Review by justinekorson - The White Guy Dies First

justinekorson 's review for:

The White Guy Dies First by Terry J. Benton-Walker

5.0

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an ARC of this story.

SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

As with all of the anthologies I read, I’m going to talk about the book as a whole as well as the individual stories. Let’s start with the whole book. The way this story started was very interesting! I really enjoyed how it was this blog this teenage was writing about horror films. I think the stories in this collection are meant to be the “short stories” that the fictional interns of Jakobi wrote and not the plots of the movies mentioned in the story. Or maybe I have it wrong and these are the plots of the movies found in the fictional Studio 13. Either way it was such a fun concept and really got me in the mood to read the 13 stories collected here. The epilogue attempts to wrangle everything back together to explain what happened to Jakobi but I don’t think an explanation was really necessary and I didn’t really care for it.

1.All Eyes On Me: I didn’t like this one. I didn’t think it was scary or even that good unfortunately.

2.Hedge: One of my worst fears (which is pretty unwarranted) is being turned into something against my will. Maybe it be foliage or a monster or an animal I have this irrational fear of being trapped in a different form and this captures that fear. If you’re not afraid of that kind of thing, then this probably won’t scare you. I didn’t even think I’d like it or find it particularly scary until the end.

3.The Golden Dragon: The twist of the ghost possession at the end was *chefs kisses*. I love when girls get their revenge. Sophie and Summer were great characters and I really appreciated their story.

4.Best Served Cold: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK. WTF WTF WTF. Indigenous Creature stories are HORRIFYING. Which I knew BUT WAS NOT PREPARED TO READ IT IN THIS HORRIBLE WAY. THIS WHOLE STORY WAS HORRIFYING. I ALMOST DIDN’T WANT TO KEEP READING IT BUT IT WAS SO GOOD THAT I HAD TOO. LITERALLY WTF. I SHOULDN’T HAVE READ THIS ONE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT.

5.The Protégé: I wouldn’t really call this a horror story. It did have some pretty horrifying deaths but it felt more speculative or fantasy than horror. It just had the gory elements of horror without the actual scare factor of horror if that makes sense. I was also a little sad when I finished this story. I felt really bad for Troy and what happened to him.

6.Docile Girls: This was… interesting. I really wanted Devon to survive because he seemed pretty decent so I was upset when he didn’t. I know horror isn’t meant to be realistic but I know that these girls will ACTUALLY be caught for the things they’ve done. There’s gonna be so much evidence pointing to the fact that they took part in the killings so that really makes the story loose some of it’s luster.

7.Gray Grove: Not really scary but I always love a bog monster/demon.

8.Everything’s Coming Up Roses: I really liked this one actually! The format of journal entries was a nice way to pace the story. I also enjoyed how Lessa’s voice really came through. This is one of the better stories here!

9.Heaven: This wasn’t a horror story. It felt more sci-fi than anything. I wouldn’t even say there were horror elements to it. Despite that, I still enjoyed this. It made me want to read more so I think that’s overall what makes a story really good.

10.Break Through Our Skin: Thus was both equal parts terrifying and sweet. Terrifying because what even happened to them in that museum??? And sweet because their parents accept them and I love that!!!

11.Wasps: I enjoyed this even though I’ve always hated haunted houses. This was fun because I love when girls do scary things to get what they want.

12.Hell Is Other Demons: This was fun and not really that scary!! I enjoyed (again) how girls come back and do scary things!!! This almost sounds like it could be the premise to a book series or a TV show.

13.The Road to Hell: This one was fun because it was from the haunted houses POV of what’s happening. It talks about loving (or trying to love) the people who come to renovate it by keeping all the ghosts away from them. But then becoming enraged when the house tries to “Help” them. It was a fun way to structure a horror story. I could see this being a full length movie of one kind.

Content Warnings