Book Review - Happy Birthday To You

Title: Happy Birthday To You
Author: Brian Rowe
Series: Birthday Trilogy (book 3)
Publisher: Createspace
Release Date: 2nd December 2011
ASIN: B006HKI6NU

Synopsis
Newlyweds Cameron and Liesel Martin aren't able to celebrate their wedding bliss for long. Not only is Liesel unexpectedly pregnant... they're also facing the end of humanity!
Liesel's evil witch sister Hannah has cast a spell to make all humans on Earth age a whole year with every day. It's up to Cameron and Liesel to stop her... and save the world! Who will survive? And who will perish?
Here it is... the third and final epic chapter of the Birthday trilogy... Happy Birthday to You!


My Review
Ok, I was hesitant about the first book but found myself enjoying it. I liked book two even more and actually found myself looking forward to book three. I wondered where Rowe would go with this one after having the main character experience the effects of agin both ways, i thought what next?
Well this time Cameron and his new wife Liesel are the only ones not aging, instead everyone in the world is affected, babies, teens, oap's, rich, poor - Everyone! the pair have just three weeks until the youngest person will be too old and will die. In those three weeks they must track down Hannah - Liesel's evil witch sister who is causing the curse to happen.
After reading the blurb, I must admit i was intrigued, I wasn't expecting that and thought it sounded like it had great promise. 
It has been a couple of weeks since I finished book two as I haven't had much time to sit with my laptop and read it, but I started tonight and found the start very promising. I was immediately back into the world and fully involved with the story. Straight into the catastrophe and faced with the struggle ahead. Cameron and Liesel have no second thoughts, they rush straight in to fight Hannah and stop this dreadful curse. I thought, awesome, this is going to be good!
The scenes with Cam and Lies were great, the urgency, despair, love and trust they have in each was great to read, thier journey really swept me up. 
However every other chapter was from a different characters point of view, someone we had met in the previous books - like Cameron's Basketball Coach, Liesel's Grandad, Cameron's Ex, etc. This was our chance to see how the curse was affecting the rest of the world, but really it was a chance for the author to just wipe out any character you had ever met. Liesel's Grandad's death was fairly realistic and I was sad, the coach was slightly further out their but still realistic, but after that they just got more ridiculous - stepping in front of a fed-ex van and being thrown in the air, being stabbed in the head with a stiletto, angry cosmetic patients clawing hair, eyes, tongues and then intestines out of a character - not only was that gruesome to read but it was totally unrealistic. I know it was supposed to convey the panic taking over the world, but seriously? The more I read, the more I was stopping and actually saying out loud - "you have got to be kidding me?" or "really? like that?" It just seemed really ridiculous. The book became more of a joke - guess the silly death, instead of a serious situation. I don't know. Some people may think it was very dramatic and really works in, but for me it just missed the bar.
If I could read this book with just Cameron, Liesel, Hannah and maybe Kimber's point of view I would be happy. The other chapters spoilt it for me. 

However I must say, that the last 2 chapters really brought it back for me. They were moving and by the end I was fully crying. The ending is bittersweet but did touch my heart. I had a feeling something would happen like it did but not exactly that way and it moved me. The ending for me redeemed the whole book, it made me care about the characters again, if only for a while. 

If you have read and enjoyed the rest of the series then I would recommend finishing it, it does have great moments in. Glad I read it, and it is a quick read, I did it in 3 hours,  but I will admit I was disappointed.

My Rating