Oh my goodness. This scared me to death! I got worried that I was going to have to put it aside. I gladly read most horror but one trope in particular seriously gives me nightmares and this book went there. I soldiered on though and holy cow, what a ride this was! I keep seeing it compared to a horror version of Little House on [...]
4.5 Stars. I’ve read mixed reviews of this book but I personally enjoyed the heck out of it. I would catch myself relating the events from each chapter to my husband until I finally decided that he needs to read it for himself and stopped talking. Now I’m bursting at the seams with the need to discuss it with someone! The beginning was not [...]
I "discovered" Joe Hill somewhere back around 20th Century Ghosts or Heart-Shaped Box. I don't recall which I read first but I think I read them pretty close together. I've eagerly snatched up his new books as they're published ever since, which isn't something I do with most authors. I'm a library girl and have been all my [...]
I'm a little out of practice with my reviews, but I'm having a hard time putting my feelings about this book into words. On the one hand, I would actually love to see this as a movie, filmed in the style of Schindler's List. The world is bleak but lends itself well to the unexpected pops of color I remember from Spielberg's [...]
I try hard to avoid any blurbs or early reviews of books that I'm really anticipating, but somehow things just seep into my consciousness and I'm not even sure how they got there. So in addition to having my own ridiculously high hopes for this book, I'd come across things like "Hill's magnum opus!" and "his best work to date" [...]
4 Stars. I haven’t read that much Richard Matheson, just one short story collection containing I am Legend, but I enjoyed it immensely. I don’t remember where I came across this collection, but when I saw the combination of Richard Matheson, Joe Hill, and Stephen King, I added it to my wishlist. Like any anthology, this was […]
4 Stars. I really, really liked this. I never had any idea where it was going and it just kept getting more and more twisted. I had more questions at the end than I did at the beginning. And I was definitely left with a sinking feeling in my stomach. This situation is going to get way worse before it gets better. I liked the [...]
I walked into the library on my lunch break to pick up a nonfiction book for my before-bed reading. I have enough unread novels at home. I was not going to check out any fiction. I grabbed the book I was there for and then started wandering the fiction stacks. It couldn't hurt to just look, right? OK, so I hadn't read anything by Patricia Briggs in a while. I needed to check out the next in the Mercy Thompson series since it was available. But that was it. Nothing else. I marched toward the checkout desk with blinders on. I would not be deterred. But, oh! What's that? Over on the "Staff Recommends" shelf? It's so pretty! My feet were going that way of their own volition. My hands were reaching for it. Beautiful and creepy. A quick glance at the back. Fairy tale? Sold. I had Beautiful Darkness checked out and in the car before my brain even processed what had just happened. It truly is a beautiful book. It's large and hardcover so it was very striking on display. The interior artwork is all gorgeous too. I took my time looking over each frame. The story--? So-so. It was very dark, in a Lord of the Flies way. I was never entirely clear exactly what happened, but I was clear enough. There's a murdered little girl in the woods. All of these fairy-ish creatures fled--her body? her mind?-- when she died. Now they're alone in a harsh world trying to survive. All of the personalities you would expect to see in this situation show up. The "Queen Bee," demanding that the others cater to her every whim. The caretaker who is doing her best for everyone. The outcasts. The sneaky manipulators. And a whole lot of clueless…
When I was offered a copy of Neil Gaiman's newest short story collection, Trigger Warning, for review, my first thought was to jump on it. I adore Neil Gaiman's work. He is one of only about three authors who get their own shelf name on my GoodReads account. And then I remembered that I wasn't particularly happy with The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I know I'm in the minority and I've never even written a review for it, but all I can say is that it was too weird, even for me. I hate feeling honor-bound to review a book that I didn't love so I wavered. Then I decided to go for it. I'm so glad I did! Overall impression: It started off with a couple of stories that I didn't particularly care for so I was getting worried. I'd read the third story earlier (In George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois's Songs of Love and Death) and enjoyed it, but still, it was a re-read. The fourth story started to catch my attention and by the fifth, I was hooked. There were probably one or two others I didn't care for in the remaining nineteen stories, but the collection overall is fantastic. And because I find it impossible not to mention what I think of every single story in a collection, here's where I get long-winded. "Making a Chair"--A poem about--you guessed it--making a chair. I assume Gaiman was pushing through some writer's block with this one. Haven't we all been there? You have a million real things to do but something unimportant proves to be a welcome distraction? "A Lunar Labyrinth"--Normally short horror stories scare me to death. So much is left unsaid. I can generally read Stephen King novels and sleep like…
Anytime kids gather together in the dark, scary stories are inevitably told. Alvin Schwartz gathered a good selection of the most popular and published them in this anthology. I kind of think this scared me when I was little but I don't actually remember ever checking it out from the library. My theory is that I knew it would scare me so I steered clear. I do remember all my little classmates rushing to check out the one copy we had in our school library though. Reading this now, the stories aren't particularly scary. The author chose to divide the book into sections, with the first being "Jump" stories, where the teller gets to the climax and gives out a blood-curdling scream to scare the wits out of the listeners. I can see that they would be scary in person but on the page they were actually a little silly. The others were a little more fulfilling if you're looking for a frightening read. There are sections about ghosts and urban legends and even a few songs. (How's this for a coincidence? I read "The Hearse Song" here, "The worms crawl in, The worms crawl out, The worms play pinochle on your snout" and then came across it again in my very next read, Blubber.) It was interesting to me as an older reader to recognize basic elements here that I've come across in other books that were published later. I can't help but wonder if the later books got the idea from this one or if they are all just referencing the same old folktales and legends. The illustrations by Stephen Gammell are downright creepy and perfect for the book. Young readers who like a good fright should find what they're looking for in this collection. According to the…