Teens and slashers are the peanut butter and jelly of the horror genre. Though it’s terrible to hear about real life teen murders, horror fans relish in watching young adults get picked off one by one in fictional circumstances.
Slashers were my gateway into the horror movie genre. So, this Halloween, it felt fitting to return to my roots and read a slasher story. I found This is Where We Die on an endcap at Walmart, and its premise was exactly what I was looking for. Below is my review of This is Where We Die by Cindy R.X. He.
This is Where We Die plot summary
To celebrate their high school graduation, six friends decide to rent a luxurious house on a private island for 20 of their fellow classmates. Two years earlier, this same group had survived for weeks trapped in a small hut in the mountain after an avalanche disrupted their heliskiing trip, and two of their friends didn’t make it home.
The surviving members of the group had drifted apart after their rescue. However, they agree to get together for one final blowout, especially once they can convince their rich friend in the group to pay for it.
When the helicopter drops the group off early, it’s with the understanding that speedboats will be bringing the rest of the guests the following day. From the moment they land, though, things seem to be off. The staff that was promised with the rental are nowhere to be found, and the Wi-Fi is out.
Then, members of the group begin to die one by one. After each death, an unknown figure crosses out one of the eight figures seen standing in a snow on a photo that hangs on the wall with a large red X. The following day, the speedboats don’t arrive as planned, and the group realizes that they are stranded until the helicopter’s scheduled date to return. They fear that the killer is hiding out on the island waiting to strike again, or even worse, that the killer is staring them in the face.
The story
This is Where We Die blends a multitude of tropes from popular teen stories such as the friends group being taken out by a mysterious figure in I Know What You Did Last Summer, the unreliability of the characters as told in The Faculty, and the mental scars carried by surviving in the wilderness in Yellow Jackets. Each chapter is told from a different character’s point of view, sometimes right up until their moment of death. As they navigate the situation, their pasts, their clashing egos, and their suspicions catch up with them.
The kills are creative and not as gory as expected but still traumatic and painful, usually dealing with suffocation in various forms. And like a typical slasher, they’re kind of taken in stride, and once the character is gone, the others almost shrug it off and move on with trying to find a way to escape a similar fate.
Spliced between the main event are flashbacks of the fateful skiing trip and what all went down to instigate this current predicament. Also present are excerpts from text messages sent by acquaintances after the events of this story attempting to piece together what happened and why.
Of course, rumors swirl and questions are asked that only the reader will know the answers to in the end. It helps to show how, no matter how many facts we learn or evidence is presented in a true crime situation, nobody ever truly knows the full story.
The characters
The six characters in the novel are Sadie, Will, Isla, Ant, Emily, and Charlie. Sadie is the trust fund kid who is suckered into having her parents pay for the trip. Will is the insufferable leader. Isla is the pretty but egotistical wannabe snob. Ant is the big mouth with a short fuse. Emily is the fragile, sensitive girl. And Charlie is the bitter, self-destructive punk.
It’s a dangerous, combination of personalities. Some are easier to swallow than others. But it’s safe to say that this group of friends is very unlikable to say the least.
This opinion likely isn’t relegated to my adult perspective of the story. In reading their inner monologues and witnessing their actions and attitudes in how they’ve handled past events and as well as their time on the island, it’s safe to say that they are largely self-centered, bitter, and awful people.
At the same time, I wouldn’t say that I was rooting for them to die, but I wasn’t surprised by how easily the killer was able to take them out. Even without their phones to distract them, they still put themselves in prime positions to be killed and make no attempts to help their cause, just hoping to wait it out for help. This is classic slasher behavior mixed with the lack of street smarts in these modern teens which make you sit back and watch it all play out.
There’s no ingenuity among the group. No attempt to fix the Wi-Fi. No trying to build a signal fire. They wait for hours in the hot sun for the no show speedboats acting as if they have a miniscule window of time in which to catch them.
Eating is a high priority, even after discovering another dead body, though the majority of them are almost too intimidated to make a sandwich in the fully stocked kitchen. They think they’re safe behind a locked door while also fully believing that a killer is hiding somewhere nearby.
My biggest gripe with the characters, though, is my usual one. They don’t talk like teens. That’s not to say I needed them to use modern day teen speak which we know will be out of style in no time. But they speak in thinly veiled exposition, overexplain themselves, and use outdated phrases like “hold your horses.” It’s not only not convincing, but it’s distracting, and it frequently took me out of the story.
The message
Ultimately, this book’s intention was to create a classic whodunit story, and she succeeded. It’s not very deep and not meant to be, but it did cause me to ponder how one heartless yet necessary decision can reshape your entire worldview and future decisions.
Knowing you have it in you to sacrifice one life for your own can either make you vow to never make that decision again, or it can help you to justify why you should. Not having a strong moral compass to begin with or not having the life experience to understand the consequences of your actions is more likely to put you into this position. I think the author here was trying to show just what people can be capable of at any age when faced with the right, or more accurately, wrong, scenario.
My recommendation
While this isn’t the most glowing review, I feel that This is Where We Die is a fun read that is very plot-driven and an ultimately satisfying entry into the slasher genre. It’s fast-paced with a captivating premise and enough suspense and intrigue to keep you reading.
The first-person perspectives are delightfully off putting in keeping the reader guessing as to who is next on the chopping block or who is not really who they appear to be. It keeps its story simple and has a very appropriate conclusion that illustrates how senseless untimely deaths can be.
My rating
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