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TheAussieZombie

The Aussie Zombie

Zombie, post-apocalyptic and dystopian books are like shoes - you can never have enough.

Happy Birthday to Me

Happy Birthday to Me  - Brian  Rowe

I’d seen this book around the blogosphere and thought the premise sounded interesting – what would you do if you were ageing a year for every day that you lived? How would you cope with ageing faster than your peers, becoming physically older than your parents, knowing that instead of having another 60 years to live, you would only have another 60 days. And how much worse would it be as a teenager, with your whole life ahead of you, knowing your dreams and plans would never eventuate?

For Cameron (who I have to say is a bit of an arse in the beginning of the book), he decides to continue living his teenage life as normal – despite being ridiculed and ostracized by his former girlfriend and basketball team-mates, the pressure of his father and the fact that every day he wakes up looking and feeling a year older than the day before.

The characters of Happy Birthday to Me are interesting – Cameron is a self-assured brat at the beginning of the book, but as he rapidly ages he comes to realize some important things about life – as well as having a few creepy and surreal experiences as a 17 year old in the body of an adult. His parents and sister struggle with watching him age before their very eyes, and the adults around him begin to treat him differently, despite that he is still a teenager on the inside.

Happy Birthday to Me is well written – the story is clear and moves at a good pace, is engaging and raises some interesting questions about the restrictions we place on people when they reach a certain age, a family dealing with a medical anomaly and a little bit of supernatural thrown in for extra entertainment.

I did have one niggle with this book, and that was Cameron’s relationship with his girlfriend, Charisma (the name just grated on me!). I didn’t feel it added much to the story, only made me grind my teeth a little.

As this book is part of a trilogy, I won’t say much about the ending, but it did definitely make me want to move on to the next book as soon as possible. As a YA writer, Mr. Rowe has amazing potential!

Read more of my reviews at The Aussie Zombie

Source: http://www.theaussiezombie.com/2012/01/review-happy-birthday-to-me-by-brian.html