socratariat's review
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
snood's review
3.0
This collection is all over the place in terms of quality, especially towards the end.
After some good but not spectacular stories, we’re hit with Dreamland, an incredibly interesting and creepy story that was my favorite in the whole book.
This is immediately followed up by Meat Maker, an incomprehensible slog of a story about a cop running people over while vaguely referring to something he’s trying to remember. The nonstop senseless slaughter of characters given two-sentence introductions before being reduced to gore sails over the realm of the distasteful or shocking and lands squarely in tedious and annoying. There’s no climactic reveal of what any of it means, it just ends with the protagonist being hit by a train and derailing it, killing even more people as if the reader even cares at that point.
Overall, a pretty good collection of horror stories. I’d recommend checking it out. Skip out on Meat Maker though.
After some good but not spectacular stories, we’re hit with Dreamland, an incredibly interesting and creepy story that was my favorite in the whole book.
This is immediately followed up by Meat Maker, an incomprehensible slog of a story about a cop running people over while vaguely referring to something he’s trying to remember. The nonstop senseless slaughter of characters given two-sentence introductions before being reduced to gore sails over the realm of the distasteful or shocking and lands squarely in tedious and annoying. There’s no climactic reveal of what any of it means, it just ends with the protagonist being hit by a train and derailing it, killing even more people as if the reader even cares at that point.
Overall, a pretty good collection of horror stories. I’d recommend checking it out. Skip out on Meat Maker though.
lindseyfoltyn's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
woowottreads's review
4.0
A surprisingly solid anthology. Not every story is perfect; there are a couple of lackluster ones. But on the whole, some nice creeps, some lovely writing, some pleasant disturbances. Particularly of note are the tales by Dana Stevens, Steve Faber, Ethan Hawke (my first exposure to his writing), and--one of my favourites--Sarah Langan, whom I always love. Since I've watchedplenty of Blumhouse flims, I figured I should look at the anthology. And the anthology was a delight.
thegreatergatsby's review
1.0
Most of these stories made little to no sense and instead of the promise of some good spooky tales I basically wasted my time with the lamest try-hard scary stories I've ever come across. SOOOO disappointed.
juliacg7's review
4.0
Some of these short stories were kind of boring , but others grabbed on to me with such intrigue I had to finish them. Good collection of works
mar_reads's review
so i technically only read about 5 pages of this because i solely got it out from the library to read ethan hawkes short story and um.. wow
biblioshark's review
3.0
I had to give this a 3 star rating because I had such high hopes for it. The first story starts off really creepy, and then after that it kind of goes downhill. I did enjoy a few in between and the 3 at the end, but I still found myself in most cases saying “this is not horror.” I felt that the stories I really enjoyed were to short, and the bad ones lasted forever! The last couple of stories are what redeemed this book from a 2 star rating! Overall, it was okay.
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