Reviews with content warning for Injury/Injury detail - How to Survive Your Murder

Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

22 reviews

jessw17's review

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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bri__'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

2.0

It started off well, I was interested. It didn't take long for it to start going downhill. I started wanting to DNF around the 25% mark because the pop culture references, dialogue and horror movie recounts really felt quite cheap. However, I pushed through because of the change in tone around the half way point and decided that I would be able to finish the book relatively quickly anyway. Once I finished it, I was disappointed. There are so many plot holes, it feels like the author just genuinely forgot about certain characters because there was no explaination of what happened to them. The ending felt cheap too because again, nothing was explained and it was left on a cliffhanger. The main character was made out to be a very intelligent girl who loved horror movies (her only personality trait) and wanted to go into the medical field. So you'd think she'd be able to solve who the murderer is, right?
Wrong. There were so many characters being made as suspects that it was hard to keep up and yet none of them were the true killer. In the end, she didnt even end up going back to the present timeline. Instead, she had just made everything worse. So what was the point? Who knows. The Angel addition felt out of place but I didn't mind that much. I don't actually understand the motive behind Claire being the murderer for all of those girls and the other ones that were basically collateral damage. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The book is a fast paced thriller, atleast it has that going for it. I'd recommend it for that but not for anything else you want in a good book.

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behindherpages's review

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tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

besides this being overall horrible, plotholes automatically ruin a book for me

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phoricho's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Now, to be honest, I was in a sad mood when I bought this book. I saw the cover and title and just bought it. Because that’s what you do when you’re sad, you buy more books. So I didn’t read the blurb or anything before buying.

After reading the blurb, I was slightly deterred by the time travelling aspect. To me, it felt gimmicky, and I wasn’t used to such a thing in a thriller/mystery. But I gave it a go anyways.

This book was a rollercoaster ride of liking and not liking it.

Thriller fans will love the references towards classic thriller films such as Scream, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alice is a fan of horror films, so the mentions and references are laid on quite thick in the beginning but level out as the book goes on.

I immensely enjoyed the thriller aspect. It really felt like I was reading a slasher film, which was overwhelmingly my favourite part of this book. Most other books I read tend to focus more on the mystery, with some close calls with the killer, usually towards the end. The continuous high stakes made the pacing feel quite fast — which was good.

The only times the pacing seemed off was in the beginning, as it took a while from the introduction of the time frame (solving the mystery by midnight) to the reader getting a time check. So for a while, I was unsure how much time had passed. I found this annoying but easy to get over.

The other issue I found with the pacing was the time travel aspect and Sidney Prescott look-alike character. These scenes often felt like they were interrupting the story instead of moving it forward.

I was also disappointed with the lack of involvement and storylines for the side characters. It felt as though they were mentioned in the beginning and then barely seen or heard from again until the end.

The ending left me a little unsatisfied, as there’s no official update for a few characters that I liked. The end felt like a movie or TV series leaving things open for a sequel or second season. If Danielle Valentine (AKA Danielle Vega) were to write a sequel focusing on the aftermath of the first book, this would work well and solve those issues (my issues) with the ending.

“If you don’t come with me, I might die. Those were the last words my sister ever said to me.” — Alice Lawrence.

It may not sound like it from all my above nit-picking, but I did enjoy this book. Like I said earlier, many of my nit-pickings are things I can get over.

The thriller aspect was hands-down the absolute best. I’m so impressed with how much it felt like I was reading a slasher film. I hope Danielle Valentine (AKA Danielle Vega) writes a sequel.

I give How to Survive Your Murder 3 out of 5 stars.

If you enjoyed Happy Death Day and the Scream movies, this book is right up your alley.

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snoopyfanclub's review

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I really wanted to like this book & the premise was interesting but omg it’s so convoluted lol like I think adding too much back and forth, both location wise and suspect wise starts to feel boring.

I think she focused on Wes for too long and then like his death just felt like you didn’t even really care because you already thought he died and Alice barely reacts./

There were definitely too many characters and I had to keep rereading to figure out who was who.

Also weird to throw in how all the girls her dad cheated with were technically above the age of consent. Like your dad is having multiple affairs with your teenage classmates that he coaches, it truly doesn’t matter what the age of consent is, it’s disgusting and abusive. Also reminded me of pretty little liars where they set up a huge dude as the killer then reveal it’s a skinny girl, like okay sure. I guess she’s tall and in a wolf costume but where tf was she keeping it in between killings because we know she had on her normal clothes and she ditched her car so? Make it make sense. I guess we just have to suspend disbelief and believe a teenage girl can commit like 50 murders and get away with it. Also, lastly, why didn’t they mention Wes as ppl Owen was accused of killing at the very end???/

I just feel unsatisfied, there was no true resolution.

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reedcodes's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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hayleybeeler's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.25

I'm sorry but using the word "cheugy" completely ripped me out of the story. I understand trying to accomodate a younger audience, but this book was published in 2022 and the term has already fallen completely out of style by 2023. Essentially guaranteed that a lot of the terms will be outdated in the near future. Also, the final twist made no sense given the prior 50 pages.

Alice is certain her father is the killer, and says that now she understands why Claire's phone was in the neighborhood when her dad had it. Ok cool, that's a solid connection. But Claire was the killer, so why was the phone there? And she said she picked up her phone at home, but they talked on the phone before Claire went home, so how did that happen? And I refuse to believe that Alice, a character who's singular driving goal is the fact that she loves her sister, couldn't tell that the person in the costume was her teenage sister and not her grown ass father. There's just no way they had the same build, or even close enough for that to be a possibility.

There were about 20 plot points that never get explained, and never will. It feels like the author realized they were about to reach 300 hundred pages so they just panic ended the story without any resolution.

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