pharmdad2007's review
3.0
First of all: "This book was given to me for free at my request and I provided this voluntary review."
With that out of the way, let's talk about this book. The short stories in this book are all connected in a couple of ways. First of all, they are presented sequentially, with the title of each story starting with the next letter in the alphabet, A is for Addiction, B is for Barnacle, etc. They are also connected thematically, with many recurring elements throughout the stories, such as barnacles, doomsday cults, etc. I really liked the cohesiveness this lent to the work as a whole. While the writing style overall was excellent, I found that some of the stories just didn't hold my interest.
The narrator of this audiobook has a terrific voice for the genre of horror. His accent added an element of mystery to everything, and his voice was overall very pleasing. The emotional rawness of the tales was expressed nicely in his vocal tones, and he really helped to draw me in to those stories that grabbed me the most. Overall, a nice collection.
With that out of the way, let's talk about this book. The short stories in this book are all connected in a couple of ways. First of all, they are presented sequentially, with the title of each story starting with the next letter in the alphabet, A is for Addiction, B is for Barnacle, etc. They are also connected thematically, with many recurring elements throughout the stories, such as barnacles, doomsday cults, etc. I really liked the cohesiveness this lent to the work as a whole. While the writing style overall was excellent, I found that some of the stories just didn't hold my interest.
The narrator of this audiobook has a terrific voice for the genre of horror. His accent added an element of mystery to everything, and his voice was overall very pleasing. The emotional rawness of the tales was expressed nicely in his vocal tones, and he really helped to draw me in to those stories that grabbed me the most. Overall, a nice collection.
wordnerd's review
5.0
This book is horror stories for every letter of the alphabet. I loved all the stories except N. Let me rephrase that. N was a good story but it was way too gory and gross for me. I couldn't finish it. I had to skip it.
I was reading the story for N and my husband asked me what was wrong. He said I had such a look of horror on my face. He had never seem me look like that while reading, haha. I couldn't even explain, I just had him read it. He couldn't finish it either and he can handle gory stuff. I mean Final Destination is one of the mans favorite movies! That should tell you something!
I was reading the story for N and my husband asked me what was wrong. He said I had such a look of horror on my face. He had never seem me look like that while reading, haha. I couldn't even explain, I just had him read it. He couldn't finish it either and he can handle gory stuff. I mean Final Destination is one of the mans favorite movies! That should tell you something!
periwinklegeo's review
2.0
Some stories were really entertaining, but others fell flat. There were a small number of editing mistakes (repeated words, sentences that weren't quite finished) that I wish had been caught since they seemed to highlight that some of these were authored by amateur enthusiasts. If written by professionals, these errors become more glaring... Regardless, you can tell they had a lot of fun writing this, and I'm glad to have read the finished product.
I would also point out that although I liked the idea of connecting the stories to a greater plot, I feel it would have been more effective to do so in a more subtle way. The last few stories go deep into exposition of how everything is related, and, as others have pointed out, it's hard to follow and/or feels irrelevant. The first few stories give you just a little nugget of information to /imply/ this interconnectedness, and that subtlety was much more atmospheric. Also, there were a number of authors who showed a lot of writing talent who I felt were stifled in trying to tie their story to the others.
If you enjoy horror anthologies, this is a quick read that you might try out!
I would also point out that although I liked the idea of connecting the stories to a greater plot, I feel it would have been more effective to do so in a more subtle way. The last few stories go deep into exposition of how everything is related, and, as others have pointed out, it's hard to follow and/or feels irrelevant. The first few stories give you just a little nugget of information to /imply/ this interconnectedness, and that subtlety was much more atmospheric. Also, there were a number of authors who showed a lot of writing talent who I felt were stifled in trying to tie their story to the others.
If you enjoy horror anthologies, this is a quick read that you might try out!
amia's review
4.0
Twenty-seven short stories by multiple authors about many (seemingly) different events. All have one thing in common. They are horrific, many have extremely gruesome happenings. There are small similarities, characters from one author's tale make guest appearances in other author's works. Hints were dropped, but not until I read the final chapter did I see everything pulled together and it blew me away. Please note, this is NOT a clean book. It is filled with ghastly, disturbing and repugnant occurrences with cursing, cannibalism and sex thrown into the mix.
I borrowed this ebook from Amazon Prime Reading.
I borrowed this ebook from Amazon Prime Reading.
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