{"id":6684,"date":"2019-07-03T12:27:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T16:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=6684"},"modified":"2019-07-03T12:27:11","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T16:27:11","slug":"book-review-happy-death-day-happy-death-day-2u-by-aaron-hartzler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-happy-death-day-happy-death-day-2u-by-aaron-hartzler\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U by Aaron Hartzler"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U\u00a0<\/em>by Aaron Hartzler<\/p>\n

Blumhouse Books\/Anchor Books, 2019<\/p>\n

ISBN: 978-1-9848-9772-5<\/p>\n

Available: paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Remember the good old days when movie tie-ins were available for almost every film out there, and good authors wrote them?\u00a0 Lest we forget, Alan Dean Foster, Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, and Orson Scott Card all took a shot at tie-in writing.\u00a0 You read them for two reasons: they were able to add a level of detail that a film can’t convey, and they often had scenes deleted from the film, which made you feel like you were getting something new.\u00a0 Tie-ins are still around, and here we have a two for one deal: both of the\u00a0Happy Death Day\u00a0<\/em>films in one novel.\u00a0 If you liked the movies, it’s worth reading these to recall the fun of a surprisingly clever horror film.\u00a0 If you haven’t seen them, it’s still entertaining enough to be worth the read.<\/p>\n

Teresa ‘Tree’ Gelbman is a shallow, insensitive college student who wakes up with a hangover in a stranger’s dorm room on her birthday.\u00a0 Her character gets established quickly on her bolting from the dorm and making her way through the day.\u00a0 She’s a grade-A bitch, with no redeeming qualities.\u00a0 She treats her few friends and all strangers like trash, and pretends to be nice to others to maintain her social standing.\u00a0 To top it off, she’s trying to screw her way to a good grade in her biology class by having an affair with a married professor.\u00a0 At the end of the day, she gets murdered by an unknown assailant.\u00a0 Upon dying, she\u2026 wakes up with a hangover in a stranger’s dorm room on her birthday.\u00a0 That’s her fate: she’s condemned to re-live the same day over and over, getting killed by the assailant each time, until she finds a way to break the cycle.\u00a0 The second book follows a similar pattern.\u00a0 The main differences are Tree finds herself in an alternate timeline, and you get some explanation for why the time-loop thing happened in the first place.<\/p>\n

As expected for a movie tie-in, both books follow the script very closely.\u00a0 The level of detail added in is not very high, although there are a few minor brush strokes to flesh out some of the scenes a bit.\u00a0 Tree’s feelings about her professor are one area where the additional detail makes her seem a bit human, as opposed to completely unfeeling.\u00a0 The real challenge to writing a story like this is, how do you make a re-playing scene seem interesting to the reader?\u00a0 The author does a good job of making the repeated areas seem new, by using different ways to explain them.\u00a0 For example, instead of just writing ‘the sprinklers turned on, someone fell down, a car alarm went off’ over and over, he finds new ways to describe it.\u00a0 One good example is saying ‘The day unfolded with Tree’s greatest hits: Sprinkler.\u00a0\u00a0 Alarm.\u00a0\u00a0 Person falling over.’ \u00a0It’s minor, but it really does help make the story more readable, and not make the reader feel as if they are caught in a time loop of their own.\u00a0 This is written well enough that you feel like you are reading an actual story, and not just a copy of the script.\u00a0 The only minor drawback to the book is that if you are looking for added scenes that weren’t in the movie, you’ll be disappointed.\u00a0 As noted, this follows the original premise very closely, and I couldn\u2019t find any new scenes added in.\u00a0 Whether that’s good or bad depends on the reader.<\/p>\n

The final verdict: The Happy Death Day\u00a0<\/em>movies have enough originality that they translate well to book form, thanks to the author’s treatment of the script.\u00a0 The book is also a quick read, with both films are fitted into only 272 pages, and it reads fast enough that most readers will be hooked enough to finish it in a sitting or two.\u00a0 It’s perfect for summer beach fare, and the violence is mild enough that it’s palatable to young readers.\u00a0 A good horror choice for both adults and young adult readers.<\/p>\n

Contains:\u00a0 violence<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Reviewed by Murray Samuelson<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Death Day & Happy Death Day 2U\u00a0by Aaron Hartzler Blumhouse Books\/Anchor Books, 2019 ISBN: 978-1-9848-9772-5 Available: paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook   Remember the good old days when movie tie-ins were available for almost every film out there, and good authors wrote them?\u00a0 Lest we forget, Alan Dean Foster, Terry Brooks, R.A. Salvatore, and Orson<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3942,2474,3940,3941,1100,13,41],"class_list":["post-6684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aaron-hartzler","tag-book-review","tag-happy-death-day","tag-happy-death-day-2u","tag-horror-movies","tag-media-tie-ins","tag-ya-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6695,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6684\/revisions\/6695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}