After I read The Black Girl Survives in This One, I thought it was fitting to read this next. And I highly recommend both books!

It is so important to have diversity in all genres and horror is no exception, especially since so often, non-white characters are the first to be killed off or only used to further a white character's story. Each story was a unique kind of horror and it was cool to see stereotypes or racism were weaponized to aid our protagonists.

More than once, I had to stop reading at night because it was doing a very good job scaring me and needed the safety of daylight.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

As with any horror anthology, there were some hits and misses. 11/13 stories were bangers. Two weren't bad, just not the things I personally like in horror. Overall really enjoyed it :)

I am so thankful to have gotten the audio ARC for free from Netgalley and Macmillan Audio so I can leave my voluntary and honest review.

I’ll start by saying that I am NOT the target audience as horror isn’t my favorite genre but even with that on the whole this was fantastic!

They were very creative short stories which were also very inclusive written by BIPOC authors.

I loved the narration which was done by a multicultural cast of readers. Each one fit the story very well. One thing I would have liked is for the chapters in the audio version to be labeled with the title of the short story that it was. Just making it organized a bit better so I could easy go back to a story. Maybe that will be the case for the final version?

I will say that some of the stories are incredibly graphic so if you are squeamish this is not the book for you! But if you like the gory descriptions they are done in the best ways. The editing of the collection has them flowing very well together.

The only story I wasn’t really a fan of was The Protege . It was a bit meandering and has the feel that it was over edited where something was edited out making it confusing as a cohesive story. This is what brought me to a 4 ⭐️ rating and not 5 Stars which many of the stories absolutely were!

My rating system since GoodReads doesn’t have partial stars and I rarely round up.

⭐️ Hated it
⭐️⭐️ Had a lot of trouble, prose issues, really not my cup of tea (potentially DNF’d or thought about it)
⭐️⭐️⭐️ Meh, it was an ok read but nothing special
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Really enjoyed it! Would recommend to others
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Outstanding! Will circle back and read again

First off, many thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this book as an audio ARC! I greatly appreciate it!

That was fun! I love anthologies so much, and the fact that all these authors are POC is really cool! Most of these stories were really good, though there were a few that were just meh, which I will leave unnamed. I liked Best Served Cold and Everything's Coming Up Roses, and Hedge was my favorite. I had literal goosebumps at the end!

Four stars out of five for The White Guy Dies First!

This collection of horror stories is a must read - even for scaredy cats like me! Every story is so unique and different, and is scary in a different way. In particular - I was FREAKED OUT by the Home Depot Story and the one that starts at the Pow Wow - holy moly. For me, this was a 'read in the daytime' kind of book!

I was so grateful to receive an audio ARC of The White Guy Dies First from NetGalley and MacMillain Audio. If you think this isn't going to be scary enough for you, listen to the audiobook, because it took the scare factor up at least two notches! The narration was phenomenally well done.

13 short stories. 13 different writers. 13 (+) times the white guy dies.
Overall – I gave the compilation 4 stars, but some are better than others.
See Below:
All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé - 4 Stars
Clowns. Mirror fun house. Crappy boyfriend.
Hedge by Kalynn Bayron - 2 Stars
Missing people, but only skin is found.
The Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake - 5 Stars
Protective sister, bad things happen at a Japanese Garden.
Best Served Cold by HE Edgmon - 5 Stars
Native cannibalism.
The Protege by Lamar Giles - 2 Stars
Weird magician.
Docile Girls by Chloe Gong - 3 Stars
Gym lock in, very 80’s slasher.
Gray Grove by Alexis Henderson - 3 Stars
Slave plantations.
Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D Jackson -5 Stars (HOLY CRAP THIS WAS AMAZING)
A girl journals her day to day. Absolute insanity.
Heaven by Adiba Jaigirdar - DNF
Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamnia - DNF
Wasps by Mark Oshiro - 3 Stars
Neighborhood gentrification.
Hell is Other Demons by Karen Strong - 3 Stars
Demons.
The Road to Hell by Terry J Benton-Walker - 3 Stars
Florida Swamps.

Absolutely slapped.

I usually expect to not love every story in an anthology but this one daaaang. It was so good. I loved all the stories. I liked knowing the premise of who was gonna get it first with the title and they all deserved it. The stories ranged from a little creepy to super gorey, the mix of settings and range of horror was really well thought out and the placement of the stories worked.
I didn’t want to stop after each story.
Excellent read.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tor publishing for an eARC and Macmillan audio for an alc (all the narrators were very good)

Synopsis: Killer clowns, a hungry hedge maze, and rich kids who got bored. Friendly cannibals, impossible slashers, and the dead who don’t stay dead....

