Cover Charge #9: I Know What You Did Last Summer

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Pagemaster Who Doesn't Know What You Did Last Summer.

I didn't know about the book I'm reviewing today until the 2025 legacy sequel came out and I started looking into the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise for review content. And having re-watched the original movie adaptations a few years back and forced myself to endure them again now (and read the novel via audiobook on my way to and from work this past week), I can't fathom why I liked them in the first place beyond their being Scream clones and my being a stupid teenager.

But I told myself that when it came time to write this review, I would leave out as much comparison as possible and save my savage sentiments for the movies as I get to them later this month.

I also had no knowledge of Lois Duncan as an author prior to the same research.

The novel, I Know What You Did Last Summer, is a 1973 YA fiction thriller (the audiobook is a newer edition with more modern technology referenced) with a premise that might sound familiar to late-90s slasher fans: Julie James (a peppy ginger cheerleader with a name perfect for Marvel Comics heroics at the time), her boyfriend Ray Bronson (heir apparent to the football hero of the fictional town of Silver Springs, so he was basically cursed with vicarious legacy syndrome from the moment he was named), his pathologically lying horndog football buddy Barry Cox (so, nominally destined for porn and/or male prostitution, because his aristocratic parents are stupid), and his image-obsessed girlfriend Helen Rivers (so, hopefully she Styx around to do flood reports at the local news station) commit a hit-and-run after a hard night of partying. Because of poor judgment, youthful stupidity, and Barry being a candidate for world's biggest asshole, the four "agree" to a pact and leave the child for dead (in the movie it was an adult-for-teen, I think), only calling Emergency Services after it's already too late.

The following year, the four have gone their separate ways, each overcompensating for their guilt and grief in different ways that bring them success but do little to help them escape what they've done...especially once a mysterious person begins sending them ominous letters and other correspondence. So, the four must reunite and figure out who's targeting them and why (except Barry, who continuously lies and comes up with the stupidest "plausible" explanations possible because he's a massive rectal fault-line of a sub-human being who honestly gets off easy, and not in the fun way, but in the bullet-to-the-spine way).

I can see how the novel would have been well-received at its time of release because, having seen the movie first, I knew who the stalker/killer was by last name alone (and it was double-confirmed by my knowledge of Scream tropes), a piece of knowledge that 70s readers wouldn't have been privy to. And even with that knowledge, I Know What You Did Last Summer manages two more twists on top of that that I genuinely didn't see coming, one of which was so brilliantly subtle that it's easy to read over your first time around.

Twists aside, the writing does get redundant, as Duncan seemingly pads pagetime by having each character meet up with each other character to tell them what they said to each other character and how they reacted even though we just read the conversation we're being told about again three pages ago. It's the story's only flaw (aside from Barry existing), but it's a glaring one. Thankfully, the rest of the novel is spent on A-grade suspense, vivid character work that we just don't get in the film adaptation (where Julie, Ray, Barry, and Helen are just unlikable slasher victims), and that trio of incredible twists that bear reading for yourselves.

Tomorrow, I bring you a reminder of what I did this summer with a massive Zenescope - Omnibusted, and I'm taking the weekend off to finish watching the I Know What You Did Last Summer miniseries, so Stay Tuned  and please remember to Become A Ticketholder
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Pagemaster,

Out.