There’s No Way I’d Die First

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. (Sept.)