- May 26
- 5 min read
The Most Fun I’ve Had Reading in Ages
I knew within the first few pages that this book and I were about to become deeply, unhealthily attached to one another.
Not in the casual “oh this is fun” kind of way. I mean the cancel your evening plans, ignore your responsibilities, and aggressively recommend it to strangers before you’ve even finished chapter five kind of attachment.
Because How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is an absolute riot. It’s bloody, ridiculous, clever, genuinely tense, weirdly romantic, and so sharply self-aware that half the joy comes from watching Shailee Thompson play with genre conventions like a woman holding a flamethrower in a fireworks factory.
Jamie Prescott is a cinephile, horror obsessive, and rom-com devotee who attends a speed dating event expecting awkward guys and mediocre conversation. Instead, one of her dates gets his throat slit directly in front of her during a blackout and suddenly the entire night spirals into a locked-room slasher nightmare.
This isn't a romance awkwardly stapled onto a horror novel, nor is it horror with a vague flirtation subplot wandering around in the background pretending to matter. The two genres are fully intertwined. Every romantic beat heightens the danger, every death scene complicates the attraction, and every suspicious glance could either lead to kissing or murder.
Sometimes both. And Jamie is the perfect protagonist for this kind of story because she understands the language of slashers. She knows the rules, and knows what happens when people split up. She knows the outcomes if you trust the wrong person, ignore strange noises, or decide now is the perfect time to confess their feelings while standing in a dark hallway covered in blood.
Watching her desperately attempt to apply horror-film logic to real life is one of the funniest things I’ve read in ages, especially because the book never lets her become smug about it. Jamie may know the tropes, but survival is still messy, frightening, and emotional.
And this book is really, really funny! Not “TikTok marketed as funny” where one character says something mildly sarcastic every forty pages and everybody loses their minds. I mean genuinely funny. The kind of humour that sneaks up on you in the middle of tension and makes you bark out an ugly little laugh before the book immediately throws another body at you.
The film references are elite. The chapter epigraphs are hysterical. The pacing is completely unhinged, and once the killing spree starts, the book barrels forward like it’s being chased itself.
And then there’s the romance. I won’t spoil anything because discovering where the emotional chemistry lands is part of the fun, but what impressed me most is that Thompson somehow manages to create real romantic tension inside absolute chaos.
There’s suspicion tangled up with attraction, fear tangled up with desire, and the constant awareness that anybody could be the killer at any given moment.
Which honestly gives the entire romance an electric kind of instability that works so well.
But the relationship that truly owns the emotional centre of the novel is Jamie and Laurie’s friendship. Laurie is spectacular. Loyal, chaotic, funny, capable, emotionally intelligent, and the exact kind of best friend you want trapped beside you during a murder spree. Their dynamic gives the book heart underneath all the gore and genre chaos.
And speaking of the gore: yes, this book earns its slasher credentials. People die horribly.
The violence is vivid without becoming gratuitous, and Thompson clearly understands exactly what makes slasher films so addictive: anticipation, escalation, and that constant terrible question hovering over every interaction — who’s next?
But underneath all the blood and banter, what I really loved is how affectionate this novel feels toward both horror and romance as genres. There’s no cynicism here, or embarrassed distancing, or an attempt to elevate one genre above the other. The book genuinely loves, and it genuinely loves rom-coms. Because of that, it understands that both genres are built on vulnerability.
Both ask what happens when somebody opens the door, but one just happens to involve a knife more often than the other. I adored this book. Completely. It’s wildly entertaining, absurdly readable, sharply constructed, and bursting with personality from beginning to end. You can feel Shailee Thompson having the time of her life on every page, and that energy is infectious.
If somebody had handed this to me years ago and said, “Here’s a slasher rom-com about speed dating, serial killers, and accidental emotional intimacy,” I would have looked them dead in the eye and said, "no-one can write a book like that."
But someone did. And thank you.
Book Details
Title — Author How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates — Shailee Thompson
Paperback ISBN: 978-1761826788 (Simon & Schuster Australia edition; varies by region)
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1668206706 (Gallery Books US edition; varies by retailer and region)
eBook ISBN: 978-1761826795
Genre: Horror Romance, Romantic Comedy, Slasher Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Thriller, Adult Fiction
Subgenre: Slasher Rom-Com; Horror Comedy; Romantic Thriller; Meta Horror Fiction
Tropes / Literary Threads: Final girl heroine; speed dating gone wrong; locked-room horror; rom-com versus slasher dynamics; enemies-to-lovers undertones; suspicious love interest; forced proximity; serial killer mystery; horror movie references; cinematic self-awareness; morally ambiguous attraction; female friendship; survival horror; murder spree; red herrings; romance under pressure; group paranoia; found courage; chaotic bisexual energy undertones; dark humour; meta commentary on genre tropes; masked killer tension; emotionally intelligent heroine; suspiciously attractive strangers; survival rules; escalating body count; emotional vulnerability; fear versus desire; trust issues; black comedy; horror logic versus romance logic; witty banter; modern dating satire; women navigating danger; “who is the killer?” mystery; cinematic nostalgia; yearning amidst chaos
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Australia / Gallery Books
Series: Standalone
Formats Available: Paperback, Hardcover, eBook, Audiobook
Audiobook Narrators: Full cast and regional editions vary by distributor/platform
Release Date: 2025
Page Count: Approx. 400+ pages (varies slightly by edition)
Setting: A repurposed former nightclub during a speed-dating event; urban contemporary setting
Primary Setting Details: Multi-level nightclub maze; locked event venue; blackout-filled corridors; hidden stairwells; bar areas; abandoned club spaces; blood-soaked function rooms; emergency-lit hallways
Main Characters: Jamie Prescott; Laurie; multiple speed-dating participants and suspects; the Brooklyn Serial Killer
Content Warnings: Graphic violence; gore; murder; blood; panic and claustrophobia; stalking themes; emotional manipulation; explicit language; sexual content; references to toxic masculinity; violence against women; graphic injuries; death
Where to Buy (Australia): Available via Booktopia, K Mart Australia, QBD Books, independent Australian bookstores, and online retailers
Danielle Robinson is a literary critic and writer whose work explores literature through the lens of atmosphere, memory, culture, and emotional experience. Holding a double degree in philosophy and theology, she combines academic insight with a deeply refined aesthetic sensibility shaped by more than three decades working across the creative industries as an internationally published, multi-award-winning makeup artist, fashion stylist, and interior stager.
She reads widely and rigorously, reading and reviewing more than 200 books each year as both an ARC reader and commissioned critic. Through Silk & Sentences, Danielle approaches literature as something immersive and lived with — not simply stories to consume, but works that shape the way we think, feel, and move through the world.
She writes from her rural Queensland home, where she lives with Alex, her husband of 33 years, their dog Oscar, and an ever-growing library of books.
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