WTF?!! This was an insanely amazing horror story! It was written in the form of those old ‘ choose your own adventure’ books. If you chose wrong you were able to go back to the last decision you made. It was based as a reality show that felt like a Saw movie! All the gore! So entertaining!!!!

4 🌟 Engaging and nostalgic. This adult version of a choose-your-own-adventure book proved to be a fun experience. It was a tense journey filled with interesting choices, reigniting the love I had for this genre as a child. Mind you, this interactive adventure is definitely not for kids since there are plenty of gruesome bits!

Have you ever wanted to play the game of life and death? Well, step right up! Young film student Jeremy gets invited to play on a new twist on the reality TV genre where contestants line up to enter the haunted house once owned by a prolific serial killer who is not too fond of the living. The game is simple, find his possessions and escape the house. That is unless…you’re scared of spiders.

Naturally, this gave me the absolute pleasure of being taken back to reading Goosebumps growing up. I loved the choose-your-own adventure element of this book, it was like Goosebumps meets Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. Getting to decide what paths to take, who to save, and who to believe made this such a fun read. The idea behind the show just got me thinking about it for days after - I would ABSOLUTELY watch this kind of show (without the death, of course).

Honestly, my only critique of this is I wish it was longer! I could sit all day going own all the different paths. It kept me on my toes, needing to read every different outcome to the ultimate ending. I think books like this have to make a comeback, it makes reading fun! (not that it isn’t always, but its extra fun).

Remember those 'choose your own adventure' books when you were a kid? When after reading a passage of a book, you would get 2 options of where to go next? Well, welcome to the future with this interactive horror for your Kindle!

Jeremy is one of four contestants choosing to test play a new reality show set in a famous haunted house. The task is to find 3 of the evil dead owners' belongings to break his amulet and win the game. But of course, it's bever straightforward. All the players have to face their biggest fears and use their wit to succeed.

This is a FUN read! I loved it and died 7 times🤣 if you want something a bit different to read, then I highly recommend this book!

Wow! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I haven't read a CYOA (choose your own adventure) book since elementary school, so I was thrilled to review an ARC of this interactive adventure book by Jon Cohn! I haven't read the original Slashtag book and I was initially a little concerned that I'd be missing vital information, but "Try Not To Die On Shashtag" can absolutely be read as a standalone book.

I am a huge fan of escape rooms, and this gave me all the escape room vibes with a horror story backdrop! I love reading the different outcomes so much that I found myself trying to choose the "wrong" option so I could see what happened, and then go back and choose the correct one.
I want to say more, but I don't want to give away spoilers, I definitely recommend going into this one without spoilers or hints.

I am absolutely going to check out the original Slashtag book, Jon Cohn's other books, and more CYOA/ interactive books in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley and Vincere Press for the opportunity to read an ARC of this book!

What a cool book this was!!!

I loved the way you almost built your own story, using the prompts to make decisions, not knowing what the outcome would be and sometimes dying as a result of your choice.

Plus, the story line was excellent too, I thought the idea of it being a reality TV show was really clever and added an extra layer to the story.

Even though the book was first person and we were looking at it through Jeremy's eyes it still felt easy to see yourself in each scenario and it actually made me feel a little on edge!

The whole thing was just so bloody good, 10/10 would recommend and probably read again🫡

Although I appreciate the story, I wasn't too crazy about the format. It was a bit exhausting to read and go through the story only to realize that I choose the wrong path and have to read the other option anyway. I think it would have been more engaging if the different options leads to different paths and versions of the story. It didn't feel much like a choose your own adventure when there is really only one storyline that you can actually read, since all the "wrong" choice just lead you back to the same path that you would have gone down had you chosen the correct answer. I did find the story pretty interesting and would look into reading the regular novel of SlashTag.

Wow! That was great! I've never read/played an interactive book before, so this was an amazing first experience. I loved the escape room setting and the backstory of the villain.

I really like the idea and the way choices were presented. It wasn't obvious what the right options were all the time, and I made a few mistakes along the way. I do wish we got a proper explanation for how they managed to do all the ghost stuff and how they knew the fears of the characters. I'm hoping for a sequel to wrap up the loose ends and also because it's such an exciting book. I do wonder how this works out in a physical book. Are there page numbers that indicate which part to turn to based on choice, or is it a continuous thing?

Overall, it was a really good book, and I had a great time. I would recommend it to anyone looking for a fun reading experience.

I've read a few CYOA horror books at this point but nothing has been as thorough as this.
This have made me VERY interested in Jon Cohn going forward. You actually want to die because the kills are so bloody. Poor Jeremy. I have never been so afraid of a chandelier until reading this story.
At the end of the book, it mentioned the author was creating a horror game called ' Grind House' and that will be my next purchase.

This was such a fun book! A grownup choose your own adventure, perfect for horror fans. I “died” twice and I loved how I could easily undo it and see what the correct outcome was supposed to be. Also, don’t worry if you haven’t read Slashtag yet! This book is labeled as a prequel and all the backstory you need is explained. I’ll recommend this to my horror-loving friends! Thanks so much for the opportunity to read!

