Thank you for the e-ARC

Ultimately, I think I was too old for this book.
The ironic and self-aware tone was reminiscent of the TV Scream Queens, and for younger horror fans I'm sure will be a lot of fun.

The main problem for me was the leaning into the "not like other girls" but to such an extent that the MC often came across as being just as cruel as some of the 'bullies'. Although the book is written in the MCs favour I found her callousness put me off rooting for her.

The horror references throughout were fun, though again, often quite clunky. For a younger reader they could have been a fun addition.

Ultimately, between disliking the MC early on and predicting the ending, I found this book a struggle to finish. The humour didn't connect with me and it felt like a story I've seen done before. But in all earnestness believe my younger sibling would love this book.

I really enjoyed this book, it was just a bit slow overall but I'm in a bit of a reading slump so that may have contributed to how slow it felt. I did not see the plot twist coming and really liked what the author did with it. Hoping for a next instalment at some point, the ending seemed kinda cliffhanger-esque. Overall, fun and chill read

‘Island wildlife was vicious and unpredictable. Much like the Sixth-Year girls’

In an attempt to escape her troubled past, Charley is sent to an all-girls' boarding school on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. This is a chance to leave her mistakes behind and focus on keeping a low profile and passing her final year. Easy enough, she thinks, until her classmates start dying one by one. As the token Horror Movie Nerd and the only one that can communicate with her classmates’ ghosts, Charley takes matters into her own hands to solve the murders.

As a lover of horror, especially meta slashers such as Scream, I was incredibly excited about this one. Described as a ‘tongue-in-cheek twist on the classic teen horror’, I was immediately sold. Unfortunately, this was quite the disappointment.

Each chapter is a horror survival rule but instead of subverting them, it follows them to a T. Of course, a certain level of adhering to the tropes is necessary, but How to Survive a Horror Movie does absolutely nothing original. Instead of trusting its audience to know the works that are referenced, it spells them out every single time. There is nothing subtle here, and unfortunately, simply mentioning the work that you are copying is not the same as paying homage to it.

With all that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed parts of this. Charley calling the cult classic Heathers an “underrated movie” genuinely made me laugh, and the climax was fast-paced and well written. Extra points for the fact that the main character is a lesbian, too, which was wonderful. Horror has always been queer, and I have loved seeing all of the explicitly gay stories that have been coming out recently.

How to Survive a Horror Movie is not a play on the genre, it is an introduction to it. If you are over the age of 15 and well versed in the horror genre, skip this one yourself, but maybe buy it for a younger relative as a gateway to the lovely messed up little world that is horror literature and film.

Thank you NetGalley and Little tiger group for my review copy!

How to Survive a Horror Movie is a great You g Adult novel that I know students will love in the school I work in. An eye catching cover with a gripping mystery story covering themes that they relate to.

3.5 stars
This is a fast paced slasher fic that isn’t very long, well paced with a good introduction and gets into the main part quick enough. The story is set on a small island in a boarding school where we are introduced to Charley who is a new transfer, her and Olive, her roommate, set to finding a killer when a fellow classmate gets killed. Complete with typical horror movie plot points; masked killer, gruesome deaths, chase scenes, non believing side characters etc., I think it helps make it an easy read as the book feels like a familiar movie. The ending and killer reveal might be too predictable in hindsight, I personally didn’t predict until near the end.
While you’re not going to be scared reading this, it’s enjoyable for anyone who loves a rewatch of horror movies.
Thanks to NetGalley and Little Tiger Group for the opportunity to read this arc.

A typical slasher type of horror novel with a bit of meta commentary on the genre - loved this about the book. It is YA so keep that in mind when reading but even as an adult I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Great story for when the nights are drawing in.

Rating : 4 ★

My horror/slasher fan self had the very best time with this book !

How to Survive a Horror Movie will be perfect for you if you love :
🔪 slasher movies
👻 ghosts & hauntings
🎞️ early 2000's horror movies vibes
🕯️ dark academia settings
🪓 a good final girl moment
💀 some gruesome deaths
🍿 a popcorn read

How to Survive a Horror Movie follows our horror movie nerd Charley at her new boarding school on a remote island. But when the bodies of her classmates start to pile up, Charley realizes that there's a killer on the loose and that she might be the main character of her own horror movie.
Stuck on the island and with the help of her bestie and freshly-killed-ghost-classmates, Charley sets up to solve the murders and uncover the killer before it's too late ...

