Nhi
How to Survive a Horror Story is an action-packed thriller-mystery novel that starts off slow, but quickly picks up the pace once the characters begin to die. The premise is Clue-esque—seven authors enter a manor and they must solve puzzles in order to leave. Except the puzzles pertain to their past, monstrous actions that they don't care to admit.
This novel is a lesson in trust. One of the rules of surviving a horror story, as listed by the characters who are all horror authors, is trust no one. This notion is cemented further by each character's perspective. They are all unreliable, the stories that they tell to each other wildly different from the truth. Mortimer Queen tells a version of the truth, however even that isn't something that can be trusted.
All of the characters are monsters in their own right, even Melanie. Mortimer, despite the troubles he has experienced at the hands of other characters, is a cheater who has hidden his affair right under his wife's nose. Liotta, sick with pancreatic cancer, gets a caretaker, Crystal Flowers, who is a budding author and Mortimer's mistress. It is difficult to tell for sure if the affair was as open and seen as perfectly acceptable to Liotta, since it is mostly from Crystal's perspective, but nonetheless, it still marks Mortimer as a monster like those who wronged him.
I loved that Melanie, who got to reap the benefits, does not escape the fact that she is as much of a monster as the others. She lets Buck die. There's some evidence that she bludgeoned Crystal on the head with a candlelabra. She has so much potential in her as a writer. Who is to say that she doesn't have the same potential as a killer as well? Overall, this was a great novel. Even if I did fault it for being a slow start, I think it was necessary to flesh out the characters, get a feel for what is going on. 7 POVs is difficult to manage but Mallory Arnold did it! I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
5 stars.
How to Survive a Horror Story is an action-packed thriller-mystery novel that starts off slow, but quickly picks up the pace once the characters begin to die. The premise is Clue-esque—seven authors enter a manor and they must solve puzzles in order to leave. Except the puzzles pertain to their past, monstrous actions that they don't care to admit.
This novel is a lesson in trust. One of the rules of surviving a horror story, as listed by the characters who are all horror authors, is trust no one. This notion is cemented further by each character's perspective. They are all unreliable, the stories that they tell to each other wildly different from the truth. Mortimer Queen tells a version of the truth, however even that isn't something that can be trusted.
All of the characters are monsters in their own right, even Melanie. Mortimer, despite the troubles he has experienced at the hands of other characters, is a cheater who has hidden his affair right under his wife's nose. Liotta, sick with pancreatic cancer, gets a caretaker, Crystal Flowers, who is a budding author and Mortimer's mistress. It is difficult to tell for sure if the affair was as open and seen as perfectly acceptable to Liotta, since it is mostly from Crystal's perspective, but nonetheless, it still marks Mortimer as a monster like those who wronged him.
I loved that Melanie, who got to reap the benefits, does not escape the fact that she is as much of a monster as the others. She lets Buck die. There's some evidence that she bludgeoned Crystal on the head with a candlelabra. She has so much potential in her as a writer. Who is to say that she doesn't have the same potential as a killer as well? Overall, this was a great novel. Even if I did fault it for being a slow start, I think it was necessary to flesh out the characters, get a feel for what is going on. 7 POVs is difficult to manage but Mallory Arnold did it! I am looking forward to reading more of her work.
5 stars.