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13 on Halloween (Shadow #1)

by Laura A.H. Elliott (Goodreads Author)

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 56 ratings · 22 reviews

Roxie has the best night of her life until the popular kids decide they want to celebrate her birthday in a way Roxie never expects––in her attic, with a gift that’s out of this world, and a pact to never tell a living soul what happens next.

Twelve-year-old Roxie wants to be like Adrianne, the popular girl who gets everything she wants––a flock to prowl around the mall wit...more

Paperback, 206 pages

Published September 20th 2011 by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform (first published September 15th 2011)

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Oct 14, 2011 Abbi Glines rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

With a colorful vocabulary that includes peacocks, tarantulas, hamsters, and owls, Roxie is one of the most unique characters I’ve ever read in a book. Roxie wants to have a party for her thirteenth birthday. She feels like it is time she moves on up into the world of the Peacocks also known as the popular crowd. With her best friend’s help she manages to pull off the birthday party she has always wanted but her parents never let her have. What she hadn’t been banking on was that it was going to...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Sandra "Jeanz" rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is aimed at teenagers I would say and is about wanting to be in the "IN" crowd which in this book are called the "Peacocks" , the not so "IN" people are the "Dodo's".
The main character is Roxie and she is a dodo that wants desperately to be a Peacock. Peacocks are beautiful, peacocks have lots of friends and are really popular.
Roxie is also really into animals of all kinds and has posters all over her room of them rather than thr kind of posters the Peacocks would have on their walls....more

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Oct 31, 2011 Marie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review was originally posted on my blog, Ramblings of a Daydreamer. You can find it, and many more reviews over at the blog.

I don’t normally read middle-grade books, but when Laura sent me a request asking if I’d be interested in this book, as well as her YA book, Winnemucca, I said yes because it sounded like an interesting concept.

This book is hilarious. Roxie is definitely an interesting character. Like a lot of 12- and 13-year-olds, she’s worried about friends, boys, and popularity. In...more This review was originally posted on my blog, Ramblings of a Daydreamer. You can find it, and many more reviews over at the blog.

I don’t normally read middle-grade books, but when Laura sent me a request asking if I’d be interested in this book, as well as her YA book, Winnemucca, I said yes because it sounded like an interesting concept.

This book is hilarious. Roxie is definitely an interesting character. Like a lot of 12- and 13-year-olds, she’s worried about friends, boys, and popularity. In ‘Roxie Speak’, she’s a dodo, but she wants to be a peacock. She and her best friend Ally are unpopular, but Roxie invites all the popular kids – the peacocks – to her 13th birthday party, hoping to become popular. What she doesn’t bargain for is that the group of peacocks will use her to help them astral project to Planet Popular, an alternate universe where nothing is the same.

Intrigued by the prospect of transforming from a dodo to a peacock, Roxie returns on her own, despite the group’s warnings, but she learns that life as a peacock isn’t all she thought it would be. It’s not really any easier being popular than it is being invisible.

Roxie’s kind of all over the place – things are always reminding her of past occurrences, which she draws on to illustrate points for what she’s thinking/talking about. I’m not used to that in books, but then I realized ‘well, that’s probably how a lot of 13-year-olds think’. It was really amusing though, and often had me chuckling out loud or shaking my head.

My only issues with this book were the ‘Roxie Speak’, which I found distracting until I learned the lingo, because I felt like I was constantly flipping to the beginning to check for the ‘translation’. Overall, I think it worked, because it ties in so well with the book and the analogies work well, it’s just a bit confusing at first. Also, as an editor myself, I found a lot of errors that were kind of distracting, but that a regular reader probably wouldn’t pick up on.

I would definitely recommend this book if you’re interested in middle-grade or really young adult fiction, or if you have tween/young teen kids. It’s a fun, funny, totally out-there fantasy, but with a real story and a moral to that story.(less)

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Oct 20, 2012 T.R. Graves rated it 5 of 5 stars

Within the covers of 13 on Halloween (Shadow #1), the very talented Laura A.H. Elliott has brilliantly exemplified the narcissism and the varying levels of maturity that sometimes plagues tweens. Twelve year-old Roxie still loves jumping on the trampoline, but those types of juvenile tendencies take second place to her discovery of boys (especially Hayden, the cutest guy in the eighth grade), make-up, and the changes a young woman's body undergoes when she becomes a teenager.

Overshadowing absol...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Kate's Reads rated it 5 of 5 stars

The story revolves around Roxie who has entered middle school and is hoping to catapult herself into the popular crowd at school with a party for her thirteenth birthday, which falls on Halloween. A party her parents don't know she is having and wouldn't permit if they knew. She invites all of the popular kids that she admires and is thrilled when they all show up.

They give Roxie a unique gift which is literally out of this world. Laura has crafted an alternate reality which is both believable a...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars. 12 year Roxie wants to be in the popular crowd. She invites all the cool kids to her 13th birthday party. Strange things happen and her party, and Roxie begins to realize that being popular may not be all she thought it was.

