A great YA thriller. The Scream vibes were definitely there. Recommended to every reader who wants a book that's a twisted rollercoaster ride.

Joelle Wellington has firmly cemented herself as a YA powerhouse, with her sophomore novel The Blonde Dies First! A pitch perfect one-sitting read! Tongue in cheek horror tropes injected into a powerful depiction of family and friends that become family and the relationships that tie them together. I particularly love the relationship between Devon and Drew and how it develops through their miscommunication as siblings, and twins. A phenomenal friend group, fun villains, and just enough blood to keep you on your toes, this book is sure to delight horror fans and thriller fans alike.

This is a very good YA horror/thriller with fully developed characters and a compelling plot. I liked it enough that I immediately added Wellington's first book to my TBR upon finishing this one!

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for honest feedback. A fun YA horror, would rec to fans of horror movies

Joelle does it again! Although this is marked as a YA novel, as an adult, I loved it. It follows a diverse high school aged friend group through a summer in Brooklyn. The group has to contend with gentrification, respectability politics and a killer/demon hunting them à la Ghostface from Scream. Joelle both acknowledges the tropes that exist in the horror movie genre and subvert them. This book is hilarious and gripping. I cant wait to read whatever Joelle writes next!

This book was FUN. Honestly, this is the most fun I've had reading so far this year. It definitely had Scream vibes, but with a supernatural flair. I loved all the characters and the growth they had throughout the story. I loved the focus on twin sisterhood in particular, I thought it was done very thoughtfully. I had a roller-coaster of emotions reading this book, I was laughing, crying, and shaking in my boots (the night club scene!).

I loved Their Vicious Games, it was one of my top books of last year, and now with how much I loved this book, Joelle Wellington is now an auto-buy author for sure.

I am writing this review on Met Gala Monday and this book looked camp right in the eye, but actually served.

Thank you Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing and NetGalley for this ARC!

Moral of the story: don't wear finance bro vests, y'all.

This was such a fun read! Coming-of-age YA irreverent supernatural slasher horror comedy. This is the perfect summer release. The final scene had me DYING. It went from a fairly self-aware but straightforward horror into pure comedy.

The book follows standard slasher beats and mocks them, a lot like Scream (which it also references). We get a convenience store scene, stairwell scene, hospital scene, all well done horror. There's also fun stuff at the end of some of the chapters, like a Wikipedia article on a bad horror movie and a personality quiz.

I really enjoyed Their Vicious Games but kinda wished it were gayer (I wanted an Adina/Pen toxic romance and if that's wrong then I don't want to be right). We do get a cute sapphic romance here, but it's a healthy friends-to-lovers one, don't worry! Nothing like my Adina/Pen dashed hopes.

Even though I got what I wanted there, the relationship that really worked for me was the twin sisters: the MC Devon and her perfect sister Drew. I legitimately disliked Drew at the beginning and loved everything about Devon (her makeup, her bleached eyebrows, her bravery, just everything). But Drew ended up being a complex character and I empathized with her. This sister relationship hit me hard and was the emotional tent-pole of the book.

Characters:
Devon = 5 stars
Drew = 5 stars
Gael = 3.5 (some comic relief)
The others = regrettably rather flat. This book is like a horror parody and I get that the friends are tropes (that's literally part of the plot), but they're still not super fleshed out. I was happy about my sapphic romance, but Yaya might have been the most boring of the friend group for me

About the deaths in this book... Not that I felt bad about any of them, but our MC and her friends just like totally stood there and watched these people get murdered! "Oh well there's nothing we can do, let's just enjoy our front row seats to this guy's strangulation" UM... You could try to help? Or at least run?? I know Do Nothing is a default setting that characters have in horror movies (like Friday the 13th Part 2...or maybe 3...whichever one had the girl who cowered and watched her bf die), and this is a parody, but like... grow a conscience y'all!! I know these people were terrible human beings, but did they really deserve to be brutally murdered by a demon thing?? Well...maybe that creepy finance bro did.

✰✰✰✰ 1/2
This definitely solidified the fact that I will read anything Joelle Wellington writes.
I went into this expecting entertaining, cliched horror, and that's what I got! I would have liked more supernatural stuff, but that's fine. I also loved Devon's tight-knit friend group, and it was fun to see how they navigated their situation. I really wanted to know more about the others, but the character development was mostly focused on Devon + Drew (which was well done, that's why I want the same for everyone else). Overall, I really enjoyed the writing and dialogue.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.