"There’s No Way I’d Die First," by Lisa Springer

Think fast! There’s a killer clown chasing you down a hallway and you only have two seconds to choose between running into the bathroom or into the basement. This is similar to the thought process of Noelle Layne, on one fateful, terrible halloween. Noelle is the protagonist and narrator of There’s No Way I’d Die First by Lisa Springer, a horror thriller novel about how a Halloween party unintentionally turns into an absolute bloodbath. According to lisaspringerbooks.com, Lisa Springer is a writer from Barbados currently living in New York with her family. Springer highly enjoys writing horror fiction for young people. There’s No Way I’d Die First  was named a Kids Indie Next pick by the American Booksellers Association. “When not writing, she’s probably reading, dreaming about the beach, or plotting her next dark and twisty novel.”

The book starts off with a podcast episode; there’s dialogue between Noelle and one of her friends Josh. Josh has a very popular podcast called “A Lot to Unpack”, and throughout the book we see the podcast come into play more and more. Noelle explains her plan to host a halloween party with 12 of her high school’s most popular influencers. What she doesn’t tell however, is that her reason for this is to gain support from their social media posts to start a podcast of her own. Fast-forward to the party on Halloween day, and her plus her 12 guests are all having a great time. However, that all changes when the IT clown Noelle hired for spooky hide-and-seek shows up and kills one of the party guests. When everyone discovers what happened they all attempt to stay together and make it out of Noelle’s house alive, but the clown, Gage, has other plans. The main conflict in this book is subtly introduced as soon as Gage is. He creeps everyone at the party out, and is feared even before he starts his murderous agenda. Throughout the novel, we learn more and more about Gage, and his motives for doing what he is. As he becomes less of an anomaly though, he also holds less restraint, and loses his temper in ways that only ends badly for some of Noelle’s friends. In the end, they piece together who he really is, and exploit his weaknesses for a very satisfying outcome. At the start of the book Noelle is introduced (by herself) as no less than a horror movie final girl. She’s fully confident in her abilities to survive any slasher killer situation,  based on her extensive knowledge of the horror movie genre. On the other hand, other people aren’t as convinced; her party guests and Gage don’t fully take her seriously. When things start to heat up and become dangerous, she has to utilize those practiced skills, and show everyone she truly is “final girl material”. By the end, she’s definitely gained respect from everyone, both alive and dead.

Something I really like about There’s No Way I’d Die First is that the overall plot was really similar to the Scream franchise. I really like Scream and it feels like a horror movie classic, so the parallels between it and this book made the story feel more enjoyable. Something else was the little horror movie quotes in the beginning of every chapter. They were like a little preview before each part, and gave some foreshadowing as to what would happen. They were also fun to read. I think that if you’re a horror fan, this book is worth it to buy. It’s a good book for teenagers and adults to read, and didn’t bore me one second. However, if your someone who gets attached to characters easily, I would tread lightly, because you never know who’s getting killed next. This novel could also very well be a sort of guide to how to survive a situation like this. Though the chances are low, they are never zero, so it’s best to be prepared for the worst, just like Noelle.