I chose to read a free eARC of How to Survive a Horror Movie but that has in no way influenced my review.

If you're a regular visitor to damppebbles and familiar with my reading tastes, then you'll understand when I say that I couldn't resist this book! Yes, I'm probably not the target audience here but do I care? Grown-ups can read YA horror thrillers too! Books about horror movies, or plots set around or inspired by horror movies, have my FULL attention. So I had to read this book, and I am so very glad I did.

But first, this is one of the many books I read last year when things were going a bit Pete Tong in regard to the blog and the (grr) shoulders. We'll skirt the details for now but know that I was reading like a woman possessed, I wasn't, however, really reviewing anything on the blog. Totally my fault, nothing to do with the brilliant books. I won't mention 'when' I read this book (not hard to find out if you follow me on Goodreads!) but it was a while ago. So with that in mind. this may be a slightly shorter review than normal. How to Survive a Horror Movie definitely deserves to have its time on the blog though.

Charley is the new girl at Harrogate, an elite all-girls boarding school located on a remote island. She hates it, doesn't really want to be there but knows there is no going back to how life was before. The only thing that keeps her sane is her love of horror movies. Oh and her bestie, Olive. Olive and Charley are far from being the most popular girls in school and that's fine really. They're happy to hole up in their shared dorm and indulge in their favourite blood-soaked slasher movies. That is until her classmates start dying in strange, often macabre ways. Ways that, weirdly, resemble those favourite horror movies Charley and Olive watch non-stop. Having never been friendly with any of the dead girls, Charley is quite surprised to discover that they're now haunting her! And of course, who is the most likely person to be responsible for the gruesome killings on campus? Who is everyone starting to blame? The horror chick of course! In a desperate bid to clear her name, Charley and Olive embark on a mission to find out who is killing off her senior class one by one. Aided by the ghosts of her dead peers who hinder the investigation more than help, Charley needs to find the killer. Before the killer finds her...

How to Survive a Horror Movie is a thoroughly entertaining, gruesome, tongue-in-cheek horror novel which I found very compelling and really quite endearing. I loved this book and had a lot of fun with it. It's dripping in teenage angst but also laugh-out-loud funny at times too. Particularly when the ghosts of Charley's dead classmates turn up! It's clear from the outset that Charley has a secret of her own. The author dangles the past in front of the reader, snatching it away before we can glimpse what actually happened to our MC. It's not until later on in the book that we discover the reason behind Charley's reluctant, unwelcome move to Harrogate. The main characters are all well-written and interesting. I had my suspicions as to who was behind the killings, but I was so far off the mark, it's embarrassing! I really enjoyed this well-written homage to horror movies. So much so, that I was delighted to see a sequel will be hitting bookshelves in September. Sign me up for that one right away, please! Recommended.

I chose to read and review a free eARC of How to Survive a Horror Movie. The above review is my own unbiased opinion.

This was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed the references to many of the horror classics and I really loved the setting of a boarding school on a remote island, it MADE the vibe. Charley was a layered character but she seemed realistic and I really appreciated that. This is a letter to all the weird kids who would rather stay in watching old horror films and I am absolutely here for that!

This was a lot of fun. Like a popcorn horror/YA, with some cracking horror movie references, and some good bitchy characters. This would make a really good teen slasher.

I loved the setting of the old boarding school on the stormy island, and felt it set the perfect atmosphere. And let's just say some of the characters were the epitome of boarding school stereotypical students.

If you’re looking for a light easy read with some horror movie easter eggs, this is the one!

✩✩✩

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was unusual to find a book that combined horror with comedy, but it really worked with this plot.

The story kept me guessing right up until the world, which I loved because it was filled with suspense. I think my students would really enjoy this and it would be a welcome addition to our Library.

Thank you Netgalley, Little Tiger Group | Little Tiger and Scarlett Dunmore for the arc of How to Survive a Horror Movie.

How to Survive a Horror movie is an entertaining, gory, locked room horror/mystery. I always find that, when done well. these elements work really well together and Scarlett did just that. All the characters were unlikable in many ways but you find yourself to be rooting someone ! I found myself completely engrossed in the book and I couldn't put it down and when I did, I was eager to pick it back up again.
Id love to hear this as an audiobook in the future as with the right narrator, it would be brilliant.

4.25 stars for Storygraph and 4 stars for other review sites.

I enjoyed this book a lot, could see it being made into a movie or a tv show. Some good twists and some turns I wasn’t expecting. Also a bit more gory than I was expecting but that was a good thing!!!

'How to Survive a Horror Movie' is a fun but suspenseful read that had me guessing until the end. The ghosts were all unique with their own personality and the main character Charley was so relatable.
Looking forward to the sequel!

This book was everything - gripping, funny, surprising. Every time I thought I’d worked it out there was another shocking twist that was somehow still believable.

