Synopsis:
As prom approaches, a killer targets the most popular girls in school.
Margaret Dunne’s afternoon job at her mother’s dress shop is usually tranquil, but in the weeks leading up to prom, her work is nonstop. She wouldn’t mind helping the popular girls try on dresses if she had a date too, but boys hardly look at Margaret. After a particularly grueling day taking abuse from three popular girls, Margaret finds a strange package in the alley behind the shop. Inside are the three girls’ dresses—mangled, muddied, and completely ruined.
Plenty of people hate the popular clique, but why take it out on their prom dresses? A few days later, Margaret sneaks off from the senior picnic to enjoy the view from the old lighthouse. A scream pierces the air, and Margaret sees one of the popular girls, Stephanie, dead at the bottom of a cliff. It seems someone at her school has her eye on Stephanie’s perfect date, and will kill to get her hands on him.
Review:
When I picked up this audiobook I didn’t realise it was almost 30 years old. That’s actually a little wild but it does reflect in the content. I didn’t realise until after finishing it that not a single phone was used throughout, which isn’t completely strange but a book about teens that doesn’t mention social media is. But yeah I then realised Prom Date was written in 1996 and it all made sense. This audiobook was produced in 2013 though, so I don’t know if anything was changed from the original story.
I listened to this entire audiobook in one sitting, not because I was desperate to find out what was going on, just because I was cleaning and it was providing at least a little bit of entertainment.
I’m going to spoil the ending as this book is so old now that I don’t think anyone will care too much. The killer made no sense and having them be ‘crazy’ and have mental health issues was a little distasteful for my liking. Right up until the end of the book, this character acts perfectly ‘normal’, there are zero hints that she suffers from mental health problems or that she holds a grudge against any of the characters. It would have made more sense for it to be one of Margaret’s friends as they spent the majority of the book complaining that they don’t have dates to the prom.
The unreliable narrator aspect was good though. There were chapters told from the perspective of the killer but without giving away who it was. These were fairly repetitive as they just talked about wanting a prom date, but it was a nice change in pace and added some interest to the book.
I don’t really have a lot to say about Prom Date other than the fact that it was a decent read/listen. The narrator gave a solid performance and the plot was interesting enough but this won’t be making it onto my ‘favourite thrillers’ list.
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