The White Guy Dies First: 13 Scary Stories of Fear and Power is a compelling, welcome addition to the horror genre that centers teen protagonists of color. "Every story in this collection," editor Terry J. Benton-Walker states, "has a greater purpose beyond frightening you."
Benton-Walker and 12 other talented BIPOC authors collaborated on 13 artful short stories that create a common thread. Each is inspired by a fictional filmmaker's disappearance, the 13 unseen horror films he left behind, and the 13 white male movie stars who vanished "in a poof of privilege."
In Kalynn Bayron's grim "Hedge," a group of boys ventures into a dangerous garden maze while a vicious killer is on the hunt; Chloe Gong paints a stark tale of a girl who reluctantly joins her peers to decorate the gym for the school dance in "Docile Girls"; and a trans, nonbinary student studies an ancient Iranian skeleton in Naseem Jamnia's haunting "Break Through Our Skin." The characters harness their agency in often unpredictable ways that will likely leave readers shocked, despite the cheeky spoiler in the book's title.
This YA collection transcends typical horror expectations and is unapologetically terrifying in both direct and insidious ways. --Kieran Slattery, freelance reviewer, teacher, co-creator of Gender Inclusive Classrooms