Most of all, this was clearly written by a lover of horror movies - it was a pitch perfect mix of horror and hilarity.

I absolutely loved this, it was so much fun. It was so fast paced and I loved all the horror movie references and the general theme

📚 Book Review 📚

How to Survive a Horror Movie by @scarlett.dunmore 🍿

We’re welcomed to horror movie fanatic, Charley, having joined her new boarding school situated on a remote island to give her the fresh start she truly needs and wants. That is until a masked stranger starts killing off girls in her year group, but luckily Charley knows all the rules! It’s now up to her, the ghosts of her dead classmates, and her best friend Olive, to survive and unmask the killer who is wreaking havoc in Harrogate School for Girls.

When I say this book is brilliant – it is BRILLIANT! I am a huge fan of horror/slasher movies and this really satisfied my itch for reading more of these. It’s the perfect ode to the slasher universe that pays homage to films like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Scarlett Dunmore builds a world that is perfectly matched to the well-loved slasher tropes and flawlessly intertwines paranormal elements in the story. I just want to take a moment to say how much I appreciated the humour between the ghost girls and Charley – it’s one of the main reasons I enjoyed this book so much. As this is YA, there are times where the dialogue seemed cliched or cringy, but what more do you expect when most of the MC’s are teenagers?

Dunmore explores sensitive topics and includes some gruesome deaths, so I’d check trigger warnings before you go into this one. If this doesn’t bother you so much, then the best thing for you to do is to go in blind – the less you know the better and it means you can enjoy and appreciate it for what it is.

I must admit I would have liked to have had more build up from the killer, but I soon forgot about this upon reaching those twists – wow! 😮 All in all, this was very enjoyable and unlike Charley and Olive, I cannot wait for the sequel! Book two is out in September 2025.

I’ve been wanting to read this one for a while, and I was surprised to see this in both my Kindle library and NetGalley account – so I’d like to say a huge thank you (and many apologies) to NetGalley, Scarlett Dunmore & Little Tiger Books for my copy to review!

How to Survive a Horror Movie is a witty and fun survival guide for anyone who loves horror films. Presented as a tongue-in-cheek manual, it humorously outlines the "rules" to stay alive in various horror scenarios, ranging from haunted houses to slasher films. With clever tips and playful advice, the book blends humor and horror, making it an enjoyable read for genre enthusiasts. Dunmore’s writing is light-hearted yet insightful, offering both laughs and a refreshing take on horror tropes. It’s a quick, entertaining read that’s perfect for fans of both horror and comedy.

Initially I quite enjoyed this one as a horror movie buff myself. It's always enjoyable g9 see movies and things referenced that you get the inside joke. While it was described as tongue in cheek and did that okay, it did get tiring after a while. It's not a new plot new girl at an isolated boarding school with a mysterious and shady past, one friend in her roomie, target of the mean girls, starts finding dead bodies. All look like potential accidents but have elements of things found in horror movies and only the main character and her bestie can see that these are murders and not accidents. It has some unique supernatural elements, queer elements and to be fair I didn't guess who the killer was or the reasons behind it. It ticks all my boxes for things I enjoy in a novel but something was just missing.

A love letter to the horror genre.
Plot: A girl named Charley attends a posh boarding school on a eerie remote island. One day Charley and her roommate, Olive, go for a walk and find a dead body. It is not long before they find two more. Unfortunately for Charley, she starts seeing the ghosts of her dead fellow schoolmates. However, fortunately Charley and Olive dedicate nearly all of their spare time to the horror genre, be it binge reading Stephen King or having a Slasher Saturday movie marathon. With these skills the two girls attempt to find the killer.
Characters:
I love the queer blindness of the character of Charley. She is a lesbian and fancies a girl but that is not the big thing in her life. She has actual secrets. Dunmore works tirelessly in this book giving breadcrumbs for the reader to Charley's past.

Antagonist:
Despite my love for Charley, it is the characterisation of the killer which is brilliant. Every snippet of the killer given by the ghosts' last moments to the events of the plot wind everything so there are no real threads left. But plot twists there are many. I did manage to guess the killer, partially, but didn't link the motive at all. With each piece of foreshadowing and self-reffering to the killer that Dunmore used I could tell that Dunmore much have put an extreme amount of time and plotting into this YA horror masterpiece. However, if you love horror in general this is brilliant- yet it also was giving strong Agatha Christie vibes. So if you loved "And then there were none" by Christie, you will demolish this book in one sitting.
The end:
Scarlett Dunmore is cruel. Purely because I will have wait for a second novel. I am of that generation that almost wants an immediate sequel. However, the anticipation I feel will add to the possibilities my mind will create about the true ending of the story line. As an avid horror film buff I knew the rules of a horror story, much like Charley, and so I knew to suspect the ending would usually only be the midway point. I was right. I knew the house was going to be quiet and then the truth would leave you gasping. But this truth left me with a gasp, an "I told you so" in my inner monologue and a shout as we have to wait for the second book to find out- was it the killer back or something worse?

