Personally, I love disco! Not just the music, but the style, the dancing, and the overall vibes too.

The 1960’s and 1970’s are iconic decades which brought us many fabulous things. One of which, was Studio 54. Trust, I would’ve been trying to get inside of that club every waking moment of my life had I been around at that time! But I probably wouldn’t have been cool enough for Studio 54.

In all reality, I would’ve been at the roller disco with my friends trying to sneak cheap rum into my concession stand diet coke and make eyes at a guy who was way out of my league.

Which is another thing I miss from this era, as well as my own childhood: Roller rinks!

Disco Deathtrap mixes all of the above things that we hold so dear to our hearts, and makes them as dangerous and scary as possible! Eeeep! What fun!

Summary

On New Years Eve 1980, a masked killer wielding a scythe crashes the party at the Rollerville roller disco, turning a night of fun into a night of murder and mayhem!

My Review

I read this book in one day! I stayed up all night, even though I knew I shouldn’t, because it was such a fun and purely entertaining read. And darling, sometimes that’s just what the soul needs.

This book starts out strong with exceptionally amusing character development. At first I was a little worried because there were so many characters being introduced at once, but they were written so distinctly and well that they were actually very easy to keep straight. (Bravo!)

Our first introduction to our teenage cast is on a big yellow bus driving to the New Years Eve Roller Disco Lock Down. The kid’s personalities and overall atmosphere on the yellow bus brought back mad high school vibes for me, as I remember a lot of kids who fit perfectly into the stereotypical roles that the book includes. This made it easy to relate my own memories, friends, and experiences to kids on the bus.

As for the staff working their New Years Eve at the roller rink, I could also identify with them! I have worked plenty of retail jobs in my crummy past that required my presence on holidays, and it was a huge pain in the ass. *insert eye roll here*

The interactions between the students, staff, and supervisors all seemed relatively realistic. Most importantly, it was all very entertaining. Truthfully, I found myself feeling nervous to connect with so many characters because, duhhhh, this is a teen slasher book! And that means everyone isn’t going to make it to the end.

So, when shit starts to hit the fan and bodies start dropping, I was surprised how much I actually cared about the fates of these characters!

I didn’t want to see the kindhearted lovebirds with bright futures cut down by the madman with a scythe! I was worried about the nerdy kids who just came tonight at the off chance that a popular girl would look at them. And of course, our main character Dan just met Diane and things finally started looking up for him!

Most of the kids don’t survive the night, let alone 20 minutes into the new year, while a few lucky ones were able to escape undetected to hiding places throughout the roller rink. But y’all don’t forget, this is a lock down! That means those exit doors are chained and padlocked closed! 😨

From this point forward, we have a few main groups of surviving kids scattered around the nooks and crannies of the roller rink. Each one will have a different story and path they’ll take to either try to escape, help a friend, or face the killer.

Each chapter bounced around to different group of kid’s, so it never got slow or boring. The multiple story lines occurring across the same timeline of events presented non-stop bone chilling experiences from everyone’s point of view.

I loved it!

I also want to note the atmosphere in this book.

Prior to the murder party, multiple times within a chapter we are informed of what song the DJ was spinning. At first I wasn’t sure exactly what to think of this, however music can really set the tone for a scene and I was shocked how well Cameron executed that in book form! His song choices created the perfect upbeat atmosphere for such a catastrophic event.

So, speaking of the music in this book…

Cameron Roubique set up one of the most amazing websites of all time for Disco Deathtrap! Which includes a page with the complete soundtrack for the book! Cameron! You are the best! I wish I had known about the soundtrack sooner and I would’ve played it while reading the book!

All in all, this book reminded me of a b-rated teen slasher movie in book form, and I adored it.

So silly, so fun, so violent, and something I’ll definitely be giving a re-read.

My Rating: ★★★★★

What do you think of Disco Deathtrap!? Does it sound like something you’d be interested in?

What are some of your favorite slasher horror books?

I’d love to hear from you!

xoxo,

Ande