#HowToSurviveAHorrorStory

[bookvibesandtarotcards]

🎉 Happy Bookbirthday to this week’s two new reads!

One’s got rules for surviving the worst… the other might be the worst.

🔪 How to Survive a Horror Story – final girl energy, found family chaos, and every trope you love (or fear). 🩸 Julie Tudor is (not) a Psychopath – biting wit, questionable choices, and a main character with serious ‘what did she just do?’ vibes.

Two totally different rides. I’m here for both. ✨ Which one would you trust with your life?

Full reviews at my blog!

[blog-i-carry-your-heart-with-me]

I have to prefaces to this review: 1) it will not be spoiler free, 2) it won't be positive. As much as I dislike giving poor reviews, I am also not willing to fib. How to Survive a Horror Story started well... #bookreview #horrornovel #howtosurviveahorrorstory #galleyreview #books #horror #review

[bookvibesandtarotcards]

How to Survive a Horror Story by Mallory Arnold

Seven writers. One haunted manor. Everyone thinks they’re the main character - until the house decides otherwise.

Pre-Reading Thoughts

You had me at “authors trapped in a haunted mansion.” Throw in puzzles, riddles, and a creepy literary legacy, and I was fully ready for an ensemble-cast horror with gothic flair and some meta fun. My biggest hope? That it wouldn't play the same old tropes straight. My biggest fear? That it might.

Post-Reading

As I thought...

This book gets horror. The atmosphere is lush and cinematic—every creaking floorboard and flickering candle feels like it belongs in a classic black-and-white chiller. The ensemble cast is rich with personalities, egos, secrets, and rivalries - just begging to be picked off one by one. The set-up is smart: a mystery within a ghost story wrapped inside a puzzle box, all oozing with tension.

It surprised me by...

How twisty it got. Every time I thought I had the shape of the story, it morphed into something weirder, sharper, or more emotionally charged. There’s some real commentary under the scares - about legacy, authorship, and who gets to tell the story. And despite the gothic vibe, the prose is modern, quick, and funny in places without ever undermining the horror.

MUSIC PAIRING

🎵 Featured Song: “bury a friend” – Billie Eilish

🎶 Vibe Album: Midnight – Set It Off

🎧 Artist Recommendation: Ghost

VIBE CHECK

🎨 Colour Palette: Dusty maroon, flickering candlelight, ink black

🎬 Soundtrack: Spooky strings, crackling fires, distant whispers

🍂 Season: Late fall

💭 Mood: Suspenseful, slippery, and always one twist ahead of you

👃 Scent: A library gone sour - old paper, pipe smoke, and something that shouldn’t be rotting

TAROT PULL

🃏 Tarot Apokalypsis, Seven of Swords

This is a house where nothing is what it seems, and the Apokalypsis Seven of Swords nails it. A man struggles inside with more swords than he can carry while another outside holds a fake blade—mirroring the duplicity, mind games, and performative masks at the heart of this locked-room literary horror. It's a card that warns: not all weapons are real, and not all threats come through the front door.

For fans of: Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone by Benjamin Stevenson, and TV like The Haunting of Hill House meets Only Murders in the Building