Honestly, when I was just a few chapters into Scream All Night by Derek Milman, I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be feeling about it.
Given that our main character, Dario, was seventeen going on eighteen, I suppose it’s a young adult novel, but it was just unlike anything I’ve read before. It took me quite a while to get into it, and I wasn’t sure if this was ever going to take a supernatural turn or not, which is why I suppose I stuck with it. Anyways, we meet Dario at a home for displaced youth. While there, he’s contacted by his much older brother, Oren, and his old friend, Hayley, that his father is dead. Well, not dead yet, but he’s orchestrating his live burial because the end is near. Did I mention that this is a notorious horror film family? Even though Dario is freaked out by this funeral request, the rest of the staff living at the Heyward castle find the request fitting.
Dario is reluctant to go back, because his father is the reason he left and emancipated himself. Dario grew up mostly alone, as his mother was committed for schizophrenia, his brother was significantly older than him, and his father was too busy directing films to spend any real time with him. Oh, but when he did, it was for a movie and his father abused the hell out of him to get a good performance. I think I’d leave, too. In a twist of fate, the day after the funeral, which definitely didn’t go according to plan, Dario is announced as the new studio chief via his father’s will. There are a lot of other stipulations in there, but Dario now has to decide between going to Harvard or staying at the one place he’s avoided for so many years.
So much random stuff happens in this book that there is no way I could cover it all. A lot of the story was interesting, but some stuff was brought up so haphazardly that it was hard to follow along at times. Some of the dialogue was super cringe-worthy, and intimate scenes were so unexpected and fully awkward. Again, as these scenes came up I wasn’t sure if I was reading a young adult novel anymore. But all the stuff around those scenes were so painfully basic at times that it had to be. This is for sure a story I could see getting adapted someday, I just have a hard time picturing the audience it would appeal to. Anyways, things work out for everyone in the end, so no worries there.
Given all that I’ve read this year, this one will definitely landing somewhere at the bottom of the list. Hard skip.