Review: How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates by Shailee Thompson

Blurb from Goodreads:

A humorous, swoony, and downright terrifying horror romance in which a young woman gets caught in the middle of a murder spree at a speed-dating event and must use her encyclopedic knowledge of the horror genre to make it as a real-life Final Girl.

When Jamie Prescott and her best friend Laurie attend a speed-dating event, Jamie expects to meet a roster of mediocre men and indulge in some street food afterwards. She doesn’t expect one of her dates to have his throat slit at their table during a blackout. When the lights come back on and there are more bodies on the floor, it becomes clear that speed dating can be a very dangerous pastime.

Armed with makeshift weapons and Jamie’s extensive knowledge of what NOT to do in a horror movie, the remaining speed daters try to find an exit while the killer adds to their body count. As the night progresses and Jamie comes face-to-mask with the murderer, she begins to suspect he is committing the slayings to woo one of the daters and turn her into his real-life Final Girl. But Jamie has a different love story in mind, and as she fights for her life, she can’t help but find herself ensconced in a love triangle with two of the other speed-daters. Will she survive the bloodshed to find her happily ever after? Or does this machete-wielding psychopath have another Final Girl in mind?

For fans of Love in the Time of Serial Killers and Butcher & Blackbird, How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates is one killer love story.

My Review:

An adaptation of this book would be a KILLER movie! It's like a mash up of a rom com and horror flick and I loved it!  It was definitely spooky and leans a bit more horror than rom com for a good portion but both needs are fulfilled and it balances that line perfectly.  Give this a try!!

How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates comes out next week on February 3, 2026, and you can purchase HERE!  

If watching rom-coms has taught me anything, it's that you don't dim yourself for fear of shining too bright. You wear the dress, you sing out loud, you take the leap. And if watching slashers has taught me anything, it's that you take chances whenever you can. Run out the door, grab the knife, double tap the killer in the head with a sawed-off shotgun. That's why I do my makeup like a Hitchcock lead and pretend it wasn't a fluke when my hair falls over my shoulders in bouncy honey-blond curls after I release it from the clutches of the curling ribbon. Even if tonight is a bust, Laurie and I will walk off arm in arm in the direction of the nearest gyros purveyor, giggling like we're freshman in college again as we detail the highs and lows of our round-robin dating experience.