I received a complimentary copy of this book from #netgalley , thank you. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This was a fun YA horror set in a girls boarding school on an isolated island. I've given it 3 stars because it took me a while to get into it and I can't put my finger on why but I just never fully felt invested in the story. There were a lot of things I liked, the ghosts, the humour, the horror movie references, but I felt like it was a bit too long and drawn out and found some of the characters to be annoying. It also felt very surface level and I don't think that's because it was YA because I've read some amazing YA books.

Even though there was backstory for the characters, I still don't think they felt fully formed and it was all a bit cliche. Having said that, I really enjoyed the ending and was surprised to see there'll be a second book (and even more surprised that I want to read it!).

If you liked this you have to read The Last Girl by Goldy Moldavsky!

I am incredibly grateful to both NetGalley and Little Tiger Group for the opportunity to read and review How to Survive a Horror Movie. Being selected to explore this captivating story before its official release has been such a treat, and I can’t wait to share my thoughts on it with all of you. A huge thank you to the teams at NetGalley and Little Tiger Group for their generosity and for making this advanced reading experience possible.

Horror film enthusiast Charley is determined to keep a low profile when she's enrolled to a boarding school on a remote island. That is, until someone starts killing off her whole senior class. Charley has found herself at the centre of a teen horror movie. Oh, and she's seeing the ghosts of her former classmates.

Haunted by her peers, and with everyone beginning to suspect her, Charley decides to do something about it. Charley and her best friend Olive are going to solve this mystery.

Oh my goodness! It has been quite a while since a story has been able to shock me with the twists and turns throughout. The more I read the more predictable stories can get but not this one! Scarlett Dunmore kept me guessing.

This book on paper is exactly my sort of thing. YA novel that featured a mystery around a crime and pop culture references, it's like it was written just for me.

I love the references to Scream and Heathers in this book. It honestly gave me life.

One thing I noticed was that the story was almost made out to be an American story but I could just tell how incredibly British it was and that made me giggle. The way certain words were used was a dead giveaway but I was left guessing at the beginning.

I can honestly say that I enjoyed this book so much. The pace was good, the writing was good and the plot was amazing. I wish I could read it again for this first time.

I am so looking forward to seeing what else Scarlett Dunmore writes.

*3.5

As an avid horror movie fan this was a blast, I liked seeing all the horror movie tropes, but with enough twists and turns to keep me on the edge of my seat.

I am gonna be honest, I don’t think this book needs a sequel, so the ending took me a bit by surprise.

A grisly, sharp valentine to all things slasher, How to Survive a Horror Movie was the ultimate treat for horror enthusiasts, shocking and bloody and utterly eccentric. I'm excited that this is the opening book in a series, especially after the cliffhanger at the end and I'll definitely be picking up book 2 when it's released!

Fan of horror slasher movies? Need a popcorn horror/Thriller ? You need to read this book! Full of slasher tropes and fun genre elements! This book was a fun fast read that just is unputdownable!

I don't really get what this book was trying to go for. I liked the concept of students at an all girls boarding school located on an isolated island being murdered, with one girl being able to see the ghosts of her murdered schoolmates, but I feel like there was so many other unnecessary elements that dragged this book down - one being the force-feeding of the main characters horror fixation.

Purporsfully playing into horror movie tropes in a way that basically breaks the 4th wall is something I was really excited to see in books this year, but it's something I'm finding is very hard to pull of successfully and something this book didn't accomplish, partly because it didn't make sense why the character would be doing that. Taking survival advice from horror media? Yeah I can get behind that. Deciding what and when the killers endgame is purely based off the typical horror movie structure? No, that makes no sense within this context - just because the main character is following movie survival logic, doesn't mean the killer is following movie killer logic.

While I really liked the constant stream of killings, it was disappointing how low stakes this felt. Like the lack of reaction from anyone except the main character was confusing, jarring and took so much realism away from the story.

The main thing I'm taking away from this book is a sense of frustration for what this book could have been.

What is more perfect to read before halloween than a 2000s classic slasher set in an all girls boarding school on a deserted island.. well deserted apart from the all boys school that is 😉

Dark academic meets Scream meets Bly Manor

This book has everything you would possible expect from a slasher ya book. Gruesome death, meta discussion of horror genre. It was fast paced, action packed, funny, witty (a bit cringey) and filled with horror movie and book references. The supernatural element was just the sprinkle on a masked killer cake

Questions is how do we feel about sequels?

Thank you to Netgalley and Little Tiger Group for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.