How To Survive Your Murder is a tribute to slasher horror movies that lovingly incorporates classic tropes from movies such as Scream and Happy Death Day while staunchly establishing its own identity in the horror genre with very creative and unique plot twists. It starts out innocuously enough with a killer in a cornfield wielding a chainsaw against a hapless teenage girl (just normal horror things!) before pivoting to the first-person perspective of our protagonist, Alice, and recounting the events that led up to the attack which ultimately ended in her sister Claire’s death at the hands of Owen Trevor Maddox.
A year later, Alice is bitter and traumatised with her life in tatters and no goal other than seeing Owen sentenced to prison. The blurb mentions her encounter with a Sidney Prescott doppelganger on the day of Owen’s trial and it’s safe to say that you will not predict her real identity nor understand the role she has to play until the author pulls the curtain off that reveal. There is a large amount of suspension of disbelief required as the Sidney aspect is outrageously on-the-nose; I almost feel it would’ve been better not to have included her because her presence is so distracting, but the character is vital to Alice’s arc as she miraculously finds herself in the past on the day her sister died. Now she has the chance to save her sister from Owen—it’s almost too good to be true, but Sidney cautioned her that he was innocent…despite witnessing him kill Claire with her own eyes, could there be more to the truth than Alice realises?
Beyond any time travel quirks and slasher shenanigans, the real key to the success of Happy Death Day and similarly themed horror-comedy movie The Final Girls was the emotional journey of its heroines as they struggle to deal with their grief and loss after the loss of a loved one. How To Survive Your Murder utilises its own fantastical trappings to elevate the plot beyond a by-the-numbers slasher, but at its core is a very believable and emotionally resonant arc about a girl in pain because she blames herself for leaving her sister to be killed. Even though there was no way possible she could have known that Claire would die that night, Alice regrets not being at her side, and this rings very true for most people that have experienced loss. What would we change if we had the benefit of foresight? Don’t we all regret not having made the effort to spend more time with loved ones before they passed? Aren’t there last words we would change if we’d known at the time it would be the final time we spoke to them?
As genre-savvy fans will be aware, changing one event in the past inevitably opens up a new can of worms; Alice saves her sister, but now there’s a killer on the loose and she knows other people will die unless she intervenes. Her desperate efforts to thwart the killer she’s absolutely certain must be Owen becomes bogged down in confusion and suspense as she starts to uncover details she never knew about before and the spiralling changes to the timeline throw her off-kilter. For readers, this will be an absolute blast to read – the author expertly leads us down the garden path right along with Alice, showering us with red herrings as bodies start to drop. I very confidently predicted the killer about five times before giving up when proven wrong yet again, but that’s all part of the fun!
The ending will be controversial as the rug is pulled from under the reader’s feet right in the last couple pages. If you’ve enjoyed the journey, it will only be a minor frustration, but I can see some people throwing their book or e-reader at the wall once they finish the story. Your mileage will vary depending on how you react to unresolved endings—this one is perfectly set up for a sequel, however the book is listed as a standalone. Unless the pleading screams of the audience move Danielle Valentine to put us out of our misery, it appears the reader’s imagination will have to suffice regarding what happens next. I have to applaud her audacity as it ensures this book will live rent-free in my head for years to come!
Slasher fans will relish sinking their teeth into How To Survive Your Murder, an engrossing, heart-pounding story with many call-backs to fan-favourite moments in horror and fun deconstructions of popular clichés through a genre-savvy heroine. Its thought-provoking central plot of going back in time to prevent a murder and dealing with the frantic bloody aftermath is effortlessly engaging, suspenseful and memorable. With a strong focus on the bond between sisters that brings sincerity and poignancy elevating the stakes beyond a typical slashfest, this is well-worth adding to your TBR.
How To Survive Your Murder is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of August 30th 2022.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
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 morning 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.
