Reading With Tyler

Name: How To Survive a Horror Movie
Series: How To Survive… #1
Author: Scarlett Dunmore
Publisher: Little Tiger Press Group
Format: Paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Horror

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Review:

How to Survive a Horror Movie was one of those books I picked up in September (I believe) for the spooky season reads in 2025! I thought this would be a horror comedy from the title and cover, and thought it would act as a pallete cleanser just in case any of the other books I chose ended up being too spooky! Unfortunately, I never ended up reading it, and it has sat on my shelf since waiting for another spooky season to come around…

That was, until I picked a prompt out of my jar that was read the longest title on my TBR cart. I will read spooky books all year round, so that’s why this book intended as an October read was on my cart! But I certainly didn’t expect to be reading it in March. That being said, I had no real expectations for it and so I went into it expecting a somewhat spooky but fun time.

I got exactly that. We follow Charley and her best friend Olive at a boarding school for girls on a remote island. Both of the girls are huge horror fans, and when girls start showing up dead Charley seems to be the only one to connect the dots and declare there is a serial killer. No one believes her, and she can’t exactly turn round and say “Well I see the ghosts of the dead girls!” can she?

I really had a fun time reading this one – the chapter titles were all rules to suvive a horror movie and so that reminded me a lot of an element of Zombieland, and I enjoyed that a lot. I’m not a huge horror movie buff, but I did recognise a lot of the movies referenced by title – but if there were many references throughout the story back to those horror movies I probably didn’t pick up on those.

I do think this book straddles the line between being a parody of a horror movie situation and just being a book about a girl who can see ghosts and is at a school where girls are being murdered, and taking itself seriously. I’m not sure what the intended marketing was for this book – but I really liked it. I had a really fun time with it even if it was incredibly predictable. And while nothing truly ever shocked or scared me, it was atmospheric and well written. The banter between Charley and Megan specifically was great.

Like I said, it was predictable – including the ending – but I absolutely still plan to treat myself and read the sequel. I know this probably counts as a horror because of the tropes etc, but that wasn’t really a big part for me – the mystery and thriller aspects were bigger. So if you’re worried about it being too scary, or too gorey – there are some scenes with gorey descriptions, but for the most part I don’t think you’d struggle with this one. There is nothing wrong with this being predictable read (I mean, it’s based on horror movies!! They all have a lot of the same tropes!) and I had a fun time with it. 4 stars!

“I got it! I’m a film nerd too!”