Try Not to Die: On Slashtag was my first ever read of Jon Cohn, but I can guarantee that it will not be the last. This was such a fun read. There were incredible elements of horror, suspense and adventure. It captures your attention from the start and doesn't let go. There were times I was reading at night, dead exhausted and kept thinking: "Just a little farther. To the next choice." Like I said, it was so much fun. I haven't read a choose your own path book in ages, not since reading Goosebumps. With that being said, this doesn't necessarily feel like Goosebumps. It felt like reading a full horror novel that you got to take part in. I'd equate it like this: it was like reading an adult Goosebumps mixed with an escape room. I've already bought Slashtag this was so good.

This is my first time in the Try Not to Die or the Slashtag universe, and let me say this book is a great introduction to both! If you are concerned about not reading Slashtag before this book, let me quiet your concern. There was no need. And in fact after reading this interactive (or choose your own adventure) story on the same setting for Slashtag I am even more interested!

I have not read an interactive story in many years (at least 15) and I must say they are just as fun as you remember. Jon Cohn did a great job keeping me guessing on the direction of the story and I will admit it is challenging trying not to die! I recommend coming into this story completely blind and experiencing it in one sitting. There is also a handy survivor section that takes you through the whole story without going down the wrong path if that interests you. If you are a fan of slasher movies, horror video games (especially The Quarry and similar) then you are really gonna dig this book!

This review will be hosted on my podcast The Books and the Bees podcast Episode 14 (release date 4/24/24). Listen to me talk about it in more detail there!

I had a great time reading this interactive horror book. And let me just tell you it has been cemented in stone that I would not have survived this situation our characters found themselves in as not only did I die in the first chapter, but it was also followed by a LOT of poor decisions on my part that lead to me dying over and over again. Only occasionally interspersed with making the right decision and moving forward within the story.
Beyond the fun of the interactive story which has made me want to track down others like it and see if I can find my old Goosebump choose your own adventure books, I thought this book was appropriately creepy. Being set in an old abandoned mining town where the ghost of a notorious serial killer made his home experimenting on his unsuspecting victims. I liked our main character Jeremy and although I led him into some hairy situations, some of which he made it out of alive, he showed himself to be smart, and empathetic towards his fellow contestants.

I will absolutely be checking out Jon Cohn's other books especially Slashtag, which is the book set after the events of this one.

I love this style where you as the reader decide the paths. This brings back my love of R.L Stine Goosebumps “Give yourself Goosebumps”. The story was interesting and had a lot of decisions. However, I did not like that there was simply one path regardless of the options there were not other methods to leave. Your decision either resulted in death or success. I would have loved if there were at least 2 paths of surviving so it would be a bit more interactive in that sense. It was enjoyable and I will recommend it to the adults in the book club program.

I devoured Goosebumps books when I was a kid, and always had a special love for the choose your own ending variations, so Try Not to Die on Slashtag was a deliriously nostalgic, if significantly gorier experience. I enjoyed the book immensely, and did indeed die a lot. As in I think I managed to choose the wrong choice every single time (I'll admit some of it was on purpose). The deaths are pretty imaginative and varied enough to not get tedious, and they manage to stay on the right side of disgusting and disturbing.

The one fault I had was that I wish there was a bit more of it - not more deaths, we definitely have enough of that. But I would have loved a bit more variation in actual story. Paths that are eventually not the right choice, but that go more than one node off the main path. If I'm not mistaken, I believe basically every wrong choice results in instant death, and it would have been nice to feel a bit freer in actually choosing your own story, instead of essentially reading the one story with frequent but short detours into different death scenarios. I do understand there are fairly significant technical obstacles to that, especially with an e-book where flipping back and forth is harder, and that making more headway into a wrong choice before finding out that you're doing so might be prohibitively frustrating for some readers, but it would have enhanced the feeling of being in control of the story significantly.

This book was fun it reminded me of the “choose your own adventure” books I read in middle school but for an adult. I will definitely read more in the series.

this was really cool! even though i chose the wrong option 99% of the time, i had a lot of fun going through the different scenarios! the reason i’m rating this 3 stars is that i wasn’t really attached to the plot or characters in any way and it was a surface level “activity” sort of book for me.

Arc was kindly sent to me by NetGalley.

This was absolutely a 4 star read for me!

Try not to die on Slashtag is an interactive book, kind of like the choose your own adventures we read as kids. Think goosebumps on steroids.

Jeremy and three others were chosen to be a play tester for a reality game show, but is it just a game?

Choose your answers carefully, the one you pick might just be your last.

This was my first Try Not to Die experience. I am a really indecisive person, so I struggled with this aspect at first, but I began to enjoy it more as I went through the book and found myself hoping to pick the wrong choice so I could read all the different ways the main character could die. I didn't want to miss any of the death scenes! If you previously read and enjoyed Slashtag, I think you will enjoy this prequel just as much. I personally didn't love either. Jon is a talented writer with lot of potential. His novel Everything is Temporary was one of my favorite reads last year, so I will continue to follow his career and be sure to check out his future publications. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC to review!

I’m not sure what I was really expecting when I downloaded this book but I really enjoyed it. I haven’t done a choose your own outcome book since I was a kid and I loved this adult version and reading it on the kindle was even better! I lost count of the amount of times I died 😂😂 a fun, quick read! Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC.