An actress desperate to reclaim her fame must survive the real-life plot of the horror movie that made her famous in this psychologically twisted locked-room thriller influenced by ’90s slasher films.

Twenty years ago, Ella Winters was the it girl. She made a name for herself in Hollywood and throughout America as the final survivor in the cult-classic slasher Grad Night. But the real horror is what happened when the cameras weren’t rolling—something terrible that Ella and her co-stars agreed never to speak of again. Shortly after the movie’s premiere, Ella disappeared from the acting scene under the pretense of caring for her ailing mother, hoping for a quiet life out of the spotlight to ease her guilty mind.

Now, after her mother’s passing, Ella has decided to return to the silver screen. And with the cast and crew of Grad Night in the process of filming a reunion documentary, Ella has the perfect ticket back into Hollywood’s good graces. Weighed down by the secret she’s been keeping all these years, Ella apprehensively makes the trip to the original set—a cabin in rural Tennessee—to reunite with her castmates for the first time in over a decade. But when the actors begin to meet the exact gruesome fates of the characters they originally played, falling victim to someone dressed as the Grad Night villain, it’s clear their secret is out.

Now, the question Can the final girl survive one last nightmare?

I received an advance galley of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I’m a sucker for a good slasher. If there’s a masked killer, a creepy cabin, and a group of people with secrets they really should’ve told someone about years ago? I’m all in. So, when I saw the synopsis for this one, I knew it would be right up my alley.

And for the most part—it was.

This book sets up a killer premise (pun intended). Twenty years ago, a group of actors starred in a cult horror flick called “Grad Night”. The movie was your classic teen slasher, complete with blood, screaming, and a “final girl” who lived to tell the tale. But something awful happened behind the scenes. Something real. And it’s that secret—something the whole cast agreed to bury—that comes back to haunt them during a reunion documentary shoot at the original filming location 20 years later. Naturally, people start dying. And naturally, they’re dying in the ways the characters did in the original film. It’s meta. It’s messy. It’s a little “Scream” and a little “I Know What You Did Last Summer” (two of my faves).

One thing I really enjoyed was how the story moved between three perspectives: the present-day reunion, flashbacks to the past, and snippets of the “Grad Night” script. It made everything feel layered, like peeling back pieces of a puzzle. You get to see how the characters behaved on-set, how they’re trying to act now (some more convincingly than others), and how the fictional deaths from the movie are starting to blur with what’s happening in real life. It gave the book a very “behind the scenes of the horror movie” vibe, and I ate that up.

As for the characters—Ella, the washed-up final girl trying to stage a comeback, was likable in that weary, complicated way. She’s full of regret and guilt but also desperate to move on, ready to revamp her career after years out of the spotlight. The rest of the cast was just the right mix of shady, annoying, and suspicious. You’re never quite sure who to trust, which works well for a story like this. The tension is also great. It builds slowly, then takes off. I had that itchy “just one more chapter” feeling more than once.

But. (You knew it was coming.)

The ending didn’t land for me.

Without spoiling anything, there’s a twist that was clearly meant to be a big, shocking moment. Unfortunately, it felt more like the kind of twist that only works if you turn off your brain and ignore some pretty major logic gaps. Not in the fun, “ok, I’ll let that go” way—but in the “I can suspend disbelief but not this much” kind of way. It felt like the author wanted to surprise us but did it by pulling the rug out from under the story itself. And once that happened, the killer reveal just… fizzled. It was honestly pretty underwhelming. I wasn’t mad about it, just a little deflated. It’s like ordering a cheeseburger, but they were out of cheese… and you really wanted the cheese.

Needless to say, this one was a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it was a very fun, fast-paced read with an awesome concept and some creepy moments. It started strong, had a great atmosphere, and kept me hooked almost all the way through. But the final act didn’t quite stick the landing, which made the whole thing feel a little uneven.

Would I still recommend it? Sure. Especially if you love slashers, horror nostalgia, and ensemble casts full of secrets. Less critical readers or folks just looking for a thrilling weekend read will probably have a blast. Me? I’m glad I read it. I just wish the ending hadn’t tripped on its own fake blood.

I’m gonna go now.