A review by kayaj
How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

dark mysterious fast-paced

 

How To Survive Your Murder was shockingly enjoyable. From the moment I found out that the main character, Alice, loves horror movies (and immediately began referencing them with abandon) I knew that this was going to be a gem. I read this in a day and did not predict that ending!

okay so, hang with me because this premise might be a tad complicated.

We follow Alice Lawrence, who adores her older sister Claire, her best friends, horror movies, and a certain Wesley James Hanson III*. On Halloween night, Alice witnesses her sister Claire’s murder, and her life goes to pieces. One year later, she’s preparing to testify against the murderer as the sole witness in the trial when she’s knocked out by a Sidney Prescott lookalike. Suddenly, she’s back on that fateful Halloween night, and she only has until midnight to prevent her sister from being murdered, and discover who the true murderer is.

*am I the only one who immediately thinks of richard gansey iii

THIS WAS SO GOOD.

Look. I just recently read Riley Sager’s Final Girls and I wanted a slashing good time, but instead I got a rather boring story with occasionally interesting moments. How To Survive Your Murder was what I wanted Finals Girls to be. It’s thrilling, brutal, and fast-paced. You don’t see everything coming. Best of all, it is 100% aware of its cliches but accepts them head-on.

I just need to add in how I loved that Alice and her friends were planning on making a podcast combining true crime cases and horror movies??? Like, I would have downloaded those episodes so quickly audiobooks would have never stood a chance.

Ahem. Anyways, I liked how they pointed out aspects of how BIPOC are treated both in criminal cases and in horror movies. It added a sense of awareness that I really appreciated.

One of my favorite things about this book was how unexpected the twists were. I usually hate how YA books can sometimes be more focused on romance, and the characters make stupid decisions for no reason. And yeah, there were a couple of dumb decisions made during this book, but I never felt like they were too terrible.

While I didn’t see the ending coming, I definitely felt like it was a bit…out of nowhere? There’s a little bit of foreshadowing, and perhaps I might pick up on more of it if I reread the book, but I just couldn’t really reconcile the sudden changes in certain characters that I was seeing.