A review by jamiee_f
There's No Way I'd Die First by Lisa Springer

dark funny mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

This book was a fun mash up of horror movie and book tropes. This book leans in to the absurdity of the horror premise, with our main girl being a burgeoning podcast host who runs an online movie club, who is throwing a halloween party for the ages and inviting all the coolest kids in school. They show up on a rainy night, each one ticking a different horror and/or social justice trope. She's planned everything to a tee, down to hiring an IT like clown to play hide and seek at her parents' mansion. However, things don't quite go as planned when the clown immediately, actually kills someone. Uh oh! This could be a fun premise, it's loaded with pop culture references and felt very of the moment; it's clearly written by someone with a deep grasp of online culture.

That said, there were a lot of things about this book that disappointed me too.
The ending was such a flop, it felt like right wing propaganda about what they think leftists believe. The book touches on a lot of themes around privilege and intersectionality, and it's revealed one by one that the kids at this party have all done some bad shit. However, not all of them have done the same level of bad things. One ran a bitcoin scam, and our main protagonist bribed someone for a summer internship. 

I couldn't tell if our author wanted us to sympathize with the characters or hate them--some of them were clearly bad people, and some were more morally gray. There was a scene in the middle where our main girl and her love interest sort of confess their sins to each other and then comfort each other about how it's not really their fault? which felt....pointless and mad me like them less. Like, people are dying. Is now the time?

The big twist is that the killer clown is working with one of the partygoers, a rich white boy podcaster who has been cut off by his parents, so he's mad at his friends who are still rich and agreed to help this ANARCHIST CLOWN kill a bunch of rich kids. the murderer's motive is garbled and illogical, and seemed like a MAGA interpretation of how socialists think. The final show down was some clever thinking by our final girl, but they literally are fighting on a rooftop in the rain, and she's telling him to check his privilege. Come on!!!


Other things that bothered me about this book:
  • where the fuck did the pirahnnas come from
     
  •  
    why was the clown unkillable
     
  •  
    how did the clown have so much firepower and bombs
     
  •  
    the whole shitting in the birkin scene
     
  •  
    the way our main girl was so upset about the birkin
     
  •  
    why were some of the deaths unbelievably brutal, like the activist girl having to eat keyboard letters and glue, and some just like "bang your dead." deeply inconsistent!
     
  •  
    the poor neighbor dying for no reason
     
  •  
    the utter lack of meaningful motivation for the murders. Make him jealous or something!!
     
  •  
    a total disregard for how long things take, this whole book happens in the span of like 6 hours
     
  •  
    The main girl's hyperfocus on maintaining her alibi, which...okay yeah the cops are not likely to believe a Black girl, but there's also like 5+ other people who can verify your story? and you're rich AF?
     
  •  
    How the therapist tied into this at all? felt unnecessary
     
  •  
    originally I was willing to suspend disbelief about all these rich kids, but by the end I was over it, nothing made sense
     

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