I honestly didn't know what to expect going into this book and what a surprise !
It was fast paced, action packed, funny, witty and filled with horror references. The author navigates the do's and don'ts of the genre with each chapter throughout the book giving us just the right amount of excitement about what might happen next. The characters were carved enough to give them some depth without disturbing the flow of the mystery and even though some moments and dialogues felt cringy (after all it is YA and they're all teenagers) and almost too cliché, they bounced back thanks to the plot twists. The author also didn't shy away from gory scenes which I appreciated and created some very atmospheric settings.

This book is to be read as an ode to the slasher genre (think scream, i know what you did last summer, etc.) and as such has many plot holes that i more than gladly ignored for the overall enjoyment of the story. I would have loved for more stalking build up from the killer and for a more elaborate ending as well but was happily surprised by the announcement of a sequel !

Lastly, I know that arcs have typos and structural errors but as i've read published books filled with them lately (ugh), I want to quickly mention that I hope they'll be corrected for the final copies so that i can buy an edition to reread and annotate !

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

I'm rating it 3 stars but I didn't finish it. It's not the book, it's me. It sounded fun but it was very YA (which is not bad, just not the type of book I pick up and I rather not give it a bad review just because I'm the wrong audience) :(

as someone who is a huge fan of horror movies and very excited for halloween already, this was very much up my street. it follows the familiar and beloved slasher tropes and it knows it does, with the protagonist regularly pointing it out as a horror fanatic herself. i loved the fact that she could see ghosts, it made the story much more entertaining and had genuine laugh-out-loud moments. the sequel may not be out until 2025, but i’m looking forward to it already. i’d recommend this heavily, to people who are newly interested in the horror genre but also longterm fans.

I thoroughly enjoyed "How to Survive a Horror Movie". I found Charley endearing. One of the twists I saw coming from early on but this only helped the second twist floor me!

For YA I was surprised as the death count was higher than some horror movies I've seen!


Even though some of the rules seemed a little made up for the following scene, I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE SEQUAL! I am gutted I didn't realise this wasn't standalone.

When girls at her boarding school start having fatal ‘accidents’, Charley finds herself haunted by their spirits, who demand she solves their murders. These grisly but mostly good-humoured apparitions are reminiscent of the gruesome ghosts in An American Werewolf in London, one of the few popular horror films not name checked in this book.
This slapstick slasher is ideal for readers and movie fans who enjoy a horror spoof with plenty of blood, guts and gore.
With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an early copy in exchange for an independent review.

This gave all the slasher movie vibes that I needed and I think this would be perfect for anyone who enjoys those type of horror movies especially Fear Street and Scream, or the TV Series School Spirits. I couldn't put this book down.

How to Survive a Horror Movies follows Charley who is sent to an all-girls boarding school on remote island. In attempt to escape her trouble past, she focuses on keep a low profile for her final year. But when her classmates start dying one by one, as the token horror movie nerd, Charley is quick to realise that a serial killer is on the loose and the classmates aren't committing suicide like they are all made to believe. Being the only one able to communicate with her dead classmates, Charley decides to take matters into her own hands. And with no way to get off the remote island, what could possibly go wrong?

This is a fast paced book that easily draws your attention, not shying away from gore at all. And all the horror references! I love how Scarlett Dunmore navigates the reader through the dos and don'ts of surviving scenarios with all of those tips. If you haven't read or watched much within the horror genre then this is quite helpful. The aspect of having the ghosts brought such an interesting element and I loved Meghan. For a ghost, she really did have the best character development. While I did think it was cliche in places (the killer I'm looking at you), it was still quite an enjoyable read. However, I do think the suspense could've been built up more if we had more stalking from the killer.

If you're looking for a book to read for Halloween then definitely pick this up. I can't wait for the sequel next year.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“Because life wasn’t a movie. Death wasn’t a make-believe horror scene, people weren’t actors, and blood wasn’t Heinz tomato sauce. This was real.”

🩸I absolutely loved this book, from when Charley started Harrogate and the ghosts all followed her, i liked how they gained some sort of rapport.

