kaylascomet's review
dark
tense
fast-paced
4.0
Thirty-two stories written to be quickly devoured.
It’s too late to turn back now. You are about to set foot into another dimension, so best watch out for that signpost up ahead. You’ve just crossed over into... The Toilet Zone: Number Two
This was such a fun, gruesome anthology! One of the great things about the length of these tales is that, if you hit on one that doesn't quite resonate, you quickly move on to the next.
But there are plenty of great stories here. There were some fresh takes on old classics, like fear of the dark, cemeteries, Elder Gods, cannibalism, vampires. Some are particularly gore-y (stabbing someone with your own bone?) which made for shocking, entertaining reads. There's a bizarre retelling of The Christmas Carol that was spectacularly fun.
There's even a story literally about fecal matter, which was entirely nauseating and absolutely fitting for an anthology called The Toilet Zone: Number Two.
Some of my personal favorites were:
Any Port in a Storm
by Matthew A. Clarke
The Taophophile
by Gerri R. Gray
Hastings
by Drew Nicks
Monstrous Love
by Pamela Scott
But the stories are varied, and I'm sure other readers will have a different list of favorites. There were only one or two stories that were misses for me. I don't know that I would keep this book literally in the bathroom as a toilet read, but I would certainly keep it on a bookshelf.
More...