Reviews with content warning for Infidelity - How to Survive Your Murder

Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

How to Survive Your Murder by Danielle Valentine

21 reviews

phoricho's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

Now, to be honest, I was in a sad mood when I bought this book. I saw the cover and title and just bought it. Because that’s what you do when you’re sad, you buy more books. So I didn’t read the blurb or anything before buying.

After reading the blurb, I was slightly deterred by the time travelling aspect. To me, it felt gimmicky, and I wasn’t used to such a thing in a thriller/mystery. But I gave it a go anyways.

This book was a rollercoaster ride of liking and not liking it.

Thriller fans will love the references towards classic thriller films such as Scream, Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Alice is a fan of horror films, so the mentions and references are laid on quite thick in the beginning but level out as the book goes on.

I immensely enjoyed the thriller aspect. It really felt like I was reading a slasher film, which was overwhelmingly my favourite part of this book. Most other books I read tend to focus more on the mystery, with some close calls with the killer, usually towards the end. The continuous high stakes made the pacing feel quite fast — which was good.

The only times the pacing seemed off was in the beginning, as it took a while from the introduction of the time frame (solving the mystery by midnight) to the reader getting a time check. So for a while, I was unsure how much time had passed. I found this annoying but easy to get over.

The other issue I found with the pacing was the time travel aspect and Sidney Prescott look-alike character. These scenes often felt like they were interrupting the story instead of moving it forward.

I was also disappointed with the lack of involvement and storylines for the side characters. It felt as though they were mentioned in the beginning and then barely seen or heard from again until the end.

The ending left me a little unsatisfied, as there’s no official update for a few characters that I liked. The end felt like a movie or TV series leaving things open for a sequel or second season. If Danielle Valentine (AKA Danielle Vega) were to write a sequel focusing on the aftermath of the first book, this would work well and solve those issues (my issues) with the ending.

“If you don’t come with me, I might die. Those were the last words my sister ever said to me.” — Alice Lawrence.

It may not sound like it from all my above nit-picking, but I did enjoy this book. Like I said earlier, many of my nit-pickings are things I can get over.

The thriller aspect was hands-down the absolute best. I’m so impressed with how much it felt like I was reading a slasher film. I hope Danielle Valentine (AKA Danielle Vega) writes a sequel.

I give How to Survive Your Murder 3 out of 5 stars.

If you enjoyed Happy Death Day and the Scream movies, this book is right up your alley.

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reedcodes's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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hayleybeeler's review against another edition

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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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nrogers_1030's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

2.0

I liked this as much as I like slasher films… not much. Shallow “valley girls” + gore + plot holes + shitty ending = this book.

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amhud1030's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

found most of the characters in this book unlikable.

The plot of the story had some great twist to it definitely kept you guessing I had a few people I suspected at the beginning and then my suspects changed midway through but never would I have guessed the ending.

There are lots of horror movie references and as in most horror movies you tend to hate the main character making stupid mistakes however the fact that the main character Alice was obsessed with horror movies and knew the mistakes that everyone always made and still did them but justified them to herself was very annoying.

Also did I mention the ending? I have so many questions!

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