Happy Birthday To Me Review

Happy Birthday To Me
Brian Rowe

Publisher: CreateSpace
Release Date: April 11, 2011
Series: Birthday Trilogy
Genre: Young Adult
Pages: Paperback, 322 pages
Source: Author
Rating: 5/5 (Avg 3.5/5)

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 all on the horizon. That’s what happens to Cameron, a popular pretty boy who's never had to face a day looking anything but perfect.

All Cameron wants to do is go back to normal, but no one, not even the best doctors, can diagnose his condition. When he finds love with a mysterious young woman, however, he realizes his only hope for survival might be with the one person who started his condition in the first place...

This book has left me speechless for several days, and I hope that I am eloquent enough to pull off a review that does this book the justice that it deserves. Obviously, I think it's amazing. The premise is something that I haven't experienced in my history of reading, and this was one incredible story to introduce the concept to me. Unfortunately, now, they're may be too high of standards for any book to follow in Happy Birthday To Me's footsteps -- well, except maybe for the sequel. ;)

One of the biggest and most significant things to note about this book was character growth, especially with our main character Cameron. He started out as someone that wasn't exactly the greatest of characters to follow, but soon changed into someone wonderful. He went from jerk to a guy with a huge heart - really, I think it was one of the best things about the book. The love interest was interesting, something that I wasn't expecting but was kind of hoping for through most of the novel. There was no insta-love which, again, was a bonus. I think I had the hardest time with the people in Cameron's life, which were both family and friends. I don't know if I would classify them all as insensitive or uncaring.. or maybe both. I just didn't like the way they treated Cameron, but I'm glad that this didn't bring him down.

The storyline was simply remarkable with a perfect progression for the tone of the book and never left you hanging. The writing was impeccable and Brian Rowe did an incredible job portraying a teenager that had to deal with something that most teenagers would never have to experience along with having to go through everything that all teenagers have to deal with on top of it all. I hate to classify this book, so I'll just say this is one of those great Young Adult books that needs to be read by everyone.

The nightmare was real.

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