Death by Halloween

by David Warkentin

It is Halloween, a day that used to be your favourite of the year.As a child, you counted down the days to Halloween, thrilled at the prospect of venturing out into the night in a monster’s clothing and returning with a sack stuffed full with candy.As you grew through adolescence, your tastes gradually changed. You still lived in anticipation of Halloween, but you no longer cared much for its typical offerings. The costumes weren’t real. The candy was too sweet.What you wanted was adventure, panic, black magic. You wanted to find yourself on a dark hilltop, shaking with fear as impossible shadows crept up the slope toward you. You wanted to see the dead sit up in their graves. You wanted to stumble through the fog trying to escape the clutches of a madman. You wanted to survive a nightmare...Death by Halloween is a 'choose-your-own-adventure' style interactive book for adults and mature teens. It executed hyperlink navigationOver 100 choicesOver 50 endingsA gender-neutral protagonistGhostsGhoulsMurderersSelf-loathingCannibalsDemonsMutilationScarecrowsSpectersZombiesPieAnd much more!Please have a look at the sample to get a better idea of whether or not this book is right for you. Because this is an interactive book, the sample chapters will be out of order and not interactive. They will, nevertheless, give you a pretty good idea of what to expect.PLEASE As mentioned above, this book has some fairly graphic scenes of violence and is intended for a somewhat mature audience.

Genres: Horror, Halloween, Choose Your Own Adventure, Fiction, Dark, Paranormal, Holiday

264 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 20, 2013

Reviews

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Let me start by saying I LOVED THIS BOOK! It's basically a "Choose Your Own Adventure" Book for grown ups. If you liked those as a child, you'll like this one now.

I must commend the author for making full use of an ebook's capabilities. Unlike the old days where you had to turn to a certain page, you just click a link indicating which choice you'd like. And if you want to back up? Just hit the back button and it takes you to your last choice. So this one gets a special commendation just for making use of a format that probably still has untapped potential.

Also, the individual stories themselves are great. There could be ten horror novels spun out of this one book alone! And what was amazing is how immersive the book was. I actually felt like I was in the story, and that really added to the experience.

There were only minor negatives. I would like for there to be a few "happy" endings. In most of them, you end up dying in horrible ways. And if you live, then it pretty much says you live out a pathetic and boring existence, and die anyway. I would have preferred to see some endings where things turn out positive, but given the title of the book I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised.

While this is isn't the kind of book I'd want to read often, as a diversion that is truly different, I can't recommend it enough. Just a really good, fun time! Great Halloween read!

[Kira Simion · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn't as fun as I thought since 98% of the choices lead to death.

[WendyB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alrighty, that was a lot of fun. A lot of options but not much chance of survival but I guess that's why death is in the title. Reading this as an ebook is a great way to do these "you chose the story direction" type books. Just click and keep reading.

[Kelsi - Slime and Slashers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This concept is so cool...a Halloween-themed ADULT choose your own adventure book!? Yes, please! But I just didn't like the writing at times. The tone felt very nihilistic, and I think the story could have been a little more fun overall (and the tone could have been a little more pro-Halloween with more autumn vibes too).

However, I loved some of the scenarios that played out in this book...some of the paths you can choose lead to some really creative developments and endings! That's the biggest pro of the book (along with the creative concept).

I still think there are a lot of people who'd really enjoy this book. I'd suggest people give it a go and see what they think for themselves!

[Paige Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun spooky read for Halloween! Choose your adventure books are always interesting. I tend to make the worst choices though lol.

Death by Halloween follows you as an adult and reminiscing what Halloween meant to you as a child. You decide to go off on an adventure of your own and have many choices ahead of you to make it an interesting night.

[Sandra Lopez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Halloween-themed “you choose the scare” the story, just like the Goosebumpsbooks I used to read as a kid.
According to the story, I am a thrill-seeker. Halloween used to excite me, but now they’re just commercialized and boring. Now, I seek black magic and death-rising adventures. This is how I actually am, so, naturally, I chose to leave my house and try to find my spell-binding journey.

I didn’t turn away from the noise; I walked toward it. But I died quickly, for some reason. It’s a good thing you can play again and again.

#2: killed with my arms cut off
#3: I choked on a piece of pie
#4: I’m hung like a scarecrow
The best one: getting kidnapped by the naked maniac
After re-reading and choosing different adventures, the story becomes old and you get sick of dying. In fact, you always die. It seems that you can’t win. That sucks! They should’ve called this Always Death by Halloween.

