The holiday season is here, which means my Kindle is absolutely packed with Christmas reads. A Christmas To Remember by Matt Shaw is my first horror read of the season, and it’s a great, albeit strange, way to start the holiday. If you’ve ever thought of stringing up your ex’s innards as Christmas decorations, you’re in for a treat! Pull on your coziest Christmas sweater, grab your Kindle, and let’s get into our first holiday horror book review.
A Christmas To Remember is a holiday horror for the anxious reader— you’re in complete control. Our main character is a recently singled father with a big plan for this holiday: he’s going to listen to The Queen’s speech, he’s going to spoil his kids rotten, and he’s going to chop off his ex-wife’s head. Each chapter gives the reader a few choices, and each decision brings you closer to a different, usually gruesome, ending.
As a kid, I was a massive fan of Goosebump’s choose you own adventure books. I read them over and over again, I never took my finger off the last page, and I reached every ending I could. The entire choose-your-own death system is perfect for a fun little horror read, and when you mix that with a good Christmas scare, you’re guaranteed to have fun. And this book is fun, but there’s just a few bumps I couldn’t get over.
As someone who got into the genre with Howl Hefner’s books, I was a little spoiled with the sheer number of hyperlinks. As someone who wants to get all of the endings, it was really frustrating not to have the option to go back and try again, which A Christmas To Remember does not have. When you get to the end of the storyline, you have to manually navigate back to the beginning of the book and then click through to get to the choice. You’ll have to start the entire book again if you want to try to get a different ending.
Additionally, I do want to note that in the author note, which you’re prompted to read before beginning, the author does spoil his book. You’re told up front that there’s two main endings (one where only the wife is hurt, and one where everyone survives, and a hint that there’s endings where the husband dies). And while I kind of like to have a goal to shoot for, I think it might have been better to just leave the spoilers out, especially if the book isn’t optimized to go back and get the different endings anyway.
The sheer fun of the book does give it some grace, though. The tension is high throughout the book simply because the kids are present. My overall goal with the first readthrough was to keep the wife and kids alive, so I was spending a good five minutes at the end of every chapter trying to think how the husband would react to each choice. When I came into it, I was only looking for a fun, gorey, Christmas read and that’s exactly what this book delivered on.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, the book was fun. I was able to read it in the car in between running some errands, and it was a really fun little break from reality. This would be a fantastic read for someone looking for a quick break, and the format makes it awesome for someone trying to break out of a reading slump (as I’ve mentioned in my master post on choose your own adventure books).
What did you think? For those who have picked up Shaw’s horror novel, did you like the layout? Do you agree with my rating? Be sure to let me know what you think, and keep up with me on Instagram and my email list!