I’m Not Dying with You Tonight

 Author: Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal

 Release Date: August 6, 2019

 Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Format: ARC

Source: Raincoast Books

---

 Summary:

Lena and Campbell aren’t friends.

Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she’s going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school.

When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together.

They aren’t friends. They hardly understand the other’s point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they’re going to survive the night. (Goodreads)

---

Review:

*I received an advance copy of this book from Raincoast Books for this blog tour in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion.*

Oh boy where do I start? This book was one wild ride for something under 300 pages! My heart was racing for at least 80% of the novel and even when it wasn’t I could definitely feel the tension building

My favourite part of I’m Not Dying with You Tonight was easily the two main characters and the growth they experience throughout their ordeal. Neither is perfect; in fact both make pretty big mistakes and snap judgements. That being said, working together to try to make it to the other side of the violence and chaos safely means learning from and about one another is a necessity that changes both of them. This is not a frilly friendship story but it doe touch a lot on respecting our fellow humans and seeing life from different points of view.

This is a very “of the moment” story and it touches on a lot of things that have come to the forefront of our reality over recent years. The authors address systemic racism and prejudice, police brutality,  and hate crimes to name a few. I’m sure it will ruffle more than a few feathers, which is exactly what we need more of. That the two girls learning to work together and developing a mutual respect grows out of such hatred-fuelled violence is an interesting and very powerful contrast.

I also really enjoyed the dual POV in I’m Not Dying with You Tonight. It gave a balance to the storytelling and it was interesting to see how the two very different characters viewed the events of the night and reacted to not only their environment but to each other.

The one struggle I had with the novel was that so much happened in such a short story that I often felt “out of breath” in a sense. I enjoy a fast-paced novel but this one was almost too fast at certain points.

Final Verdict:

I loved this book and all the difficult places it went. I’m Not Dying with You Tonight is a fast read but a powerful a and important one.