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

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 Essentially guaranteed that a lot of the terms will be outdated in the near future.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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