Book Review: Your Lonely Nights Are Over by Adam Sass

Cole Cardoso and Frankie Dearie are best friends who don’t play by the rules of the other members of Stone Grove High School’s Queer Club. In fact, they’ve both grown so disillusioned by the rest of the club that they usually try to avoid the other members whenever possible. Newest recruit Em seems like a decent person, though the vast majority of the club maintains a rigidity that puts them at odds with Cole and Dearie. As Cole observes:

Theo groans from the top tier, rolling their eyes at Em, who does not return the gesture. Good for her recognizing an asshole when she sees one. Theo is second only to Grover in being the reason why I put thirty football fields between myself and this club. Scolding, self-important closet Republicans. Just because Dearie and I meet up with boys from other schools–and not for little milkshake dates–we’re what’s “destroying the queer community” (i.e., why they can’t get a date.) Same old envy-fueled slut shaming from the Pilgrim days, just with a new Pride flag filter. 

Unfortunately for our main characters, they’re pulled back into Queer Club drama when threatening messages are sent to two of their fellow members. Grover Kendall and Gretchen Applebaum immediately call an emergency meeting because, to them, it’s obvious who sent the texts. While the members of the Queer Club all used to be friends once upon a time, the now frenemies spend an inordinate amount of time being openly mean to one another. The whole school knows that they all have beef, so when Grover and Getchen publicly claim to have gotten messages that echo the tagline of a serial killer who’s been back in the news lately, everyone figures Cole and Dearie are just (tastelessly) pranking their former besties.

But when Gretchen is murdered in the exact same way as the rest of the serial killer’s victims, and Grover barely survives the same attack, things take a far more serious turn. Mr. Sandman was notorious for targeting the single and heartbroken, leaving notes that said “your lonely nights are over” on the bodies of his victims. Thing is, he’s been inactive for decades, with most people presuming him dead. A recent podcast diving into his murderous spree has put his name back into the public conversation. Now it seems like a copycat is targeting the kids of Stone Grove’s Queer Club. Will Cole, Dearie, and co be able to overcome their differences and band together in order to face down a murderer and survive?

This slasher novel was by turns hilarious, gruesome, and thought-provoking as our protagonists grapple with the end of high school, metaphysical threats to their friendship, and an honest-to-God serial killer. The mystery/thriller is compelling with several very solid surprises throughout. Being a jaded genre reader, I figured out whodunnit quite early on but still really enjoyed the rollercoaster of revelations on the way to the excellent ending.

Told from the alternating viewpoints of both Cole and Dearie, Your Lonely Nights Are Over deftly showcases the many different ways and experiences of being queer. Adam Sass has made a point to underline how especially fraught it is for Cole as a person of color to be involved in a murder investigation, how easy it is for others to scapegoat him, and how carefully he has to tread in order to be afforded the same rights and privileges as a white person. Cole is prickly, but for good reason. This sort of authentic representation, of both him and of so many others in this book, reminds readers that queer people are not a monolith, and that intersectionality matters.

It’s also refreshing that there are so many queer people centered in this book, and that they’re never tokenized. Perhaps the best thing about this witty, wise novel is how it holds out hope to queer kids trapped by fear and oppression, as Cole listens to the boy he’s been kissing talk about a bully:

“Walker broke my arm in seventh grade,” he says, traces of fear still lingering.

 

A boy this beautiful deserves no fear. I shake my head and say the truth, the first thing that comes to mind: “I don’t remember that.” I kiss the tip of his nose. “Someday, you won’t either. Walker Lane isn’t going to show up in the movie of our lives again. When we get out of this place, you get to be anyone you want to be. Queers get to do that, that’s our right.”

This novel takes the idea that stories of serial killers targeting teenagers are a metaphor for the American high school experience, centers it on a group of wildly diverse queer kids, and launches it into the stratosphere. It’s a rollicking, cathartic read that really ought to be adapted to the screen, if only so more people will come back to the terrific source material. I had a lot of fun reading about and rooting for Cole and Dearie, and hope many others will do the same.