Reviews with content warning for Bullying - In These Hallowed Halls

disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial

This is a great way to find new authors, especially if you're a dark academia lover.

My favorite stories were:

Pythia by Olivie Blake
The Hare and the Hound by Kelly Andrew
Phobos by Tori Bovalino
The Ravages by Layne Fargo

Content Warnings

maeverose's review against another edition

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3.0

I wanted to read this to try out dark academia as a genre. I love gothic books and academic settings, but a lot of the common tropes within dark academia don’t strongly appeal to me (murder mystery, cults, obsession, unlikable characters, etc). After reading these stories, I at least enjoyed some of them enough to be interested in trying out more of the genre.

My Ratings and content warnings for each story in order of favorite to least favorite:

• Weekend at Bertie’s by M.L. Rio - 5⭐️
I loved the writing style of this story so much. I absolutely need to read something else by M.L. Rio.

Content warnings: moderate: vomit, death, alcohol

• The Ravages by Layne Fargo - 4⭐️
Love me a sapphic gothic story
Content warnings: graphic: infidelity, moderate: self harm mention, sexual content, stalking

• The Professor of Ontography by Helen Grant - 4⭐️
Definitely more fucked up than I was expecting. This one is more of a horror story than the other ones.

Content warnings: graphic: missing person, body horror, moderate: sexual content, alcohol, gore

• Playing by Phoebe Wynne - 4⭐️
I liked how the writing style incorporated the music and how music was described in general.

Content warnings: moderate: death, murder, religious bigotry, descriptions of food and eating habits that could be triggering.

• 1000 Ships by Kate Weinberg - 3⭐️
The writing style wasn’t my favorite, but I liked the overall story and the way it ended.

Content warnings: moderate: sexual content, student/teacher relationship, romani slur, self harm, minor: infidelity, suicide, physical abuse

• X House by J.T. Ellison - 3⭐️
Loved the setting at the setup of the story, didn’t love how everything played out. I think it could’ve worked better if it were a novel or novella and had better written characters.

Content warnings: graphic: violence, murder, death, moderate: hazing, anxiety attack, gun violence, minor: gore

• Pythia by Olivie Blake - 3⭐️
Sci-fi dark academia. Took a while for me to care about it bc it was about a cult, but once I realized it had a certain sci-fi trope, I liked it a bit more.

Content warnings: mild: suicide, death, misogyny, end-of-world anxiety

• The Unknowable Pleasures by Susie Yang - 3⭐️
This was just alright for me.

The way she fetishized these two men made me so uncomfortable and gave me flashbacks to Dan and Phil shippers, but I have to admit I got reeled in to wondering if they were a couple or not and felt called out at the end when we didn’t get an answer and I realized I was slightly disappointed. If that was intentional that was smart so props for that

Content warnings: moderate: sexual content,

a straight female character fetishizes an imagined relationship between two men

• The Hare and the Hound by Kelly Andrew - 2⭐️
Unsure how I feel about this. It was a bit triggering for me. Parts didn’t make sense. It was predictable.

Content warnings: graphic: car accident, death, animal death, moderate: forced institutionalization

• Four Funerals by David Bell - 2⭐️
I don’t really understand the point of the story, if there was one.

Content warnings: moderate: school shooting, gun violence, death, vomit, anxiety, excrement, suicide

• Phobos by Tori Bovalino - 2⭐️
I don’t care about cults or murder so I was bored

Content warnings: graphic: murder, blood, moderate: sexual content

• Sabbatical by James Tate Hill - 2⭐️
I did not like the writing style and the story was very underwhelming. Certain parts didn’t make sense.

Content warnings: moderate: gun violence, mental illness, cheating, murder, minor: sexual content, abelism

Just going off of these stories, I think I can safely say I’m very bored by stories to do with cults. Obsession doesn’t bother me but I don’t particularly care for it either. The only thing I really discovered from this is I don’t necessarily mind unlikable characters as much as I thought I did. Curious to see how I feel about a full dark academia novel.

Content Warnings

aileron's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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dixiecarroll's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

3.5

A little disappointing, but I’m not sure what I was expecting. Some of the stories were incredibly compelling and well done, but others were a little lacking. I am not sure each author was well suited for short stories, but I must say that a lot of these were so freaky to read right before bed. Worth the read for sure, but I wouldn’t get expectations too high!

Content Warnings

macliffe's review against another edition

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dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

The only story I really loved was The Haré and The Hound, which had some really interesting psychology and a satisfying ending that left my mind racing. The Unknowable Pleasures, The Professor of Ontogeaphy, and Playing were also pretty satisfying explorations of obsession. Sabbatical and Four Funerals felt like they could have been good but we’re underdeveloped. X House freaked me out. The other stories I skimmed. With the amount of skimming that I did, I felt like I couldn’t give this anthology a high rating even if I liked certain stories more than a 2/5.

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