My thoughts:

This book started a bit slow for me, but got quite interesting once it was Roxie's birthday. All of the characters were well-written, and easy to relate to. I found myself reliving some of my teenage angst.

Roxie was my favorite character. I liked her q...more

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Oct 28, 2011 Patti Larsen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Loved this book! Great for the 11-14 set, very true and almost uncomfortable in places because of that truth. I really felt for Roxie, the lead character. She has a very strong voice and a problem I have no problem connecting with--she wants to be popular. In fact, she'll do anything at all to be one of the 'peacocks', including risking everything she is in a strange place called Planet Popular.

The writing is strong, story engaging and the characters very lovable--even when you think maybe you s...more

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Apr 27, 2013 Liane rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

Obviously I'm no longer 13 so I don't quite have the same kind of patience for waffling as a 13-year-old might.

I lied, I didn't finish this book. In fact, I never made it past chapter 2. I'd lost interest as the author digressed from the main story with a lot of unrelated pieces of information. While I get that Roxie has a borderline obsessive fascination with Animal Planet, I was ready to go hunt down a peacock and set the thing on fire after she mentions the freaking bird for the umpteenth ti...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Catherine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book probably deserves another star, however because this rating system is asking me how much I liked the book, it gets 3.

I think there was a lot of creative, and mostly entertaining, use of language at the beginning of the book. It did get old for me really fast, but it got it's point across and it did make me pause and think. I didn't really like the main character, as she was stubborn, selfish, shallow, etc. Then I realized, that's pretty much pre-teen/teenage behavior and thought that t...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

I just finished reading Laura A.H. Elliott's first installment in The Shadow Series, 13 on Halloween, a YA fantasy novel. Roxie is the main character who turns 13 on Halloween. She manages to throw a birthday party for herself without her parents or nosy brothers finding out. Surprisingly, the most popular and coolest students at her school actually come to her party. They are the peacocks Roxie so desperately wants to be, not a dodo as she and her best friend, Ally, describe themselves. At the...more I just finished reading Laura A.H. Elliott's first installment in The Shadow Series, 13 on Halloween, a YA fantasy novel. Roxie is the main character who turns 13 on Halloween. She manages to throw a birthday party for herself without her parents or nosy brothers finding out. Surprisingly, the most popular and coolest students at her school actually come to her party. They are the peacocks Roxie so desperately wants to be, not a dodo as she and her best friend, Ally, describe themselves. At the party, in a secret seance-like "game," Roxie is transported to Planet Popular, where she turns into the person she has longed to be. All is not perfect, however, when another girl goes missing. Back at home, Roxie finds her long-time friendship with Ally is strained to the breaking point. Should she return to Planet Popular or try to mend her friendship?

I feel the book would be enjoyable to a YA audience. The teenage angst seemed never ending at some parts, but then teenage angst also does this in real life as well. Anyone who grew up outside the glowing circle of the popular crowd could pretty easily relate to Roxie's longings and struggles to justify her pursuit of this presumably perfect world. Ms. Elliott's portrayal of the friendship breakup was believably painful as all breakups in real life are.

If I had any criticisms of this book, it would be of the editing. I feel that a closer edit would have corrected the occasional misuse of a word or grammar. I understand how easily it is to overlook a misspelled word when editing one's own work. But, once these are pointed out, they need to be corrected. One nice thing about publishing one's own work, at least through Create Space, is that you can go back and make corrections. In reading the reviews for this book, it seems I'm not the only one to note this. Any obvious mistakes takes the reader out of the flow of the story, which is a shame with this book. The story is original and I was compelled to read through even the extra peek at the next installment of the series before moving on to my next book.

I do recommend 13 On Halloween for anyone interested in YA romance. The author's use of animal metaphors is fun and I found myself rooting for not only the main character, but also her best friend, Ally. (less)

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Dec 05, 2012 Reeses rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: recieved-for-review, ebooks

All Roxie wants in life is to be Adrianne a peacock at her middle school who seems to have it all; the friends, the great family, no annoying brothers and Hayden the most popular boy in school's attention. Finally deciding to take her looming high school fate into her own hands she throws a birthday party inviting all the peacocks. Surprisingly enough the show up and reveal a world that is revealed to every person at age 13. However, this world must be kept a secret no matter the cost.

After find...more All Roxie wants in life is to be Adrianne a peacock at her middle school who seems to have it all; the friends, the great family, no annoying brothers and Hayden the most popular boy in school's attention. Finally deciding to take her looming high school fate into her own hands she throws a birthday party inviting all the peacocks. Surprisingly enough the show up and reveal a world that is revealed to every person at age 13. However, this world must be kept a secret no matter the cost.

