I Know What You Did Last Summer
by Lois Duncan

My rating: 3 / 5
Genre: YA mystery

Is it a prank? Or something more? When Julie James finds the note addressed to her that says, “I know what you did last summer,” she thinks she knows exactly what it means. Someone has discovered the terrible event that occurred last summer that she and the three others she was with at the time agreed to cover up. And though the others try to convince her it’s unrelated, when the attacks start, it’s hard to believe it’s a coincidence.

If you’ve seen the movie, forget everything you know about it. This is not a horror/slasher story. It’s really more of a mystery, maybe even a thriller. I didn’t feel particularly thrilled, so I wouldn’t label it that myself, but that might be because I was distracted here or there, partly because of the movie. It came out when I was a teenager, right alongside Scream, and though I’m not really much of a horror fan, I did see both movies. And then a year later, Urban Legend. I’m pretty sure it all involved hanging out with friends. I was vaguely aware that this book wasn’t exactly the same as the movie, but I didn’t realize how different it was. (By the way, Lois Duncan was horrified by the movie.)

I tried to put aside my thoughts about the movie and start fresh for the book, once I realized how different it was, and that worked to a degree. But then there’s talk about making a phone call from a car, and I was distracted again. If the movie came out in the late 90s, when was the book written? Oh, 1978…then why do these teens have cell phones? Apparently this book was updated in 2010 to be more modern, which mostly includes the addition of cell phones, while some of the dialog still feels fairly dated to me. I wish I’d known in advance this was an updated version, as I might have tried to get my hands on an original instead. Of course, none of this review so far really talks about the story itself.

Overall, I have to admit to being fairly bored during this book (which is why I said above that I wasn’t particularly thrilled). There is a mystery involved in learning who is sending the notes and hunting Julia and her “friends,” and I’ll admit that I didn’t guess all of it. There’s a little bit of a twist, but getting there was just kind of…not terribly interesting. And at least half of the characters are just terrible. Maybe that’s on purpose, but if I’m supposed to feel any sympathy for Barry the misogynist, something went wrong. Still, it’s a quick read and overall not too full of sex, language, or even violence. So not a slasher novel. There are references to teen sex and drug use, but it’s not really overt. If you’re a fan of the movie, you might want to skip this unless you’re really interested in its origin. If you enjoy YA mysteries that are fairly short and slow, you might want to give this a try.

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