Book Review - 13 on Halloween by Laura Elliot

Twelve-year-old Roxie wants to be like Adrianne, the peacock, who gets everything she wants––a trampoline, a flock to prowl around the mall with, and most especially invitations to parties, despite the fact that Adrianne tarantulas and hamsters and cats and owls her way to get it all. But everything changes when Roxie invites all the peacocks in the eighth grade to her birthday party on Halloween and they all come. And a boy, the boy, actually talks to Roxie. She has the best night of her life until the peacocks decide they want to celebrate her birthday in a way she never expects––in her attic, with a pact to swear to never tell a living soul what happens there. Roxie gets everything she’s always wanted, except her old life back.


First things first, I love the cover. There is something very beautiful about this girl's face and it made me want to read the book as soon as I saw it.

To be honest, I initially struggled to get into this story. The main character thinks of people as different types of animals. I'd never read anything like it, so it took me a while to get into Roxie's head. I soon got used to it and the story slowly took off. I'm really glad I persisted, because I had a lot of fun jumping into Roxie's parallel world. That's when things got really interesting!

There is a really good "lessoned learn" type moral running through the story and in the end, I loved Roxie's voice. Elliot captures the emotions of a 12-year-old girl brilliantly, touching on all those little things that are important to them.

If you're looking for a story that will take you on a whacky ride with a very likeable character, then you should check this book out.

3 stars from me :)

MP