Book Review
Title: There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer
Genre: Young Adult, Horror
Rating: 4 Stars
One thing I have to say before getting into my review properly is that young adult horror has really been stepping up its game lately. I’ve recently read entries like Five Survive, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder and Flight 171 which were all amazing reads for me and really took everything I loved about the horror genre and expanded on them. Compared to those There’s No Way I’d Die First is a wild ride and succeeded in doing for me what My Heart is a Chainsaw didn’t. At its heart this book was an homage to 80s and 90s horror which contain some of my all time favourites like Friday the 13th, A Nightmare of Elm Street and Sleepaway Camp and really dived deep into the roles of scream queen and final girl. This book definitely plays on its classic slasher vibes and that made it a fast paced read for me.
While maintaining the heart of the horror genre, There’s No Way I’d Die first also doesn’t skimp on the thriller elements as it focuses on the characters and there lives much like I Know What You Did Last Summer and Scream, where the horror hides in the background until it jumps out at you. Lisa Springer writes both amazing action sequences and compelling characters, while the main character is a person of colour this has nothing to do with the motivations for the killings which was quite refreshing. Springer really started hard out of the gates bringing the action in very early in the book and didn’t let up until the very end.
Spinger also isn’t afraid to get more graphic in places which I really appreciated as an older reader, since most young adult horror tends to utilize the fade to black method which can be good in some cases but often destroyed the tension that has been built up in previous scenes. The main antagonist really goes all out in their mission and while some of these kills are graphic, some are funny in a Scary Movie kind of way and the killer is very reminiscent of Ghostface, so they’re pretty funny sometimes and truly despicable other times.
While there are a lot of elements that I really enjoyed in the book, there are some that I didn’t like. The biggest issue I had was that the romance felt very unnecessary for me, in some books like There’s Someone Inside Your House, the romance was tied in with the fact that the main character thought her potential love interest might actually be the killer, but here it was distracting. Springer also could have gone harder with the final twist as it felt a bit lacking considering the amount of buildup and tension we had prior.
I wasn’t all that surprised when we found out who the killer was and their motivations and, while it did make sense, I just wanted more of that shock. There were also a lot of moments where I was confused where we were exactly in the mansion and I felt that a better understanding of the setting or a map would’ve been nice. Overall, I love horror and thrillers so much, but this one wasn’t entirely for me. However, I think this is just a matter of personal taste. I think it’s great for spooky season reading, so a lot of people should pick it up especially if you love slashers.
Buy it here: Amazon Barnes & Noble IndieBound
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