A museum curator who despises “diasporic inaccuracies.” A sweet girl and her diary of happy thoughts. An old house that just wants friends forever....

These stories are filled with ancient terrors and modern villains, but go ahead, go into the basement, step onto the old plantation, and open the magician’s mystery box because this time, the white guy dies first.

Edited by Terry J. Benton-Walker, including stories from bestselling, award-winning, and up-and-coming contributors: Adiba Jaigirdar, Alexis Henderson, Chloe Gong, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, H. E. Edgmon, Kalynn Bayron, Karen Strong, Kendare Blake, Lamar Giles, Mark Oshiro, Naseem Jamnia, Tiffany D. Jackson, and Terry J. Benton-Walker.

Review: I absolutely loved this. I thought all thirteen stories were incredibly compelling and I listened to it in one go. I highly recommend this. This is short story horror at its best.

5 stars

This collection of 13 short stories by 13 authors - many of whom are superstars in the wonderful world of YA - is such a blast to enjoy. My top rec? Listen to the audio version when and where accessible for maximum enjoyment.

Hey, you. We all know it's common in a collection like this to have favorites, some that fall in the middle, and others, but I'm happy to report that while I definitely have my favorites (the start of this paragraph includes a BIG HINT about *the* favorite...IYKYK), I really enjoyed the whole group overall.

I'll be recommending this one to my students not only because it's a fun read in general but because the YA short stories are always a hit, and we definitely need more of them - and of collections like this - to enjoy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for providing me with an audiobook ARC of The White Guy Dies First!

How fun! This collection of stories was so engaging, I read it (or, listened, rather,) in one sitting. Each story was uniquely creepy and invigorating in its own right, and all the stories really fit together as one collection. Each author's voice was prevalent, but they all flowed together quite concisely. The narration in this audiobook was really great. I absolutely loved the full cast of narrators, and how each different narrator really uplifted the authors' words in their own way. Listening to this felt like watching an awesome TV series or movie. The collection was very digestible in terms of bringing to light really important social issues like racism, xenophobia, stereotypes etc. I really appreciate everything that was said through the genre of horror (horror that wasn't disgusting or depraved - horror that was accessible!) I definitely recommend the audiobook version, I think it's super fun, entertaining and really amplifies the stories in and of themselves. Overall a wonderful collection and a job well done!

The rough thing about reading anthologies is that you are basically setting yourself up to get a mix of “meh” stories and stories you actually enjoy, and this one was exactly that, though I definitely enjoyed more stories than I disliked. None of the stories in this collection were bad - they were all very well written, and the ones I ended up not enjoying were all mostly new authors to me and I am very willing to check out their other works now, it just happens that these particular stories of theirs failed to fully capture my attention.

There were a few standout stories to me that make me want to recommend this anthology to everyone - The Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake being the first one. It’s a badass revenge story that had me cheering with every death, and if you read it I’m sure you’ll be right there with me. I also really enjoyed Best Served Cold by HE Edgmon and All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé - both of these authors were new to me with this collection and I am very excited to see what else they have. If you only read one story in this anthology though, please let it be Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D Jackson - I’m gonna have a hard time moving on from that one.

All in all, this anthology has something for everybody, and I’m sure there will be people that like the stories I didn’t and don't care much about the stories I did. Anthologies might be hard to recommend as a whole, but they are a great way to discover new authors, and if there are a few names you don’t recognize on this list I highly suggest you pick this one up.

I used the following ratings to get my average:

All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé - 4 Stars
Hedge by Kalynn Bayron - 2 Stars
The Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake - 5 Stars
Best Served Cold by HE Edgmon - 4 Stars
The Protege by Lamar Giles - 3 Stars
Docile Girls by Chloe Gong - 3 Stars
Gray Grove by Alexis Henderson - 5 Stars
Everything’s Coming Up Roses by Tiffany D Jackson - ATF (6 Stars)
Heaven by Adiba Jaigirdar - 5 Stars
Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamnia - 4 Stars
Wasps by Mark Oshiro - 2 Stars
Hell is Other Demons by Karen Strong - 2 Stars
The Road to Hell by Terry J Benton-Walker - 3 Stars

An impressive variation of authors and styles! Each story is unique, with some featuring clown costumes and carnivals, and others dealing with racism and sexual assault. The choice of using different audiobook narrators additionally helps with distinguishing each story, and allows for each to stand out. I particularly enjoyed H.E. Edgmon's story, and the title story. Recommended for high school classroom libraries and public libraries!