There's No Way I'd Die First

August 1, 2023
A group of horror-loving teens are in for the thrill of their lives. Black 17-year-old Noelle Layne is a self-proclaimed Final Girl who feels she would easily survive if she were in a horror movie. To celebrate the first anniversary of Jump Scares, the online horror movie club she founded, she decides to host a party at her family's estate while her parents are away. She invites the 12 most influential people at her private school in hopes of boosting her follower count in preparation for launching her podcast. Noelle and her guests come from wealthy backgrounds, and she plans a luxurious party that includes extravagant decorations and catering. The hired entertainment consists of a creepy clown who leads them in a game of hide-and-seek. Things take a turn when the first body is found--one of the guests has been murdered--and the clown reveals his plan to take them all out. The teens must rely on their wits and skills to survive the clown's numerous traps and tricks. The book does an excellent job of building suspense at every turn; each chapter begins with a quote from a horror movie that gives a hint as to how events may unfold. The book goes beyond these scares to delve into deeper ideas around classism and racism as the night goes on and the teens' secrets get revealed. A page-turning, nail-biting story with some new twists. (character list) (Horror. 13-18)

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October 2, 2023
Springer dissects and reinvents classic horror tropes in this savvy debut thriller about a teen striving to survive a Halloween party gone wrong. After the unexpectedly viral popularity of her online movie club, Jump Scares, Black 17-year-old Noelle Layne throws a massive Halloween party. She invites a host of idiosyncratic classmates and fellow influencers to make the event as memorable as possible, including beautiful and enigmatic musician, Archer Mitchell. When a planned round of hide-and-seek with a clown Noelle hired for the event turns into a gruesome game of cat-and-mouse, she and her friends must call on their encyclopedic knowledge of slasher movies to make it out alive. Noelle and Archer’s romance occasionally feels stilted as Springer struggles to balance its quiet, tender moments with the breakneck pace of the action sequences. And while some conversations about the ins and outs of slasher cinema might be inside baseball to audiences outside of aficionados, the novel’s horror beats are splashy and viscerally effective, and character relationships elevate the stakes as the party twists and turns toward a bloody conclusion that is sure to satisfy genre fans and newcomers alike. Ages 14–up. Agent: Danielle Burby, Mad Woman Literary.

October 20, 2023
Grades 9-12 A group of ultra-wealthy teens gathered for an exclusive Halloween party are systematically hunted down and murdered by a clown in this horror debut. Noelle invites her most popular, rich, and influential classmates to her Halloween party, hoping their social media coverage of the event will attract followers to her horror-themed podcast and planned media empire. The creepy clown she hires for the event turns out to be more than she bargained for, as it proceeds to lock the teens in Noelle's gigantic home and murder them one by one. As the murders get more and more brutal and personal, Noelle uses her extensive knowledge of the horror genre to fight back. The many partygoers are dispatched with a long series of inventive kills, a format that will appeal to fans of the slasher genre. The killer's motivation for targeting diverse, wealthy teens is tied up in tensions of class, race, and privilege, and remains a little muddy, even after some direct exposition. Horror-movie fans will appreciate the film references and quotes peppered throughout the novel.

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December 8, 2023

Gr 10 Up-A gory, edge-of-your-seat, not-for-the-weak, slasher novel for teens. Noelle Layne is on the rise with her horror movie watch parties and social media presence. She's a champion for Black representation in scary movies and is hoping that hosting the hottest Halloween party yet will give her career enough traction and attention to launch her podcast. With a guest list of the "who's who" from her high school, she is ready to get on track to go to college to be a film critic. A carefully curated event in her vast home with her influencer friends, each with a different brand of expertise, starts to unravel when the scary clown Noelle hired murders one of her classmates. The jester is out for blood, yet none of the teens knows what his motives are. A high-speed night ensues where everyone is out to save themselves, especially Noelle, who has cracked the horror movie tropes and is doing everything she can to be the "final girl." This novel is peppered with pop culture references, and each chapter starts with a line from an iconic scary movie. Noelle unpacks a lot of social justice issues as she tries to save herself and her friends from the deranged attacker. An honest conversation on class, privilege, and fame, this book will appeal to both horror addicts and scaredy cats. VERDICT A solid purchase for high school libraries, especially those where true crime and thrillers circulate well.-Carol Youssif

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