How to Survive a Horror Movie is the ultimate love letter to horror and slasher movies everywhere.
With references throughout to well-known horror films, many classic horror movie tropes, and some added mystery and gore, it’s a book for die-hard horror movie fans. But is it worth reading or is it just another YA horror trying to make waves?
What is How to Survive a Horror Movie About?
As the title would suggest, horror movie enthusiast and boarding school attendee Charley finds herself living out a real-life horror movie when someone starts killing off her classmates. Using the rules of horror movies she must try and find out who is responsible before news of the killings reaches the mainland and the school is closed for good.
There’s a twist though, each time a student dies Charley ends up being able to see their ghost. Suddenly the girl with only one friend in the whole school has a team of ghosts following her around as they try to figure out who killed them. Charley’s time at the boarding school hasn’t been without its issues and a murderer and a gaggle of ghosts are just complicating matters further.
Charley can’t go back to the mainland and if her classmates find out why she’s here in the first place, her life will be over. But as she pushes on with solving the mystery she finds herself falling in love with a girl from a different year and now she has a love interest and a best friend she needs to protect and a team of ghostly girls she has to avenge but can she solve the mystery before the murderer sets their sights on her?
Book Review for How to Survive a Horror Movie
I expected to love this book straight away. I’m a huge horror movie fan and I actually love a good YA horror or thriller book so this seemed like an absolute win for me however, this book took a little bit of getting into for me. I’m a big believer in DNFing books because life is too short to read bad books so my usual marker for ditching a book is between the 20-30% point. This book was almost out of that range before it started to pick up for me.
Once things got going, it did actually pick up well and I was glad I’d stuck with it. The chapters are split into different horror movie “rules” which was a fun addition and the novel’s mystery was interesting, trying to work out who the murderer was or who might be next. I didn’t guess who it was either, which earned the book some bonus points.
With that being said, I did find the whole horror movie thing a little on the nose at times. Yes, it’s a book that’s playing out like a horror movie but there were times were it was a little in your face. Subtle this book is not! The ending wasn’t for me at all either. A good portion of the book was spent with the two best friends saying how sequels are never as good as the first movie and how they don’t really like sequels and then the book ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger because, guess what, there’s going to be a sequel next year.
I would have much preferred this to be a one-and-done story. I personally don’t think it warrants a sequel and I can see a lot of the same rules and storylines playing out again in a second book. At this moment in time, I’m not sure I’ll read the sequel.
The setting for the novel however is superb. The girls-only boarding school had a definite creepy vibe to it and I liked the idea of the isolated island with the boys and girls boarding schools being the only things there. It was refreshing to have a novel like this set in the UK too so if you’re not a fan of the over-the-top Americanisms that can come with horrors and slashers, then this is a great choice!
The book is enjoyable enough, the bulk of the plot wasn’t bad at all but the ending was off-putting for me. However, I can see how this would be a great series for teens getting into horror and thrillers. Some of the deaths are pretty gruesome so if you are buying this for a teen I would steer towards the older end. While not overly graphic, the deaths are grisly with some details surrounding them.
Of course, reading is subjective too because my mum read this book around the same time as I did and she absolutely loved it. That’s not to say I hated it because I didn’t at all, it was just lacking a certain something for me.
Star rating:
Have you read How to Survive a Horror Movie? What were your thoughts on it? Let me know in the comments!
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