Reviews

Understand what you're signing up for before you read; this is an extreme horror short story, so it packs a punch.

I chose this for a quick read on a short flight. The authors were effective in making me squirm and even fear squirrels, which I never thought was possible. I loved the little twist at the end, which I won't spoil. The main character was insane and enjoyable; though a short story, I felt like I understood her motivations and could picture her next action. There were even moments of levity, which I'm not sure if they were planned (I DIED when the woman used a dead squirrel as a ranged weapon!), but were well executed.

Some of the word choices got repetitive and some of the torture choices were questionable, but I was able to keep my belief suspended for the most part. Overall, I would recommend this! You also get a two-for-one deal; there's a recipe for road-kill tacos at the end! Yum!

Content Warnings

kirstycarson1's review

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dark funny fast-paced

4.0

accordingtokay's review

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dark funny

3.0

bucher_freund's review

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challenging dark funny tense fast-paced

4.0

Melinda's husband was killed in a car accident a year and a half ago, and she's stuck in the anger stage of grieving. Since the accident happened when he swerved to miss squirrels in the road, Melinda has developed an increasingly unhinged fixation on the animals. The squirrels have noticed, and they don't approve.

I don't normally read extreme horror* and I have trouble reading anything where an animal is harmed, so even after I bought a copy of The Scampering I was very reluctant to read it. It was suggested to me that the payoff balanced out the animal harm. Oh boy, that's an understatement.

This short story is a fast and engrossing read. The action is tight and the descriptions are fascinatingly visceral. Proceeds go to the Animal Welfare Institute.

*So, I'm weird. I don't gravitate toward books with excessive violence, but in movies it doesn't bother me as much. Also, if the violence is played with a sense of humor (say, Evil Dead 2 vs Martyrs) then I really get into it. Definitely a sense of humor present here with The Scampering.

elyse_rn's review

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3.0

This was nuts.

haileyrt's review

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

4.0

What happened in this book was incredibly unexpected, and I could not stop reading as soon as things picked up.

Spoiler

At first, I thought Melinda was just a strange, morbid woman, who is still mourning the loss of her husband, however, the fact that she was eating squirrels as an act of revenge from what happened to her husband, who is very strange, but what happen in the end was completely unexpected and incredibly gross. Her neighbor checking in on her and within seconds getting mauled in the face by one of them like what the fuck.

This book was gross, but I literally refused to put it down in the 15 minutes that I read it because I was so intrigued.

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