Review: Try Not to Die in Slattery Falls: An Interactive Horror Gamebook by Brenna LaFaro

Try Not to Die in Slattery Falls: An Interactive Horror Gamebook (#22 Try Not to Die Series)

by Brennan LaFaro

Release Date: June 16, 2026

2026 Vincere Press

Ebook Edition; 404 Pages

ISBN: 978-1961740563

ASIN: B0GHJL4ZYL

Genre: Fiction / Horror / YA

Source: Review copy from publisher

 

3.5 / 5 Stars

 

Summary

Slattery Falls is home to the most haunted house on the East Coast, the one nobody's ever heard of. You're Matty Hargrove, a senior determined to become a great horror writer, so when your classmate Nate Tedeschi offers a chance to explore the infamous Weeks House, you'd be a fool to say no. Especially with his twin sister Bex coming along.

The moment you step inside, it's clear something is wrong. The house isn't empty. It never was. For years, something in there has been watching, waiting, feeding, and now it has you.

Every decision sets your fate. A few might keep you alive a little longer. Most lead to brutal, unforgettable deaths.

 

My Thoughts

Try Not to Die in Slattery Falls is the first book I've read in the Try Not to Die series, and when I finished this book I actually picked up the first three and read them pretty quickly as I enjoyed them quite a bit. I had heard of this series, but never really had the time to indulge so I took the opportunity to do so after finishing this book. This book brought me back to my childhood and my enjoyment at reading the Choose Your Own Adventure books, so I thought it was quite interesting to see a horror version of this type of book. And let's just leave it at the fact that I was no better at choosing my fate as an adult than I was as a kid as I died multiple times in this book.  

 

I was already a fan of this author's work having read the Slattery Falls Trilogy (Book 3 being my favourite) as well as The Demon of Devil's Canyon, so I was familiar with the town of Slattery Falls and some of its history.  Therefore, I am not really sure how this book would land with someone who has not read at least the first book in the trilogy. This was definitely an interesting read, but I wasn't surprised at how quickly the storyline went darker than you would think as I expected this, and it definitely did go dark very fast as the story twisted and turned until suddenly, oops, I made the wrong choice yet again, and faced some very severe and ouchy consequences.  And I thought I was actually making good and logical choices.  

 

I did enjoy the story and some of the character development, but I did think the character development was somewhat one-dimensional and I also thought the story ended rather abruptly. Now, could the abrupt ending be because of the choices I made rather than the intended purpose, I don't really know, but I did read the alternate endings and I rather liked the darker ending far more. However, I do like twisted stuff so perhaps that was just a personal response.  The twists and turns were quite fun however, and you do learn a bit about the characters, but I still felt like the overall story was not as in-depth as it could have been. 

 

Verdict

Try Not to Die in Slattery Falls was an enjoyable choose-your-own-path book and I do have to say I am no longer confident about my chances of surviving a haunted house after this book as I died pretty abruptly not too long after entering the house and multiple times afterwards. The chapters were the perfect length to get invested in the story, but not so long that you got bored and after several poor choices, I could feel the tension in my body going up a little bit as I really wanted to make a good choice.  While I didn't think the characters were greatly developed, they were still relatable and you wanted to root for all of them.  I do have to say that the sentient house was one of the highlights of this book though.  As I've already mentioned, I was intrigued enough by this book to read three more in the series, so if you want something that may remind you of your childhood, or just something a bit different, this may be for you.  

 

Review: One House Left by Vincent Ralph

One House Left

by Vincent Ralph

Release Date: August 27, 2024

2024 Wednesday Books

Softcover Edition ARC; 320 Pages

ISBN: 978-1250882189

ASIN: B0CQHN5LS2

Audiobook: B0DC173WRL

Genre: Fiction / Horror

Source: Review copy from publisher

2.5 / 5 Stars

Summary

Sixteen-year-old Nate Campbell grew up in the shadow of Murder Road – a street cursed by the vengeful spirit of the Hiding Boy.

Every few years, for nearly six decades, a different house on that street has been the scene of a tragedy.

Nate and his family move to a new town as they try to outrun the curse once and for all. But, when he is pulled into his new friends’ urban legend club, new ghost stories merge with old until there is nowhere left to run.

 

 

 

My Thoughts

One House Left had an interesting premise and I was definitely captivated by the lore of the story in the first quarter of the book.  Because It was so interesting, I didn’t actually mind that it was slow as I figured it would pick up as the story went along, which is sometimes the case with psychological/horror novels.  Unfortunately, the pace never really picked up, took a wild turn in the middle which was quite jarring, and by this point, I just wasn’t invested.

