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A review by specificwonderland
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.5
This book was recommended as some of the best horror of 2022. I requested it from Libby and there are a collection of about 10 short stories, pressed into roughly 100 pages. I echo the other reviews who remark on the author's tendency to abandon the story at the climax. Some of the stories were snoozefests, or it could be I read it at night when I had already been lulled to drowsiness by 5-htp.
The ones that were creepy, did a formidable job creating a feeling of unease, darkness, and mysterious energy that cannot be fully explained.
Angelita Unearthed: 3/5
Our Lady of the Quarry: 3/5
The Cart: 3.5/5
The Well: 5/5, I liked this one, it felt fully developed, fully rendered and concluded.
Rambla Triste: 4/5 Cinematic, fully rendered. I would love to see this at a short film fest.
The Lookout: I skipped this one
Where Are You, Dear Heart: 4/5 It felt a little thin, I would like to see this fleshed out into more of a story but I did enjoy the sketch.
Meat: 3.5/5 Is this Christianity? We look at this story as horror but how far off is it from 2000 years ago?
No Birthdays or Baptisms: 3.5/5 Snooze. A couple interesting lines but the whole story wasn't begging to be told. Or I missed something.
Kids Who Come Back: 0/5 I saw the reviews mentioning transphobic language and as I started the story, I thought maybe it was coming from an unenlightened character's voice, which would be an interesting question if an author can write about hate speech from the place of a character, not as a narrator, one might be able to argue that? But no, this was the narrator or the translator and I got turned off real quick as the word was repeated in succession. Skipped.
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: 1/5 Boring, pointless. Yawn.
Back When We Talked to the Dead: 3.5/5 This was one of the better stories, balancing storytelling with not over-explaining and spoon-feeding the plot to the reader.
The ones that were creepy, did a formidable job creating a feeling of unease, darkness, and mysterious energy that cannot be fully explained.
Angelita Unearthed: 3/5
Our Lady of the Quarry: 3/5
The Cart: 3.5/5
The Well: 5/5, I liked this one, it felt fully developed, fully rendered and concluded.
Rambla Triste: 4/5 Cinematic, fully rendered. I would love to see this at a short film fest.
The Lookout: I skipped this one
Where Are You, Dear Heart: 4/5 It felt a little thin, I would like to see this fleshed out into more of a story but I did enjoy the sketch.
Meat: 3.5/5 Is this Christianity? We look at this story as horror but how far off is it from 2000 years ago?
No Birthdays or Baptisms: 3.5/5 Snooze. A couple interesting lines but the whole story wasn't begging to be told. Or I missed something.
Kids Who Come Back: 0/5 I saw the reviews mentioning transphobic language and as I started the story, I thought maybe it was coming from an unenlightened character's voice, which would be an interesting question if an author can write about hate speech from the place of a character, not as a narrator, one might be able to argue that? But no, this was the narrator or the translator and I got turned off real quick as the word was repeated in succession. Skipped.
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: 1/5 Boring, pointless. Yawn.
Back When We Talked to the Dead: 3.5/5 This was one of the better stories, balancing storytelling with not over-explaining and spoon-feeding the plot to the reader.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia