Oh boy. I really honestly thought I would love this short story collection. I read A Head Full of Ghosts by Tremblay earlier this year and really enjoyed it, so I was looking forward to experiencing a greater range of his work through an anthology. Sadly this book was not designed for the casual reader. Honestly I was surprised by the sheer amount of references to his other work present in this and, as someone who has only read one of his books, I did not find the stories easy to understand despite not getting those references. This was my major problem with the anthology and I found myself skimming and skipping stuff as a result. Maybe if you're a mega-fan then you would get a lot more out of this but I also feel that this should stand on its own as a collection rather than relying on knowledge of other works.
My other main problem is I just wasn't that interested in many of the stories. Normally I review every single story for an anthology but for this one I would be repeating myself a lot so I'm just going to mention a couple and do my overview stats.
Number of stories: 19
Number I liked: 2
Number which were okay: 3, maybe?
Something About Birds-A somewhat meta creepy story about birds where a journalist writes about meeting a horror author who wrote a creepy story about birds. Okay, so this one definitely felt like I was maybe missing something from the context but it was one of the few where it didn't matter and I still got absorbed into the story. It was probably my favourite of the collection and it had creepy moments whilst still making sense.
A Haunted House is a Wheel, Upon Which Some Are Broken-A choose-your-own adventure story about a woman visiting a haunted house. Despite the page numbers not being available for the ARC (meaning that I could not choose my own adventure but had to read it linearly) this was a very beautiful story and I loved every minute of it. A tied favourite with the previous story and this would probably be my favourite had I been able to read it in the way it was intended.
These two stories save it from being a one star read for me. Now for some of my least favourites:
Notes from the Dog Walkers-An incredibly meta story which is exactly what it says on the tin. This story just went on and on and on and I tried to read all of it but it was just getting worse and worse. I have actually read the work I needed to in order to get this reference and yet I still didn't get it which is a terrible sign. It was very surreal and read very narcissistic to me. Only for mega-fans I feel.
That's the only one I can talk about in detail as I have forgotten the rest. Sorry.
Overall, I am deeply disappointed I didn't enjoy this. It won't stop me from reading Tremblay's other books and being excited for them but I think I'll avoid his short stories from now on. I understand Tremblay is a huge author but it seems a strange decision to release a collection which is so alienating to people who don't know his work inside and out. I wish I could have given this a more positive review.
Overall Rating:
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