"Happy Birthday to You" by Brian Rowe

I've been wanting to read Happy Birthday to You  for quite some now. While I liked that it got right back on track from were Happy Birthday to Me Again left off, I didn't feel it was quite as strong as the first two books. Cameron and Liesel are now facing the ultimate challenge- everyone in the world is aging one year every day. People are dying as they quickly accelerate through what should be the last years of their lives. The only two people who have any idea what is going on are Cameron and Liesel and it's a race against time and all odds to try and save the world.

The chapters in this book alternate from Cameron's point of view and other characters (usually someone that has some sort of connection to Cameron). Because of this, we as the reader have an idea what is happening around the globe, while Cameron only knows what is happening in his immediate vicinity. I thought this was a good technique to build up anxiety for the reader and make it even more important for things to get resolved. Unfortunately, I felt that a lot of things in the plot happened simply to move the plot from point A to point B out of convenience and thought that more care could have gone into crafting the story. Despite this, I really liked the ending and thought that Brian Rowe made the correct choice in how he concluded this trilogy. The final chapter was the strongest part of the book and while I am sure that deciding to end the book this way took some courage, I would have actually been disappointed if it had ended any other way.

Readers of the first two books certainly need to read this one (the second book does end in such a way that you won't want to miss finding out what happens next) and I must say that Rowe is one of the best self-published authors I have read since beginning this blog.

Happy Reading!
-Melly

Excerpt from "Over the Rainbow" by Brian Rowe

Toward the end of 1997, my dad finally allowed me to have a computer in my room (“for homework purposes,” he insisted). Mira and I chatted online almost every day. She didn’t seem like a stranger from across the country, but like a close friend I simply didn’t have the pleasure in seeing. No matter where I was, at school, soccer practice, church—wherever—I wanted to be at home, with my butt planted on my rickety computer chair. The screechy sounds of my dial-up were music to my ears. “You’ve got mail,” became three of my favorite words. They meant a new message from Mira.  

It didn't take me long to come clean to her about my dismal home life. My father Raymond had been themayor of Topeka for four years and was in early preparations to run for Kansas State Governor; he was also a conservative Evangelical whose candid bigotry seemed to increase with each passing day. I had my very own wicked stepmother Connie,who, with her dark purple suits and blood red curly hair, tried to take theplace of my deceased mother Zoe—as if she ever could. My older blackhead-infested twin brothers, Abram and Asher, stayed away from me most of the time—out of dislike or disinterest, I didn’t yet know—but when they did say hello they liked to greet me by dragging me through the house and throwing me into the backyard pool.  

To make matters worse, I didn’t make friends with many people my age. I was picked on for being a tomboy, and for being a video game nerd. Sometimes just getting through the day became akin to surviving the various missions I played in my games. But Mira was always there for me. She always knew what to say to make my pain go away.

In the two years since we first instant messaged each other, she’d sent me more than 300 e-mails. My favorite came last September, on the eve of my seventeenth birthday:

this morning I saw a chickadee

outside on the porch

she made me think of you and me

she stayed for a long time

eating my birdfeed

her beak knocking against the chime

but when it was time to fly

she stretched out her wings

and launched high in the sky

1 more year

12 more months

365 more days

and you're free

like the chickadee

           

i love you my darling z

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Guest Post from Author Brian Rowe

MONSTER APOCALYPSE GUEST POST from Brian Rowe

So why spend a year of my life writing a YA trilogy about monsters, of all things? My first YA trilogy — the three Happy Birthday to Me books — took my readers into strange and daring places, but still mostly resembled real life, with a strong and tragic romance at the center of it all. My second YA trilogy is a different beast altogether, one that takes a group of film geeks and pits them against every monster known to man. I think my switch in genre for the second trilogy has perplexed some of my readers; the Grisly High books are definitely the evil little stepchildren to Happy Birthday to Me. Both are YA, both have strong, capable teenagers who find themselves in extraordinary situations, but the tone is different in my new trilogy. The Vampire Underground (Book 1), The Zombie Playground (Book 2), and The Monster Apocalypse (Book 3) are meant to be pure entertainment. There is romance in the three books, complete with a romantic finale in Book 3 that I hope will be unexpected. But the real focus I put into these three books was making them scary. Who doesn’t love to be scared?