Although it was well-written and it reads quickly, the book was also a tad predictable at times.

[Mercedes · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a child I loved the Choose Your Own Adventure books. As an adult I'm looking for something like them only more grown up but not erotic. I like horror, terror, suspense. I found this book while viewing a different and figured I'd give it a try. I'm very please with this book. My first ending I met the Devil himself. This was when I was hooked because it was rather freaky. So to the author I give kudos and even though I've set the book down for awhile because I don't want to read all the endings too soon, I love it. If there are more I'll be getting them too.

[Jessie Havel · Rating 5 out of 5]

We read this multiple times on Halloween while my daughter carved her pumpkin. We took turns choosing which way we wanted to go. We had been killed by an old woman who cut out our tongue. We became the willing servant of an ancient sea creature. We were killed by a zombie. We were made into a scarecrow while still alive. It was an awesome way to celebrate Halloween. We have a new tradition.

[Candice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review soon to come. =]

[Rachel Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Such a fun book! Definitely check it out if you're into choose your own adventure books. I really liked them when I was a kid.

[Kristyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up for Goodreads

This book was very nostalgic. If you liked reading choose your own adventure books as a kid, you will most likely have a good time reading this one. The entire book takes place on Halloween night as you set out to find some scares and adventure. You are put into many different situations in different places. Will you live or die? Will you run into a murderer, a creature, or a ghost? There are many different scenarios and I had a lot of fun reading this. There is some gore and violence but nothing over the top. I thought it could have gotten a bit darker in some places, but overall it was an enjoyable book.

[Parabolgirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I actually DNF this but I died & started over choosing different directions that I got the gist of the book.
I haven’t read a choose your own adventure book since I was a kid so this was very nostalgic for me & I really enjoyed it!
Loved that it’s Halloween themed, I read this during October and it was perfect.

[Beverly Duffy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love you choose adventure when I was a kid. This was awesome there were many good scary stories. This was a fun read and love it around Halloween.

[Anniek · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is all about YOU. Death by Halloween is an interactive 'choose your own adventure' story. You start in the safety of your own home and from there you decide what you do and where you will go. Will you choose to stay in areas with lots of people and be relatively safe or will you be a daredevil and seek out danger? It is really is all up to you.

Of course your choices will also bring you monsters and perhaps even death if you choose the wrong course. This book promises you over 100 choices and more than 50 endings. You can also be sure about running into all kind of horrors like ghosts, zombies, demons and murderers. How will your story end?

I loved the fact that I could choose my own way. It's like writing your own book without actually having to use your pen and paper (or computer). Because of all the different choices you can create a different story each time. During the story I felt compelled to choose the more dangerous paths and couldn't stop reading to find out what my choice would bring me.

Death by Halloween will keep you busy for lots of hours. For me this was the first time I read an interactive story but it certainly will not be my last. David Warkentin's adventure got me hooked and I am in need of more. Until I find a good new interactive book this one will keep me busy until the late hours of the night.

Because of the graphic scenes and violence this book is meant for the adult readers among us. Join me with you own adventure and enjoy the horrors that will have you hiding under the covers.

[R.C.A. Nixon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good concept. I don't read many books that tell the story in the second person "you" The last was Bright Lights Big City many years ago, and I found that technique quite gimmicky, since it wasn't about 'me' at all. But this book uses the process quite properly, as the action is clearly about 'me'. I choose where the story goes, not really knowing what will happen. But since it also takes place in the present tense, that works well too. I got in trouble pretty quickly the first time, lasted a little longer the second time. I guess I'm a bad dude.

The challenge though is that not all the things that 'I' say or do in the story segments are what I would really say or do, once I make my choice. So how much do I really identify with this 'you'? I get it, I realize the author must create scenarios that would satisfy all (or most) readers, create situations in which he/she can't escape the logic of the choice they made. The devil takes over your body, you can't escape even if you wanted to. That's pretty ingenious, and fun too. In the end, the book offers up multiple storylines that get progressively more sinister, a series of short stories - literary journeys down different paths of a spooky Halloween town. This is fun to read on its own. But I think it would be really fun to read to children. A different path every night before bedtime. If they can handle R.L. Stine's Goosebumps, they could handle this.

[Horrorlover86 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Autumn is my favorite season since it brings along chill weather, colorful leaves and my favorite holiday Halloween. And it makes me upset when the season passes and the decorations fall back into their hiding places. So if you feel the same then jump into this book as it paints a crisp Halloween night for you to enjoy and YOU’RE the main character of this story. And while there are lots of DEAD ENDS in this story as some people have mentioned, I personally think that makes it even more satisfying when you find an ending where you live to tell the tales. It’s got a little bit of everything such as scarecrows, ghosts, murderers, demons and so much more. If you miss the feeling of Halloween or just Autumn in general then grab some candy, play your special Autumn playlist and head into Death by Halloween 🎃🎃🎃

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd "choice" book I've read, and I liked this one a lot. The varied choices / endings are great. I'm still going thru the choices to see how things end up. First few rounds I tried how I really felt, which meant playing it safe, but it was over too quickly. Now I'm just playing with the rest of the choices to see how things play out. Ideal timing on this one with Halloween right around the corner.

[George Lathwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book and enjoyable read and with so many different stories and outcomes you can have hours of reading without ever running out of stories. There is a lot of different choices and each one is completely different. This book is brilliant also to the people that said you can't survive this book I have so far found that if you choose all the most boring options you do survive in the most boring way, just another reason to love this book. :-D

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used to love the old kid's choose your own adventures books so decided to give this a try.

I am not sure if it was cause it was written in the first person or cause it was a multiple choice options, I found this actually started to spook me as much as a good horror novel. I loved the variety of the options and the tangents the story went in depending on the choices made.

Definitely one to read on a dark Halloween night!

[Shreya · Rating 3 out of 5]

For the most part, I don't like choose-your-own-adventure books because they usually end up confusing me. This one was kind of worse because each choice creates a new spin-off story, with a huge number of possibilities. I explored a number of them, found the one whose final choice was the end of the book, and decided I was sufficiently creeped out. Would not recommend, unless you like repetitive endings and creepy premises.

[Alex | | findingmontauk1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I definitely died a lot and had some misadventure along the way. But it was a pretty fun, inventive way to go about reading something like this for Halloween. I haven't done a choose your own adventure book in forever and it made me feel like a kid again. And it was the perfect pairing for the spooky season nostalgia to root itself even deeper right now. I would do more of these for other holidays and more of these for Halloween, too!

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was promising but for me fell short. I was expecting it to read more as a novel with in-depth character to base my decisions on. this read exactly like a kid choose your own adventure that my 7 year old son reads. I was hoping for more. more of a story and longer options. I died the first 3 times I made a choice.

but all in all it was light read to read as something fun to do.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a fun read. I love the concept of being able to choose where the story goes. I read it through 3 different ways and it was just so cool. The stories themselves were creative and interesting. I just really loved this book. My daughter is going to read it now.

[Miranda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! I have never read an interactive book like this before. You get to choose the choices of the main character & if you don't like one of your choices, or a choice ended in death you can retrace your steps and start again.
I will be reading this every Halloween! How fun 🎃👻

[Annette Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun Halloween read in the choose your own adventure style. More often than not you end up killed in some gruesome fashion but that's the whole point

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. It covers just about every urban legend and horror story. I would have liked to see the protagonist beat more monsters, but then I guess it's not really horror, is it?

[Holly Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would have given a 5 star if it had printed which page to return to once you hit a "dead end".

[Christina Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, simple and fun. My husband and I had a fun time reading this book before Halloween :)

[Nash Bridges · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting concept

To make the best holiday every into a chose your own adventure book. I of course, picked the worst case scenario every time.... Lol

[Lelouch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I also came to this book from reading the old choose-your-own-adventures goosebumps as a kid.

There are 53 endings, 5 of which are happy(-ish) survivals. There's a mix of supernatural and non-supernatural deaths. I like the supernatural deaths more. I bought a paper copy, and it would be nice if they included the page you came from so you can come back.

In the intro, the author explains the story changes based on your decision. For example, one of the story lines goes to a hotel and you see someone is at your door. If you stay in bed, a creepy man comes through the door. if you get up and hide, a woman comes through the door. I'm not sure I like that. I'd prefer the same person is behind the door regardless of the choice you make.

The endings are a mix. I like some of them, eg pulled into a lake by a ghost-drowned kid and becoming one of them. Other endings I didn't like much, like choking on apple pie.

One non-ending scene stood out to me. Early on, main character (we?) is looking at all the costumed kids outside for halloween. And we silently praise one kid for being really into the costume. A kid dressed like a homeless street urchin with raggedy clothes, no shoes, and trick or treating without a parent. (If you missed it, it's a real homeless kid)

Trigger warning: Animal death (page 3 -> 24 -> 99 -> 43 -> 179)