing: horror books. Starting with In a Dark, Dark Room and then jumping to the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, we could not get enough from being scared. We collected books by R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike, among others. 

Part of the reason I am so behind with reviews is because I started working at a middle school. There are many children who are never seen without a book, and invariably, the titles are usually either fantasy books or horror books. 

That is a lot of preamble for me to tell you that kids like being scared. They can’t get enough of scary books, and this book is an homage to the horror genre. It’s clear that Sass grew up reading and watching the same things that I did. 

Dearie and Cole are equally savvy kids who know what to expect from a serial killer who has reappeared decades later in THEIR town. The pacing is taut and the tension grows as the seemingly larger than life killer evades detection as more and more kids from the Queer Club are targeted. But what they don’t know is why the killer is making it seem like THEY are the ones responsible for the deaths. This places the two friend groups in the unenviable position of having to prove that they are innocent AND avoid being the next target. 

I would absolutely recommend this book. I don’t like being scared nearly as much as I did when I was younger, but I still enjoyed reading this book. This is the perfect intersection of queer friendship and horror movies. I have read most of Sass’ books and they have all been insightful and unapologetic in their messaging. I am looking forward to reading more from Sass in the future. 

I received a digital ARC of this book from Penguin/NetGalley.