🦇 I knew all along who the killer was and I loved the book even more because I wanted to know how it would end and what would happen.

🫶 Overall, if you love horror or a mystery then you will love this book, it isn’t too long and you can read it in one sitting the same way you can watch Scream.

Thank you so much for Netgalley and Little Tiger Group for giving me a free e-arc of How to Survive a Horror Movie by Scarlett Dumore.

My review can also be seen on Goodreads.

I had such high hopes for this one. A YA horror set in an all girls school on a remote island, centred around a horror obsessed teen, what's not to love?! But ultimately the writing was very amateur, the dialogue didn't flow easily between characters making it difficult to relate to them at all, and it's riddled with plot holes. I'd have thought this was aimed at a younger audience (maybe pre-teen?) based on the writing language alone, and I found the cultural references to be quite condescending. I would have rated this lower, but the quality really picked up in the last 20%. If the whole book had been as wonderfully written as those last 50 pages, it might have been a 5 starer!

I absolutely loved this book, it managed to fit so much into a very short book. This gave off all of the Slasher movie vibes, I adore as a horror movie fan. It also reminded me of mean girls at times. I would 100% recommend this to anyone who wants a quick, easy, slasher movie style book. Thank you, little Tiger group and netgalley for my ARC.

Well that ending is GRIPPING. If you love horror movies, you’ll love this (I know my wife will love this!). Boarding school, murderer on the loose, rich girls who get their own way and the lure of boys! I raced through this today - fingers crossed for the sequel!

Scarlett Dunmore – How to Survive a Horror Movie
YA horror novels which pay homage to slasher films from the eighties and nineties continue to hit the shelves at speed. In How to Survive a Horror Movie the two main characters spend their weekends binging horror films, sticking to DVDs rather than streaming, whilst struggling to fit in at their remote island boarding school. Set somewhere between the UK and Ireland, there is also a boarding school for boys, otherwise it is a lonely, isolated location in which supplies are shipped in once a week. After the first murder is played down as an unfortunate accident, the police remain strangely absent, with the headmistress huffing and puffing about an increasing number of ‘accidents’, with one pupil falling and being impaled on a fence. There was a lot of humour in How to Survive a Horror Movie and it was not to be taken too seriously, otherwise you would start picking holes in the dumb plot, which is loaded with fun chapter headings akin to rules on how to survive a horror film, such as rule seven; don’t be the last one in gym or rule fourteen, interview witnesses – even if they’re dead.

When the novel kicks off Charley is determined to keep a low profile and is no longer quite the ‘new girl’ after enrolling late. With her new best friend and roommate they find the body of a fellow pupil, with events escalating when they also discover the second body. The story then staggers between thriller, horror, teen drama with an LGBTQIA+ vibe as Charley has a crush on another girl. There are the usual mean girls, hormones, a good dose of mystery, countless horror film referencing, with the action upping the ante when Charley starts seeing the ghosts of the dead classmates. This was fast-paced tongue-in-cheek stuff and good luck trying to figure out who the killer is! AGE RANGE 13+

A great read exactly as the blurb promised. Kept me guessing and I really enjoyed all the horror movie references. I think this is a YA title that can be enjoyed even more by less young (old) adults because of the nostalgic references. Only issue I had is I would have loved a named 'city' to get more of a geographic idea of where it was set. Also the references to city/mainland didn't seem natural. Will certainly recommend this book and read more by this author.

This was an enjoyable read. I liked the nods to horror classics and the mystery unfolded well. The main character is at times unlikeable but this does not affect the plot or the enjoyment of the book. A great read for young horror fans

this book has become an instant classic already. i’ve never read anything like it- it took the whole genre of horror, dissected it like some sort of science experiment and served it up on a platter like the end times were riding on it. i’m not typically one to delve into a ‘ghost story’ but there’s something about the way these characters are written and the way the imagery is shown that really captivated me and had me instantly hooked.

not only was the story and the plot just so well done and thought out, but the writing was fucking insane. the descriptions and imagery were on another level, and definitely not a level i’ve ever seen in a ya before.

i’m so grateful to have gotten the opportunity to read and review this book. i’m so immensely pleased with it (ESPECIALLY that plot twist ending my god, please give scarlett dunmore ALL of the awards)