Title: We Run the Night
Author: Peace Mbengei
Genres: Horror, Mystery
Pages: 336
Publisher: Soho Teen
Review Copy: Review copy provided by publisher
Availability: Available now
Summary: When Shani returns to her elite, isolated boarding school after her father’s mysterious death, she just wants to finish senior year with her scholarship intact—which means focusing on her work and staying out of trouble. Even with her best friend, Pendo, by her side, she’s never quite fit in at Taji Academy. But soon, strange things start happening at school—not only are students coming down with odd, grotesque skin maladies, someone is causing chaos on campus after curfew. Are they night runners, the supernatural entities that terrorize rural neighborhoods in the dark?
The strict administration insists it’s just students pulling pranks. Everyone knows that night runners are just an urban legend. But when one of the popular students, Adila, goes missing—and Shani wakes up one morning with mud on her feet, torn clothes, and a pounding headache—she knows it’s more than that. As she and others at Taji begin to transform with no way to contact the outside world, she must figure out what is happening—before it’s too late.
Review: [Content warnings for the death of a parent, bullying, and body horror.]
My favorite horror stories heavily invest in the setting, and Peace Mbengei’s Taji Academy is a claustrophobic place, governed by image-obsessed, corrupt, and/or useless adults, and inhabited by a frightened student body that quickly turns against itself. It is clear from the start why Shani’s options for allies, let alone friends, are limited, and it makes sense why Shani is far more inclined to hide or to keep quiet as the problems with the night runners spread. This isolation heightens the potential risks of Shani’s decisions, so even slower or seemingly lower-stakes moments in the book have greater weight.
Shani’s grief for her father permeates the novel. Whether that’s the practical realities of financial hardship following his loss or the quieter moments of simply remembering him, his loss has changed Shani’s life. I also appreciated the times when this grief was shown to be complicated or messy, particularly between Shani and her mother. The intersection of Shani’s grief and her more outwardly obvious loss of control as she started night running made for a compelling and suspenseful read. (And some pretty gruesome moments of body horror!) I was very worried about where Shani would end up mentally and physically by the end of the book, which is a good thing when you’re reading a horror novel.
The mystery surrounding Shani’s father’s death and how it tied into the night runners appearing on campus was intriguing from the start. Without going into spoiler territory, there was one horror-related subplot that I didn’t enjoy, but I otherwise liked Shani’s multi-step investigation and felt that the mystery itself was compelling to follow. While there are still some unanswered questions by the end, I was largely satisfied with how everything played out with Shani’s story.
Recommendation: Get it soon, if you like horror. We Run the Night is a story about secrets, grief, and fear, and how those personal things can spread through a community and transform everyone it touches. I will be keeping an eye out for future horror books by Peace Mbegnei.
Extras: Q&A: Peace Mbengei, Author of ‘We Run The Night’ at Nerd Daily
Interview, with Peace Mbengei, Author of We Run the Night at Geeks Out