I grew up on horror, immersing myself in the work of R.L. Stine as early as age eight. While the Goosebumps and Fear Street books are not great literature, they kept me up many a late night, and I was partly inspired by Stine’s books to craft a new trilogy of teen horror novels for the twenty-first century. Another experience that played into the formation of these books was my visit to Bodie Ghost Town back in 2002, when I spent half a day traipsing around a forgotten city of decrepit buildings and eerie silences, and I couldn’t stop thinking that day that I needed to set one of my stories there. When some found out I was writing a “vampire” novel, they told me I was just trying to hop onto the Twilight craze, but that wasn’t the case at all. I had the idea for Book 1, The Vampire Underground, for ten years, and had always imagined vampires living underneath the ghost town. It’s how, from the beginning, I wanted to tell this story. With famous, iconic monsters!

But the biggest influence on the Grisly High trilogy is my love for horror movies. The main characters of the trilogy — Brin, Ash, Anaya, and Mr. Barker — love movies, but not even Ash loves movies as much as I do. My dad introduced me to horror movies at a young age, and by the time I was eleven I had seen all the classics, from Frankenstein to Psycho, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Halloween, from The Evil Dead to A Nightmare on Elm Street, I’d seen them all. While I was finishing writing Happy Birthday to You and planning The Vampire Underground, I was trying to find who my main characters were. Making them film buffs just made perfect sense to me. What’s more ironic than a group of horror film nuts who go to a strange town to make a horror movie, who then come in contact with real deal horror movie villains themselves? I was intrigued by this idea and decided to run with it.

When I finished The Vampire Underground, I initially outlined six more books in the Grisly High series. The second book, The Zombie Playground, is still what it would’ve been in that seven-book series, but the others were going to revolve around one single creature each. Book 3 was to be demons, Book 4 was to be ghosts, Book 5 was to be werewolves, Book 6 was to be aliens, and Book 7 was going to feature all of these monsters fighting each other in the most epic, giant battle in all of literature history! But when I reached the end of The Zombie Playground, I realized that these books lived or died based on the relationships of the core characters, and that I only needed one more book to say everything I wanted to say about Brin and Ash and Anaya and Mr. Barker, and bring this Grisly High story full-circle.

The Zombie Playground was a blast to write because I’d always wanted to blend two things that I’d never seen blended together before, in a book, or a film: the horror genre, with the sport of golf. It was so much fun to devise a story that would bring these two elements together in a way that makes sense, and I loved expanding on the mythology of the Grisly town to bring zombies into the forefront, after focusing on vampires in the first book.

Finally, The Monster Apocalypse, let’s face it, throws in everything but the kitchen sink. I really upped the stakes in Happy Birthday to You, the third and final book of my Birthday trilogy, and such is the case with this third book of the Grisly High trilogy. In this final chapter I set out to craft the most surprising, action-packed book I’ve written yet. All of the subplots are wrapped up, both old and new characters discover their fates, and every monster, from aliens to witches to werewolves, is finally accounted for. The first two books are fun, but they’re mere samples to the chaos and craziness of The Monster Apocalypse!

Click here to read an excerpt from The Vampire Underground!

"Happy Birthday to Me Again" by Brian Rowe

A while back I reviewed Brian Rowe's Happy Birthday to Me.  Cameron and Liesel are back in Happy Birthday to Me Again, only this time, when Cameron gets cursed he begins aging backwards- an entire year every day!  How on earth will he get out of this one?

I found this book to be a little less predictable than the first, a huge plus in my opinion (however, I was not at all surprised by the final reveal at the very end of the novel- woman's intuition perhaps?).  Sometimes the situations are a little unbelievable, but considering the main premise, this is okay.  It is clear that Cameron still has a lot of growing up to do, but that works for his character.  If you liked Happy Birthday to Me, then this is an absolute must read!

If you have started these books, the third and final book, Happy Birthday to You is now available!

Connect with Brian:
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Happy Reading!
-Melly

"Happy Birthday to Me" by Brian Rowe

I am so excited by my Kindle.  Reading just got even easier!  My most recent read is Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe.  I wasn't horribly surprised with how the plot developed, but still thought it was a good read.  Cameron is a stereotypical popular jock; is on top of the world, has a gorgeous girlfriend, and has everything he could possibly want.  But of course that isn't enough.  Cameron is constantly using his "birthday" to his advantage..  It may seem like a harmless way to get free dessert, but what happens when his lies go to far?

Cameron begins to wake each day as though he has aged an entire year.  Soon his entire life begins to unravel.  Knowing that his life has been cut short and that the end is very near, will Cameron get his act together and change his ways before it's too late?

I read this book rather quickly, it kept my interest easily.  I am anxious to read the sequel Happy Birthday to Me Again.

Connect with Brian:
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Happy Reading
-Melly