The White Guy Dies First

Individual Story Ratings:
All Eyes on Me by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hedge by Kalynn Bayron: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Golden Dragon by Kendare Blake: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Best Served Cold by H.E Edgmon: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Protégé by Lamar Giles: ⭐️⭐️ Docile Girls by Chloe Gong: ⭐️⭐️ Gray Grove by Alexis Henderson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Everything's coming up Roses by Tiffany D. Jackson: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Heaven by Adiba Jaigirdar: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Break Through Our Skin by Naseem Jamba: DNF Wasps by Mark Oshiro: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Hell Is Other Demons by Karen Strong: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Road to Hell by Terry J. Benton-Walker: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The rating seems kind of low right? It's just the average of all 13 stories (2.9) + 0.5 for the collection concept!
I NEED Everything's Coming up Roses, and Heaven as a full story YESTERDAY!! I did enjoy the reading the different stories, some of them couldn't keep my interest, or was just hard for me to follow.

Thank you Tor Teen for sending me an ARC copy!  

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group. The opinions expressed are entirely my own. 

A YA horror anthology by BIPOC Authors and featuring BIPOC characters. Many, but not all, also have lgbtqia content. Like most anthologies, this one is a bit of a mixed bag, with some stories  working better for me than others. By order in the book:

“All Eyes on Me” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️. I wanted to love this one, but it didn't really work for me. 

“Hedge” -⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 - Creepy and effective. 

“The Golden Dragon” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Revenge with an unexpected twist. 

“Best Served Cold” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️. Equal parts scary and gross. Chef's kiss. 

“The Protege” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️. A magician's apprentice gets in over his head. Meh. 

“Docile Girls” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2. Possibly suffered a bit by coming after The Golden Dragon and covering similar themes. Solid, slasher based story. 

“Grey Grove” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Ghosthunter style podcasters explore a haunted mansion. Kinda predictable. 

“Everything's Coming up Roses” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2 - told by journal entries, it starts seeming fairly normal and gradually becomes more creepy. Really worked for me. 

“Heaven” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️. A post-apocalyptic tale about who the real monsters are. It went on a bit too long and didn't really land for me. 

“Break Through Our Skin” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 - A non-binary youth struggles with being accepted, encounters ancient powerful spirit. Features body horror (not my fave) and destruction. 

“Wasps” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - A girl taps into eldrich power to defend her home. 

“Hell Is Other Demons” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Demon summoning and ghostly possession. 

“The Road to Hell” - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2 - A haunted house story told from the POV of the house.