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A review by meowmeowfood
October Dreams: A Celebration of Halloween by Robert Morrish, Richard T. Chizmar
1.0
Would give it half a star if I could.
This book was not worth the time, but because I am a completionist, I ended up finishing it and reading cover-to-cover. The "My Favorite Halloween Memories" stories were some of the most boring things I've ever read and all ended up following the same theme: Halloween was cooler when I was a kid, it's ruined now by PC culture or overly concerned parents or too many store bought/Pokémon costumes. One of the stories was legitimately just the author summarizing her diary entries from the 31st of each year, and yes, it would be along the lines of "Hung out with -name drop, name drop, name drop -. Ate a lot of chili." Mind-numbingly dull filled with a lot of "my Boomer generation is better than your generation" sentimentality.
The short stories themselves were typically unremarkable, boring or confusing/poorly written. None of them really held your interest or even kept me moderately spooked for more than a second or two. All of the "twists" were extremely predictable, there wasn't a single one that you couldn't see coming from a mile away. If these are the best, I can't imagine the stories that didn't make the cut.
The pinnacle of this whole shitstorm of a book was the overtly anti-choice propaganda story about a doctor who performs abortions being targeted by the "children" he "killed." It was like reading a 40 Days for Life pamphlet and just as cringeworthy/full of dogma. I honestly cannot believe it was included because of how heavy handed the whole thing was. The inclusion of this story makes me suspect of all the authors included in the anthology if they were okay having their story in a book with this one. It even ended with a reference to the debunked "documentary" Silent Scream.
Reader, beware: there is no scare, just eyerolling and tedium. Avoid this book.
This book was not worth the time, but because I am a completionist, I ended up finishing it and reading cover-to-cover. The "My Favorite Halloween Memories" stories were some of the most boring things I've ever read and all ended up following the same theme: Halloween was cooler when I was a kid, it's ruined now by PC culture or overly concerned parents or too many store bought/Pokémon costumes. One of the stories was legitimately just the author summarizing her diary entries from the 31st of each year, and yes, it would be along the lines of "Hung out with -name drop, name drop, name drop -. Ate a lot of chili." Mind-numbingly dull filled with a lot of "my Boomer generation is better than your generation" sentimentality.
The short stories themselves were typically unremarkable, boring or confusing/poorly written. None of them really held your interest or even kept me moderately spooked for more than a second or two. All of the "twists" were extremely predictable, there wasn't a single one that you couldn't see coming from a mile away. If these are the best, I can't imagine the stories that didn't make the cut.
The pinnacle of this whole shitstorm of a book was the overtly anti-choice propaganda story about a doctor who performs abortions being targeted by the "children" he "killed." It was like reading a 40 Days for Life pamphlet and just as cringeworthy/full of dogma. I honestly cannot believe it was included because of how heavy handed the whole thing was. The inclusion of this story makes me suspect of all the authors included in the anthology if they were okay having their story in a book with this one. It even ended with a reference to the debunked "documentary" Silent Scream.
Reader, beware: there is no scare, just eyerolling and tedium. Avoid this book.