After finding out about how to get to this new world called Planet Popular by astral projection Roxie will do anything to go back no matter the risks. It is her firm belief that no one will miss her, and with that she can finally have the one thing she wants most of all, to become a peacock instead of a dodo. So one day she goes back to Planet Popular and lives out her days as she always wanted. She's popular, she's beautiful, her family isn't controlling and she has Hayden. Everything is perfect, until the moment she has to go back home and save the ones she loves.

Overall, 13 on Halloween was a decent book. I felt a tad old to be reading it but the story line was definitely interesting. Always leaving me guessing what was next. Roxie was a tad annoying to me for most of the book but she did have some good character growth throughout so that made her a tad more likeable at the end. I think I was probably just as annoying in middle school. Trying to find my place in school and wondering just where I would fit in. I think younger people would enjoy this book a lot for my middle school self related a lot.

Favorite Quote:
"See, nothing is perfect. Not even peacocks. Or teenagers. Or getting to that place your think is totally golden. I can’t do anything about growing up. But I can do a lot about what I really want. And I guess I just want to be me. With weird lucky outfits. And dodo tendencies. I mean I can’t bring Mitch back from the dead, but I can turn into my own kind of peacock to honor him. And what I realize about being a peacock is that it isn’t everything. The only thing that matters is what feels right––my friends, even if I don’t have very many of them. And staying away from as many star-nosed-mole moments as possible."(less)

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Dec 15, 2012 Cindy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-series, blog-tour, own, ebook, magic, book-reviewed

13 on Halloween starts off with a normal girl called Roxanne, who is turning 13 on Halloween. Roxanne has a best friend named Ally. Just a normal girl among the students of her middle school. Roxanne yearns to be a peacock, aka popular, so she sets up a birthday party at her house when her parents are out of town, and invites the popular kids.

That night, Roxanne learned another world called Planet Popular. Planet Popular is a place where every kid, when they are 13 visits, but some thinks it's...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Melissa Pearl rated it 3 of 5 stars

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 w...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Jeanne Whitehouse rated it 5 of 5 stars

I met Laura at the Asilomar 2012 Writers Conference and was instantly intrigued by her novel, "13 on Halloween." I read it and liked it so much I offered to record it on audiobook for her. I know the characters and story intimately and gladly recommend it for Tweens to Adults. Roxie, the protagonist is spunky and adventurous. It's the first novel in the series. Check out my review on book 2, "Shadow Slayer."

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Oct 03, 2012 Jen rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya, childrens, can-t-believe-i-bothered, dnf

Did not finish. This is a really young adult. The author has created her own lingo. For example, the evil popular girl "tarantulas" the heroine, who is too "porcupine," but wishes she could "dolphin." It was so very annoying it made the book impossible to read.

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Oct 06, 2012 Micheleann rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: laura-a-h-elliott

Roxie decides that she wants to have fun on her birthday and when the popular group comes to her house and celebrates in away roxie doesnt expect she has way to much fun and some how later on makes some chances that doesnt bode to well but it is her 13th birthday and she did want different but didnt expect this to happpen a great read for anyone i would recommend

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Oct 01, 2012 Eva rated it 3 of 5 stars

The ending kind of killed the rest of the book for me. It was going so well then everything sped up and years happened in mere sentences. It was definitely 4 stars, until the last chapter.

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Feb 01, 2013 Stacey Jaine rated it 2 of 5 stars

I just couldn't finish this book, and normally I like YA. Creating your own lingo really doesn't work at all well (in this instance) and was far too distracting.

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Dec 11, 2011 Bryna Butler rated it 5 of 5 stars

Expertly written from a quirky 13-yr-old pov. Roxie is written in a way that I think most people can relate to. Love how her thoughts run on and occasionally go wildly off track, makes it feel very real. This is a truly original story, not like anything I've read before.

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Dec 04, 2012 Christy (Love of Books) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-book, read-in-2012

Review to come

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Sep 25, 2012 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

good young adult book to read.

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Oct 11, 2012 Diana rated it 4 of 5 stars

interesting

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May 18, 2013 Michelle Hofacker marked it as to-read

Shelves: in-my-kindle

May 17, 2013 Sarah (TotalTeenFiction) marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: e-book, free-downloads, kindle, young-adult

May 08, 2013 Robin Graves marked it as to-read

May 07, 2013 Adriane marked it as to-read

May 07, 2013 Becci marked it as to-read

May 13, 2013 Kaila marked it as to-read

Apr 26, 2013 Sorcha O'Dowd marked it as to-read

Shelves: kindle-to-read, fantasy-paranormal-scifi

Apr 24, 2013 Jenny marked it as to-read · review of another edition

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About Laura A.H. Elliott

I love writing about enchanted road trips, shadow worlds, and alien romance while eating lots of popcorn. I live with my hubby and Oso, our aussie shepherd, in our tree house on the central California coast. After twenty-plus years as a freelance graphic designer/animator with clients including E! Entertainment Television and The Los Angeles Times, I crossed over into the world of publishing non-f...more

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13 on Halloween (Shadow #1)

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