Review: Happy Birthday to Me Again by Brian Rowe

SPOILER ALERT! If you haven’t read Happy Birthday To Me yet… you may want to hold off on reading this review!

“Cameron Martin has a huge problem: he’s aging a whole year of his life with each passing day… again. And this time... he's going backward!
When Cameron proposes to his beloved witch of a girlfriend Liesel, he thinks life can’t get any better. But when he reluctantly breaks off the engagement just days before the wedding, Liesel angrily unleashes another curse on the unlucky guy, this time making him age backward, from eighteen, all the way to zero.
Making matters worse, Liesel mysteriously disappears, leaving Cameron with no options, except watching himself rapidly shrink into a helpless child. Will Liesel be able to save his life again? Or will Cameron ultimately fall prey to his girlfriend's wicked spell?”

Cameron Martin went through his worst nightmare and survived to tell the tale.  At the end of his senior year he was cursed to age a year of his life with each passing day until he was surely a goner in the hospital on the day he was 85. But at the last minute Liesel, the girl he just so happen to be in love with and the girl that put the horrible curse on him in the first place, saved him.  A few months later he is still his normal age, still with his family, and engaged to Liesel.  What could go wrong? But when Cameron gets cursed again only this time going back in age each day, Liesel isn’t around to save him.  Happy Birthday To Me Again is the next chapter in Cameron Martin’s crazy life.  

My rating for this book:

I like that, like in the first book, in the sequel the chapters go by the age in which Cameron is decreasing.  I also like Cameron himself much better in this book than the first.  In the first he was your typical spoiled, cool, teenage guy and due to his curse he really grew up and became a really interesting character with much more depth.  THAT Cameron is the one that’s present in the sequel. Cameron wasn’t the only character that grew in this novel, so did many others that you learned to love throughout book 1. And what an ending! Happy Birthday to Me Again provides the ultimate cliffhanger that will have you reeling for the next book in the trilogy!

If you’re looking for a fun book with tons of laughs and witty dialogue, this one is for you.

Brian Rowe studied English and Film at Loyola Marymount University.  His work has appeared in The Absent Willow Review, Mobius Magazine, and Wild Oat Magazine.  He likes works such as Fahrenheit 451 (no judgment).  He now lives in Cameron’s very own home town of Reno, Nevada.   To learn more about Brian, visit his Facebook.

So did you guys read the first book?  Are you going to check out this one? Let me know!

Review: Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe

“Seventeen-year-old Cameron Martin has a huge problem: he’s aging a whole year of his life with each passing day. High school is hard enough; imagine rapidly aging from seventeen to seventy in a matter of weeks, with no logical explanation, and with prom, graduation, and the state championship basketball game on the horizon. That’s what happens to Cameron, a mischievous pretty boy who has never had to face a day looking anything but perfect.

It starts with a slowing metabolism, followed by gray hair, wrinkles, and a painful back. Within days his girlfriend dumps him, his plastic surgeon father forces him to get a facelift, and his terrifying high school develops a crush on him. All he wants to do is go back to normal, but no one, not even the best doctors, can diagnose his condition.

Now will he cope? Will he even survive? He’s faced with the greatest challenge of his life, and there’s no way of knowing if he’ll live to see graduation, or even the next day!”

Seventeen year old Cameron Martin is your typical popular high school guy; the great looking star athlete dating the hottest girl in school, Charisma, with the richest dad in Reno.  And like most guys his own age, he really wants to have sex with his girlfriend.  The thing is, Charisma won’t have sex with him until he becomes a man and by her definition, can grow a full beard.  Also much like other teenagers, Cameron likes to see how much he can get away with and does so by going to restaurants and telling them it’s his birthday so that he can get free dessert.  He would love it if his birthday really was every day.  Magically enough a week later Cameron wakes up to a full beard on his once baby smooth face but that’s not all he woke up to.  His beard was topped off with a inner tube of fat formed around his waist.  Something is seriously wrong, he is aging more rapidly that he should be and at this rate he might not make it to graduation.  Happy Birthday to Me is a interesting take on life’s hard lessons and morals and how we should all be careful what we wish for and how we treat other people.  If not karma might bite you in the ass.

I rate this book a:

Something I really like about the way this book is written is that the chapters go by Cameron’s age which works really well considering the content.  I also like that the story was pretty unique in itself and has a really good message behind it.  Even though Happy Birthday to Me is quite long at over 600 pages, the book really flies by and I had it read in only a few days.  I thought that the story was going to be more humorous but and although some parts were I found it to be a little on the sad side and felt really bad for the main character.

Brian Rowe studied English and Film at Loyola Marymount University.  His work has appeared in The Absent Willow Review, Mobius Magazine, and Wild Oat Magazine.  He likes works such as Fahrenheit 451 (no judgment).  He now lives in Cameron’s very own home town of Reno, Nevada.   To learn more about Brian, visit his Facebook.

Stay tuned next week for the sequel!!