I am always immediately in whenever I hear that Danielle has a new book coming out. (For anyone who is new to her work, Danielle Valentine is a pen name utilized by the author who also goes by Danielle Vega and Danielle Rollins, the author of the The Merciless series, The Haunted duology, Stolen Time, and quite a few other novels.)
I know that no matter what the subject or plot is, I’m going to be entertained. She is well known for writing really fun to read YA horror and thriller books, her characters are always snarky teens with lots of fun banter, and there’s plenty of twists. So as soon as How to Survive Your Murder hit my radar, I was on board without even knowing what it was about. (I’m so serious, I added it to my TBR without even reading the description. She’s an auto-author for me!)
But for those of you who do want to know what it’s about before reading, How to Surive Your Murder follows high schooler Alice Lawrence, and Alice is a girl after my own heart. She loves horror movies, even the cheesy ones, and especially the 90s ones. (And even has a classic Final Girl name, which I don’t know if that was intentional, but I hope it was, and I like it.) She’s happier staying home watching a scary movie with her friends than going out to a loud party (same). Her sister, Claire, is quite the opposite. Claire is the quintessential All-American girl, outgoing, major extrovert energy, much more of a party girl, and wants to be a famous actress.
One fateful night, Claire convinces Alice to stop by a Halloween party complete with a haunted corn maze, which leads to Alice being the only witness to Claire’s murder at the hands of an outcast young man. A year later, Alice is meant to testify in the trial against this young man, but things don’t end up going how she expected. After running into a Sidney Prescott look-alike, she wakes up back on Halloween night a year ago. Claire is still alive, nothing bad has happened yet, and she has a chance to save her sister. But she only has until midnight, and it might not be as easy as she thinks.
As Alice renavigates that Halloween night, doing everything differently and trying to save as many people as she can, she starts to realize that things might not have unfolded how she thought they did, and this whole story is much more convoluted than she expected. Now she’s in a race against time, she doesn’t know who she can trust, and people around her are dropping like flies.
So was this a super fun read like all of Danielle’s other books? Yeah, of course it was!
Let me tell you, if you’re a fellow fan of horror movies, especially slashers, you’re going to love this one and have a lot of fun with it because the main character loves classic slashers and is constantly referencing them, right down to wearing outfits inspired by some of her favorite movies (AKA a super cute look paying homage to Katie Holmes in Disturbing Behavior, which, yes, obviously.)
Once she finds herself in the process of trying to catch the killer, she uses her knowledge of rules to survive horror movies that she has learned from watching so many horror movies in an attempt to help herself along the way.
This is one of those books where you are guessing what is going on along with the characters and trying to figure things out as you go, and yelling at the characters trying to help them along the way when you see something that they don’t. And trust me when I tell you, there were moments when I was yellinggggg at Alice! I wanted to go through the screen into the book and help her so much.
Like most of Danielle’s books, there’s no shortage of twists and, true to her form, she will keep throwing them at you right up until the very end of the book.
This really was a super fun read, you’ll go through it really quickly because you will want to know what’s going on, and again, I think it’s perfect for fellow horror fans who will enjoy all the references—both overt and subtle—to their favorite movies and franchises. This is a great read for any time, but with it releasing on August 30th, it’s hitting shelves just in time for spooky season and the atmosphere of this one will be perfect to get you in the mood for Halloween. If you love YA, slashers, and scary movies, definitely pick this one up from Penguin Teen this August.
And if you happen to be looking for more books for people who love scary movies, check me out here with a few more suggestions:
Have you read this one? Is it on your TBR? What do you think? Or—what’s your favorite slasher movie? Let me know in the comments! As always, I’d love ot hear from you.