A review by will_cherico
Friday the 13th by Simon Hawke

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

This is pretty much a 1:1 adaptation of the movie without much added to it. Hawke's pretty good at capturing the same "summer in New England" atmosphere in the same way the movie is, but the book suffers from all the classic pitfalls of a formulaic slasher. I don't have much to say about it beyond that, especially because of how it's essentially a copy of the movie script formatted to be prose.
There is a part in this book where

two characters have unprotected sex and the guy starts smoking pot while his girlfriend goes to the bathroom. A hysterically long time is spent on the guy's inner monologue as he admonishes himself for taking such a risk, contemplates whether or not it was sexist to assume she was on the pill instead of taking initiative to wear a condom, thinks back to a basketball buddy, then thinks to himself about how we as a society are afraid to talk about sex in a frank and honest way with others. He resolves to become a more sex-positive person and talk to his girlfriend about getting more serious, and how he's even willing to marry her/support her choice to get an abortion if she turns out to be pregnant. He is then murdered on the spot. The story then cuts to the girlfriend, and we get *another* hilariously long aside about the girlfriend's thoughts on sex and how she was never a "wait till marriage" girl but she never really liked sex until her boyfriend now, etc. etc. etc... she's then murdered on the spot.

That was easily the best part of this book.