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lynxpardinus's review
challenging
dark
reflective
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Toxic friendship
Moderate: Ableism, Homophobia, Racism, Xenophobia, Excrement, Vomit, and Murder
Minor: Animal death, Gun violence, Sexual content, Stalking, Death of parent, and Classism
booktribe's review
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
Just a Little Snack is a gothic short story collection with stories featuring incredibly weird pregnancy cravings, changelings, and murder!
I read Yah Yah Scholfield’s book, On Sundays She Picked Flowers, a few months ago and enjoyed it! Plus I always loved gothic books, so when they’re by Black authors, I HAVE to read them! So I jumped at the chance to read this book when I saw it available! But, I have some mixed feelings about this book. Some stories I really enjoyed, and some not so much.
First let’s talk about the things I enjoyed! For one, I felt that the second person POV in some of these stories was very interesting. I saw a few common themes in this collection such as women empowerment, interesting family dynamics, and religious trauma. And there were so many great concepts in these stories! My favorite stories were definitely Niecy’s Garden, A Girl Walks Alone, Something Got a Hold Of Me, and Just a Little Snack!
But there were other things I didn’t enjoy. A lot of the stories left me with questions or left me wanting more resolution. Some stories felt unfinished. I understand stories ending ambiguously, but it wasn’t satisfying ambiguity, it was just frustrating. Suddenly I See and Ain’t No Grave were the biggest offenders of this problem. As I said earlier, there were so many great concepts with the stories, but at times they weren’t executed the best, like with those two stories I just mentioned, and a few others as well. I almost didn’t finish this collection because of that, but I’m glad I did because the last few stories were really great!
I definitely think this collection is worth a try if you love horror, specifically gothic horror! Like any short story collection, there are hits and misses, but I did enjoy this collection!
Thank you Nyx Publishing and NetGalley for this arc. All opinions are my own.
**Individual Story Ratings**
🫀 Just a Little Snack: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🫀 In Which Two Women Kill a Man: DNF (TW: misogyny)
🫀 What We Owe Each Other: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🫀 What Dinah Knew: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
🫀 Suddenly I See: ⭐️⭐️✨ (TW: child abuse)
🫀 Ain’t No Grave: ⭐️⭐️ (TW: homophobia, religious trauma)
🫀 Something Got a Hold On Me: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨
🫀 A Girl Walks Alone: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🫀 Niecey’s Garden: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: suicide)
Average rating: 3.3 stars
Overall rating: 3 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide
Moderate: Child abuse and Homophobia
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