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A review by mimifrancis
Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe
2.0
Cameron Martin’s life couldn’t be anymore perfect. He’s popular, dating the hottest girl in school and he’s the star of his high school basketball team. Too bad it is going to end soon, much sooner than he ever thought possible. Inexplicably, Cameron is aging an entire year with each passing day and there doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop it. Cameron just wants everything to go back to the way it was; he wants to go to prom, graduation and help his team win the state championship. But there doesn’t seem to be anything anyone can do to help him, not even Reno’s best doctors. When a mysterious young lady captures Cameron’s heart, he finds himself having to trust the one person who may have caused his problem.
I really liked the idea behind this story—it had a great concept and I liked the originality of the plot. It was well organized and obviously well-thought out. Brian Rowe is a very talented writer, quite adept at creating a world and convincing you the events in that world are really happening. He definitely puts a great deal of time and effort into writing a worthwhile novel.
That being said, I did have some issues with this book. I felt like too much time passed before we as readers were given the reason behind Cameron’s mysterious aging illness. I was approximately 80% done with the book on my Kindle before there was any type of explanation given (though I had figured it out prior to this). Consequently, this made the ending feel quite rushed. It was as if Rowe knew he needed to wrap things up and he sped up the plotline to do just that. There was also a severe over-use of the word “shout” in all of its verb forms (shout, shouting, shouted). This in combination with capital letters EVERYTIME SOMEONE WAS UPSET made me feel like I was being screamed at through the whole book. I also took issue to the constant references to vomiting. Every time Cameron was upset about something disturbing he was experiencing in the aging process or other unpleasant experiences, he vomited or nearly vomited or thought about vomiting. And it was always vividly described. I felt nauseous from the constant references to being sick.
This book is labeled as young adult, but I would label it older young adult. I feel that it would best be read by high school students, perhaps sophomore year and up. There are far too many references to sex and male body parts to consider recommending it to younger teens.
I really liked the idea behind this story—it had a great concept and I liked the originality of the plot. It was well organized and obviously well-thought out. Brian Rowe is a very talented writer, quite adept at creating a world and convincing you the events in that world are really happening. He definitely puts a great deal of time and effort into writing a worthwhile novel.
That being said, I did have some issues with this book. I felt like too much time passed before we as readers were given the reason behind Cameron’s mysterious aging illness. I was approximately 80% done with the book on my Kindle before there was any type of explanation given (though I had figured it out prior to this). Consequently, this made the ending feel quite rushed. It was as if Rowe knew he needed to wrap things up and he sped up the plotline to do just that. There was also a severe over-use of the word “shout” in all of its verb forms (shout, shouting, shouted). This in combination with capital letters EVERYTIME SOMEONE WAS UPSET made me feel like I was being screamed at through the whole book. I also took issue to the constant references to vomiting. Every time Cameron was upset about something disturbing he was experiencing in the aging process or other unpleasant experiences, he vomited or nearly vomited or thought about vomiting. And it was always vividly described. I felt nauseous from the constant references to being sick.
This book is labeled as young adult, but I would label it older young adult. I feel that it would best be read by high school students, perhaps sophomore year and up. There are far too many references to sex and male body parts to consider recommending it to younger teens.