How to Survive a Slasher was wonderfully meta with a wild ride through a slasher nightmare come back to life, but also had a great sense of characterisation and heart.
This was a brilliant addition to the YA horror genre. If you enjoy slasher films with bite and brains, you will love this. For me, it was like the best parts of the Scream films brought to the page but with different elements that make it a wholly unique story. CJ is a great protagonist with a different slant on the genre—they’ve spent their whole life preparing for this very eventuality. The way they’re drawn into this initially is fantastic and you get a real sense of badassery from them. I appreciated how this was often presented in their innate kindness and wanting to save people, as well as some fight skills. I actually liked that we got some training scenes and the development of their skills, which also played a nice role in the overarching romantic thread. The book really grapples with The Final Girl trope—a role which CJ fundamentally rejects. They are plagued with self-doubt though, not feeling important or brave enough. This plays into their unwillingness to take a central role, but also provokes a discussion around gender identity. I really appreciated the representation in this novel with a genderfluid protagonist, something that is still fairly rare to see in YA.
This has a darkly comic and meta edge to it that I adored. There is an awareness of the tropes and rules of slashers, but they are often being challenged and contrasted. CJ is all too aware of this, having grown up with the legacy of a chilling true crime. Their dad survived the first massacre, but not the second—where CJ did. You really get to grips with how this has affected CJ’s family with the survival drills and odd associations and assumptions about their family. They have had to live through nightmares before and can’t trust them not to resurface. This has also stained the local community, with the lives lost but also the increased focus on them from obsessed fans, descending on the town during the anniversary.
With this, there is an important throughline about the exploitation of tragedy for entertainment and the way real people are reduced to characters in a story. Quite literally in the case of Moon Satter’s novelisations of the two massacres of years past. It strikes true to real life, adding another dimension to this already layered narrative. I loved the narrative device of the new book and how it sets everything into motion. It really blurs the lines even more, breaking the fourth wall in an interesting and creative way.
The book leans into surreal territory at times around this topic, which enhances the reading experience tenfold. It asks questions about fate and predestined events. Every action has a real consequence and the stakes are keenly felt. In some of the best slashers, you almost feel like the events have been set in motion long before you picked up the book or started the film. It is a work of fiction and therefore of course they have but even in the story world, that rippling effect is so interesting to watch play out. The actual mystery is great too, with a well-constructed whodunnit and plenty of twists in store. I particularly enjoyed how the timelines echoed one another and converged.
How to Survive a Slasher offers a rip-roaring, extremely meta take on the YA slasher genre that examines the exploitation of tragedy, fate and the tropes of the genre. It is dynamite reading.
How to Survive a Slasher is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
You’re Not Supposed to Die Tonight meets Scream in this YA slasher that turns classic horror tropes on their heads.
There’s a reason CJ Smith’s hometown of Satterville is known as Slasherville: it was the site of not one, but two Friday the 13th-style massacres. CJ’s dad survived the first attack; only CJ survived the second. And thanks to the mysterious writer Moon Satter’s bestselling novels based on the events, the town—and CJ—will always be defined by this horrific past.
Then a new, unpublished Moon Satter manuscript shows up addressed to CJ. But unlike the others, this story isn’t about the past. Instead, it predicts new murders. On the day the book says the first murder will occur, CJ sets out to stop it. But in saving one classmate, the final girl ends up dead. CJ and their friends have suddenly gone from extras to leads—and they’ll have to use everything they know about the rules of horror to make it out alive.
