Graveyard Shift by M. L. Rio
14 March 2025
Graveyard Shift sees a ragtag group of graveyard shift workers and general insomniacs that meet in an old graveyard most nights -- "not on purpose, exactly, but not quite by accident either." (pg. 1) Unfolding over the course of a single night, the group stumbles upon some strange goings on that, as they investigate, seem to be connected to the unexplainable events that have been occurring around town.
I saw mostly middling reviews on this, but I actually quite enjoyed it. I may have had different expectations going in (and therefore a different experience) had I read Rio's uber-popular debut, If We Were Villains, but alas, I have not. Plus, I just really love novellas!
Graveyard Shift effectively evokes that strange feeling of being up all night, especially when you don't want to be. In an author's note at the beginning, Rio mentions her experience with insomnia and that she set out to write a story "about sleep and sleeplessness that could unfold over only one evening, like a shady, troubled dream." And I think she really accomplished that.
Some stories feel like they've been cut down, hacked up, and crammed into a too-small box labelled NOVELLA. With these stories, it sometimes feels like there's so much ore between the lines that's bursting to get out, or the ending feels more like a chapter ending than proper closure for a book. This isn't one of those stories. It's clear that Graveyard Shift was written as a novella for a specific purpose, as it's the perfect length to read in one sitting, which is thematically appropriate -- stay up a little too late and let yourself fall into this story that feels like a waking dream.
Characterization can be difficult in a novella, and Rio was ambitious in giving us five main characters, but she handles them well. I do feel like I know them, not quite in the way you know your best friend, but perhaps in that way that you know a coworker, or a regular customer at your job. You only ever see them in that space where you coexist for a period of time, but you know they must have a whole other life outside of that space, even if you don't know much beyond the bare outlines of what that life looks like. And it helps that our ragtag group is...friendly, but not friends. So it feels like the reader knows the characters about as well as they know each other.
Overall, I just thought the story worked really well -- I liked how each character had a part to play, and the way that we get to dip into these people's lives for just one night (though it's probably the weirdest night of their lives). And I'm really fond of the ambiguous ending which seems to say that these characters will go on living but...as what? Who (or what) will they become? I thought the ending was kind of perfect, honestly.
Final thoughts: if you can go into this in the right headspace, and can put aside any expectations based on Rio's previous book, I think there's a lot here to like. I also recommend this if you liked T. Kingfisher's What Moves the Dead. They kind of go together in my mind, like cousins, perhaps. Though, admittedly, it may just be that the covers echo each other...and the fungus-y elements they share.