The character development felt quite flat. It had nothing to do with the slow-burn of the story, but sometimes when an author holds too much back to keep a story ‘’mysterious”, they can lose the reader from a case of not enough information to keep them interested, and this is exactly what happened.  It left the characters feeling flat, unemotional, and I just couldn’t empathise or connect with any of them.  Even the little glimpses into the characters’ backstories don’t really add anything to the story which is really unusual, but I think maybe it was just the way it was done.  Or maybe I just didn’t care at that point?

The plot itself had a lot of potential and I did find it intriguing, but the development and the delivery didn’t quite work for me. It wasn’t that it was uninteresting, but when you have flat characters, I just never got emotionally invested into what was happening which lessened the overall tension.  And it’s the tension in horror books that makes or breaks the story.  And then there’s the twist.  I don’t want to mention anything about it as it came out of nowhere, something I thought was interesting, but it would definitely have had an even bigger impact if I was invested in the characters.  And the following chapters after the twist blew it for me as well. You can’t have such a jarring thing happening in the middle of the book without a good setup if you want your readers to feel any emotion.  I did wonder if the twist would have worked better as the prologue rather than the one that was used.

Verdict
One House Left had a lot of potential, but the delivery and the character development made a good idea turn into a bit of a slog. I did thoroughly enjoy the lore in the first half of the book and the discussions around truth behind the legends and whether one should play around with that stuff, but I wish the story had been tighter and more focused as it seemed to ramble.  There were a couple of interesting themes in this book, about family and how far one would go to protect one’s family, but again, it wasn’t clearly developed, which was a shame.  Because of the potential however, I would definitely try another book by this author in the future.

 

Review: Zoomers vs Boomers by Sawyer Black

Zoomers vs Boomers

by Sawyer Black

Release Date: May 5, 2022

2022 Independently published

Kindle Edition; 218 Pages

ISBN: 978-8838903952

ASIN: B09Y3MMQHQ

Genre: Fiction / Horror / YA

Source: Review copy from author

3.25 / 5 Stars

Summary

When the influencers and live-streamers of Jackson High are selected as the winner of the Operation Gen Z contest, Craig Boucher and his friends can’t believe their luck.The Zoomers think they’ve been chosen to compete in a secret competition to win a million-dollar scholarship. But when they get to the site – the rundown building that used to be the Oakridge Academy, an infamous school shut down after rumors of torture and brainwashing – they discover that they’re pawns in a brutal game of survival.

As they search for a way out of the booby-trapped campus, Craig and his friends are hunted by three fanatical Boomers determined to prove that Generation Z embodies everything that’s wrong with the modern world. 

My Thoughts

Zoomers vs Boomers was actually a fun, fast read and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I loved the satirical commentary on both generations with regards to social media and thought the use of a live audience watching everyone get killed was interesting; it actually reminded me of Bachman's book, The Running Man, a book I read as a teenager, but definitely made an impression on me.  

 

The concept of this book isn't new: you take a bunch of teenagers, throw them into a situation where they think one thing is going to happen but suddenly something else happens, the killing starts, and wait to find out the purpose behind it all.  Every story with this format simply has its own twist and I would say the twist is that all of the players are social media influencers and the killing is live-streamed.  To be honest, I thought the reason behind it all to be rather weak as it was your typical boomers hate all zoomers and think the younger generation need to be raised with more discipline and are all spoiled brats.  However, I did think the game was fun, although the players themselves were ridiculously easy to pick off because they were all silly.  And I guess you could say that you should never annoy a boomer as you won't know how they will react? But, on the other hand, never underestimate the resilience of a zoomer and their will to survive? 

 

It did take a few chapters before the action started, but when it did, it didn't let up until the final chapter. And when the first major thing happened, it actually caught me by surprise as I wasn't expecting it so I liked the twists and turns that happened.  The book was an easy read, short compared to other books, so I read it in one sitting, but I think I would have even if it was longer as it was good fun.  Because it was so short, there wasn't a lot of time to really develop characters, so other than Craig, and maybe one or two others, I didn't really develop any empathy for them.  This made it difficult because when they did die, it was hard to feel empathetic although I did wince a time or two.  I would have liked to have known more about who set up the contest and how it all came together, but that was left purposely vague so I was a bit disappointed about that.  The ending was satisfactory, and the overall story was tense and exciting.  

 

Verdict

Zoomers vs Boomers was quite fun, and definitely had a lot of twists and turns that kept my interest throughout.  I do think it would have benefited from some type of prologue as the beginning was a bit slow, but when the action started, it didn't let up.  There really wasn't a lot of character development, and a bit more of that would have helped the tension as you would have felt more empathy towards the characters when they died.  Overall, a fun book and I do recommend this one to anyone who is looking for a quick, entertaining read.