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georgiamonroe's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
5.0
I reread this book every October!! As someone who has read a good bit of L. M. Montgomery’s books, this is a bit of a departure from her usual lighthearted tone—although that is not to say it is not present in some of the short stories. You will also find that her sweet romances continue through these “Tales from a darker side”
devontrevarrowflaherty's review against another edition
4.0
Whew! I better get to reviewing my Halloween reads, or it’ll be useless, at least for you this year. While I’ve already given my list of recommendations, I have read a few new books and watched a few new movies this year, expanding on my same-old.
I travelled a few weeks back. It was in some ways against my better judgement, at least as a cautious, pandemic-restriction-abiding citizen, but it was an important moment for me to do it, anyways. One of my best friends, from college, was getting married. I had meant to visit her for twenty years and had also been waiting for this wedding for twenty years. While I felt at first like I couldn’t go, my other best friend sent me an email and said, “Darn this pandemic! Let’s do it together.” So I did. (Personal note: so glad that I did. It was important and wonderful, though shadowed some by the state of everything and also the brevity warranted by the same state of everything.) I did do a little mental hyperventilating on the four planes it took to get to St. Louis, but part of my strategy was to get a window seat and bury my double-masked nose and goggled-eyes in a book. October? Halloween reading.
The book I finished on the flights (and in the airports) was a tad bit embarrassing. I don’t embarrass easy, so when I do, I shake it off and try to be me without apologizing. However, the cover on this one doesn’t read “Devon,” so I tended to hide the cover or at least some of the cover under my hand. It just looks like some sort of cheesy romance trade paperback. What is it, actually, if not a cheesy romance? It’s a book of short stories, first of all. The cover is old fashioned and meant for teenage girls, but the “dark-side” short stories inside are by none other than L. M. Montgomery. Yes, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Which means that the stories aren’t super spooky and definitely not gory. Some of them are ghost stories, some of the are about the darker elements, like criminals. In other words, it’s all the darkest of Montgomery’s stories, which tend to be lighter, airier, and downright wholesome.
These stories are still basically wholesome and, having been written in Canada in the 1800s, still old-fashioned. If this is your style, then this is a good find for you, because it’s much easier to come by grit and bleakness, gore and screams, for your October reading. This is softer and sweeter, but still has small creeps and, mostly, a discordant note playing in the background, giving Montgomery’s usual stories an eerie twist. (Not that her stories are saccharine—they have sadness, complexity, tension and small-town adventure in scads. And not that none of her novels have that eerie note: the Emily of New Moon series is a little darker than the usual.)
As in all of Montgomery’s writing, the stories are well-written and the characters and lives are engaging. It’s simply a matter of style. Do you enjoy short stories? Do you like old-fashioned tales from a simpler time and place? Then this is your October read.
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG***
I travelled a few weeks back. It was in some ways against my better judgement, at least as a cautious, pandemic-restriction-abiding citizen, but it was an important moment for me to do it, anyways. One of my best friends, from college, was getting married. I had meant to visit her for twenty years and had also been waiting for this wedding for twenty years. While I felt at first like I couldn’t go, my other best friend sent me an email and said, “Darn this pandemic! Let’s do it together.” So I did. (Personal note: so glad that I did. It was important and wonderful, though shadowed some by the state of everything and also the brevity warranted by the same state of everything.) I did do a little mental hyperventilating on the four planes it took to get to St. Louis, but part of my strategy was to get a window seat and bury my double-masked nose and goggled-eyes in a book. October? Halloween reading.
The book I finished on the flights (and in the airports) was a tad bit embarrassing. I don’t embarrass easy, so when I do, I shake it off and try to be me without apologizing. However, the cover on this one doesn’t read “Devon,” so I tended to hide the cover or at least some of the cover under my hand. It just looks like some sort of cheesy romance trade paperback. What is it, actually, if not a cheesy romance? It’s a book of short stories, first of all. The cover is old fashioned and meant for teenage girls, but the “dark-side” short stories inside are by none other than L. M. Montgomery. Yes, the author of Anne of Green Gables. Which means that the stories aren’t super spooky and definitely not gory. Some of them are ghost stories, some of the are about the darker elements, like criminals. In other words, it’s all the darkest of Montgomery’s stories, which tend to be lighter, airier, and downright wholesome.
These stories are still basically wholesome and, having been written in Canada in the 1800s, still old-fashioned. If this is your style, then this is a good find for you, because it’s much easier to come by grit and bleakness, gore and screams, for your October reading. This is softer and sweeter, but still has small creeps and, mostly, a discordant note playing in the background, giving Montgomery’s usual stories an eerie twist. (Not that her stories are saccharine—they have sadness, complexity, tension and small-town adventure in scads. And not that none of her novels have that eerie note: the Emily of New Moon series is a little darker than the usual.)
As in all of Montgomery’s writing, the stories are well-written and the characters and lives are engaging. It’s simply a matter of style. Do you enjoy short stories? Do you like old-fashioned tales from a simpler time and place? Then this is your October read.
***REVIEW WRITTEN FOR THE STARVING ARTIST BLOG***
jgintrovertedreader's review against another edition
4.0
I was surprised that L.M. Montgomery could write this kind of thing this well. Not that they're truly scary, but some of them are pretty eerie.
sarahanne8382's review against another edition
4.0
For me this was one of my more favorite L.M. Montgomery books. While I fell in love with the Anne of Green Gables series as an adolescent, I've since become an even bigger fan of her less puritanical later works, especially her short stories, which is exactly what Among the Shadows: Tales From the Darker Side (edited by Rea Wilmhurst and published in 1990), contains.
