I’m Not Dying with You Tonight by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal

My rating: four stars

Genre: YA, fiction

Edition: Hardcover

Goodreads summary: 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.

This was the September book club pick for the Barnes and Nobles YA Book Club. Honestly, I don’t know if I would have read this book if not for that, simply because contemporary is not my favorite genre and books that take place over a short time span aren’t my favorite. HOWEVER, I am so glad that I did read this!!

Likes: Having two authors writing the book from each of their own perspectives – as a black American and a white American – was interesting and I thought it made it sound more realistic. Sometimes you can tell when the author has not experienced something with how they write out scenes, but I think having two authors who grew up with different lives added an element of realism to the book. I loved how this book made me think. It made me ask hard questions and evaluate life around me and even my own life. It got me thinking and looking at life differently. I always enjoy books that make me look at the world in a new way and help me sympathize with the characters. This story did that and in that way, it was a perfect book for the book club because it really got us talking with each other for a long time trying to dissect this book. The way that the two girls find friendship is great. They were different in so many ways, and didn’t care for each other at the beginning, but they worked around their differences and learned to like each other for them. They found ways in which they were similar and learned from how they were different. It was beautiful to read about.

Dislikes: The main thing that I did not like was that Lena spends almost the entire book trying to get to her boyfriend, when he treats her like absolute garbage and does not care about anything other than impressing his friends. They could have avoided so many dangerous scenarios if they hadn’t spent so long trying to get to him. They literally continued walking through the riot trying to get to a tattoo shop that he was supposed to be at! The fact that he didn’t care that she was in so much danger and how poorly he treated her and her friend got on my last nerve. I also still do not enjoy books that take place in one day as much as others. The ending just seems like a cliff hanger. So much happened to the two main characters in such a short amount of time, I am extremely interested in how this affected them, which was never shown. It was just annoying that I didn’t get to see if there was any long-lasting character growth.

Overall, I thought this book was a fast read that had a lot of good, eye-opening content. I would have preferred it to be longer to see how all the new information and experiences affected the characters, but I still liked it. I think this book would broaden people’s view of the world and it did a good job in showing two completely different view-points. I think no matter who reads this, there is something to learn and get out of it.