How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
Alice Lawrence is the sole witness in her sister’s murder trial.
And in the year since Claire’s death, Alice’s life has completely fallen apart. Her parents have gotten divorced, she’s moved into an apartment that smells like bologna, and she is being forced to face her sister’s killer and a courtroom full of people who doubt what she saw in the corn maze a year prior.
Claire was an all-American girl, beautiful and bubbly, and a theater star. Alice was a nerd who dreamed of becoming a forensic pathologist and would rather stay at home to watch her favorite horror movies than party. Despite their differences, they were bonded by sisterhood and were each other’s best friends.
Until Claire was taken away from her.
On the first day of the murder trial, as Alice prepares to give her testimony, she is knocked out by a Sidney Prescott look-alike in the courthouse bathroom. When she wakes up, it is Halloween night a year earlier, the same day Claire was murdered. Alice has until midnight to save her sister and find the real killer before he claims another victim.
It has been a minute since I indulged in the YA genre, so I figured it was time.
While I love serious, adult type books that get my brain thinking and my heart feeling and my thoughts challenged, sometimes I just need something lighter and solely for entertaiment.
Not that YA books can’t or don’t do all those bigger things—plenty of them have had me doing all of the above—but most of the time, the ones I pick exist just for funsies.
Since I’m still on my horror fix for spooky season, I thought a YA horror book would be perfection for my latest read.
And I was not wrong in the slightest! 🙌
The main character of the book, Alice, is obsessed with horror movies…especially slasher films from the 90s.
Which OMG I LOOOVED when I actually WAS a teen in the 90s! The OG Scream, Urban Legends, I Know What You Did Last Summer…I was a FAN.
So even though this story takes place in modern day, there is PLENTY of 90s nostalgia thrown in. Not just with the horror movie references, but also the fashion….which Alice calls “vintage” and made me feel quite old. #middleagelife
This story has ALL the horror movie cliches and follows all the unofficial horror movie “rules”, with all of them happening in real time for the main character. Her obsession plays out in reality which is a nightmare in and of itself, really.
This story was SOOOO reminiscent of the original Scream…I loved it.
The Sydney Prescott look alike side character was genius and I love what the author did with her!
Totally and completely works.
The story also has a time travel/second chance/butterfly effect thing going on too, which also is fun and keeps the reader guessing…..and dare I say THINKING….
Makes the reader wonder if things really do happen for a reason or if messing with time and fate is EVER a good idea.
Like any good slasher/horror flick, there are all kinds of twists and turns related to plots and characters…the final twist was a jaw dropping ending that makes this type of story TERRIFIC.
To be real, I DID figure out the “truth” before it was revealed, BUT this is a story that definitely had me second guessing myself AND every character…took me multiple times of thinking I figured it out before I actually DID.
“Is it REALLY him/her?” “Wait….maybe THEY did it?!” “No…it CAN’T be him/her!”
All those thoughts are ones that swirled in my mind on repeat.
I could TOTALLY see this as a movie, which I think was what the author had in mind for the reader to envision.
She encompassed all that 90s horror nostalgia PERFECTLY.
This was a fun, slightly scary, thriller of a YA book ….it was a good time for me, especially during the month of October.
Now back to grown up scariness for the next one…..