Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe Review

Happy Birthday to Me by Brian Rowe
★★★★☆
Release Date: April 2011
Age: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance
Format: e-book
Source: Author
Buy it: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Book Depository

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...

I'm starting to really love reading books from the male perspective, this one was so much fun; in a John Green meets Alex Flinn kind of way. Brian Rowe creates a character, Cameron, that is so easy to hate. He's egotistical and kind of a mindless jock. From the very beginning I was rolling my eyes and wondering what I had started reading. After an unfortunate turn of events Brian Rowe turns this mess of a boy into a well developed character that I began cheering on and crying over. I cried a lot in the end of the book, well, through the whole book.

The premise is magical, figuratively and in all actuality. Cameron begins rapidly aging, each day is a year. What happens to Cameron is awful, but it's just what he needs to realize how precious life is and how much the people around us need to matter. It opens his eyes, and the Cameron we meet at the end of the book is so much more grounded than that pest of a teenager from the beginning. The book begins at the end and then goes back to the beginning, I probably just confused everyone but it will make sense when you read it (which you should). It's done very well, in a very believable way.

All of the characters, big and small, in the book are very important to the story. The way Brian Rowe builds on Cameron's character is my favorite part, to watch him grow is all the fun. My least favorite character is his flighty girlfriend Charisma (for obvious reasons) but I really detested her as well as Cameron's plastic surgeon father.

Brian is an excellent story teller, he had me hooked throughout the book, and I can't wait to finish this series.

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