If you've read any of Montgomery's other books, you shouldn't be surprised that her fascination with the paranormal led her to write enough stories to fill a volume. In the collection are several traditional ghost stories (such as "Davenport's Story" and "The House Party at Smoky Island"), but there are even more tales of strange coincidences or other "magic" ("A Redeeming Sacrifice," "Detected By Camera," "The Deacon's Painkiller," and "White Magic," among others).
There isn't really much more to describe the book as it exactly follows Montgomery's charming style in her other books. While I can gush on and on about the fine points of her novels, when it comes to short story collections, especially one spanning such a wide range of her career, there are just so many beautifully idiosyncratic portraits painted that you can really only gloss the broadest generalities of her style such as the rural coastal Prince Edward Island (Canada) setting from the late 19th or early 20th century and her charmingly folksy yet educated voice.
Essentially, if you're already a fan of Montgomery, you wont be dissappointed by Among the Shadows. If you haven't read any of her books, but think you might like her work, this would be one of the better books to start with. In general I think her later works, the short stories especially, are less of a shock to current readers than her earlier works originally written for Sunday School periodicals (this is how Anne of Green Gables developed). Some of my other favorite later works of Montgomery are A Tangled Web (1931), The Road to Yesterday (published posthumously in 1974), and The Blue Castle. Also, let's see if I can start a fight among the Anne fans out there by saying that the Emily Series - Emily of New Moon (1923), Emily Climbs (1925), & Emily's Quest (1927) - is better.
If you've read any of Montgomery's other books, you shouldn't be surprised that her fascination with the paranormal led her to write enough stories to fill a volume. In the collection are several traditional ghost stories (such as "Davenport's Story" and "The House Party at Smoky Island"), but there are even more tales of strange coincidences or other "magic" ("A Redeeming Sacrifice," "Detected By Camera," "The Deacon's Painkiller," and "White Magic," among others).
There isn't really much more to describe the book as it exactly follows Montgomery's charming style in her other books. While I can gush on and on about the fine points of her novels, when it comes to short story collections, especially one spanning such a wide range of her career, there are just so many beautifully idiosyncratic portraits painted that you can really only gloss the broadest generalities of her style such as the rural coastal Prince Edward Island (Canada) setting from the late 19th or early 20th century and her charmingly folksy yet educated voice.
Essentially, if you're already a fan of Montgomery, you wont be dissappointed by Among the Shadows. If you haven't read any of her books, but think you might like her work, this would be one of the better books to start with. In general I think her later works, the short stories especially, are less of a shock to current readers than her earlier works originally written for Sunday School periodicals (this is how Anne of Green Gables developed). Some of my other favorite later works of Montgomery are A Tangled Web (1931), The Road to Yesterday (published posthumously in 1974), and The Blue Castle. Also, let's see if I can start a fight among the Anne fans out there by saying that the Emily Series - Emily of New Moon (1923), Emily Climbs (1925), & Emily's Quest (1927) - is better.
amibunk's review against another edition
3.0
The problem with a collection of short stories is that there will always be some you don't like and others you do. Even when the author is somebody I adore (yes, despite Kilmeny of the Orchard, I still love you Lucy Maud.) So really, it all comes down to percentages. What percentage of the collection did I enjoy? What percentage didn't make the grade?
Among the Shadows was a success for me. I enjoyed or was entertained by the majority of what I read. Most of the stories retained that sweet old fashioned spirit that emanates from L. M. Montgomery's better written books, despite being stories about murderers or ghosts or nasty characters.
Overall, despite being one of Ms. Montgomery's more obscure works, Among the Shadows was a good read.
Among the Shadows was a success for me. I enjoyed or was entertained by the majority of what I read. Most of the stories retained that sweet old fashioned spirit that emanates from L. M. Montgomery's better written books, despite being stories about murderers or ghosts or nasty characters.
Overall, despite being one of Ms. Montgomery's more obscure works, Among the Shadows was a good read.
salicat's review against another edition
5.0
LM Montgomery was probably one of the most prolific writers in history, and this is a collection of her ghost stories. I recently went back and read these for the first time, with a kind of dreaded anticipation, similar to meeting your first crush twenty years later.
There are ghost stories here, but most of the topics focus on things that are more likely to be everyday news now- i.e. alcoholism, embezzlement, babies born out of wedlock, etc.- stuff that really was in 'the Shadows' a century ago. But even her darker stories are infused with a sweetness that escapes saccharine and leaves the reader with a good feeling she might not get even through reading modern stories that purport to be infused with romance. And some of the stories, e.g. "Some Fools and a Saint" have a cleverness that has yet to be matched by more modern short story writers.
There are ghost stories here, but most of the topics focus on things that are more likely to be everyday news now- i.e. alcoholism, embezzlement, babies born out of wedlock, etc.- stuff that really was in 'the Shadows' a century ago. But even her darker stories are infused with a sweetness that escapes saccharine and leaves the reader with a good feeling she might not get even through reading modern stories that purport to be infused with romance. And some of the stories, e.g. "Some Fools and a Saint" have a cleverness that has yet to be matched by more modern short story writers.
readcover2cover's review against another edition
3.0
This was a fun collection to read around Halloween. I always enjoy L.M. Montgomery stories and this was no exception. There was nothing spectacular or very scary, but it was definitely enjoyable.
kecb12's review against another edition
4.0
A fun group of spooky-ish stories and stories that make you think empathetically about the human experience. LM Montgomery has a way of writing people that just seems to get it right every time. I love her, and I love her stories.
idgey's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75