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reggiethebird's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Title Overall Spook factor
Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person 4.25 3.25
Mean Time 4.00 2.5
I Know You’re There 4.75 4.5
The Postal Zone: Possession Edition 4.00 2.5
Red Eyes 3.75 2.5
The Blog at the End of the World 4.00 2.5
Them: A Pitch 4.25 2.5
House of Windows 4.5 3.25
The Last Conversation 4.5 4.0
Mostly Size 4.25 2.75
The Large Man 4.5 3.75
The Dead Thing 4.00 3.5
Howard Sturgis… 3.75 3.25
The Party 3.5 2.25
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Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person: The first story in this collection, “Haunted House Tour”: 1 Per Person sets the palate for some short form horror. The fake out is effective, and exploring the guilt of our POV character with a little supernatural spice makes for a fun 20 or so pages.
Mean Time: This one has a rather rushed feeling to the writing, sort of a stream of consciousness type deal. It’s very short, only 2 pages, and while I didn’t really fall in love with the story, nor get particularly spooked, but I do find the concept interesting.
I Know You’re There: My favorite short story here. I love the slow burn reveal, I love the ambiguity of what is actually happening, and the final few words gave me shivers. I definitely read this one at about midnight thirty in an empty house, and if you can, I highly recommend this method for maximum spook!
The Postal Zone: Possession Edition: Do you like red string? Do you like conspiracies based on films and their creation? Do you like a little bit of religion in your supernatural and philosophical horror? If so, then this is the one for you.
Red Eyes: This one felt… childlike? It felt like a realization of a campfire story, which is not a bad thing, but it does give the story an interesting feel to it.
The Blog at the End of the World: This one was really interesting. It took me a little while to figure out that the dates were going backwards, and once I finished, I reread it going the other way. This one has a very fun format to it, and for that, I love it. It was also a super blatant Covid allegory, for what it’s worth.
Them: A Pitch: Taking the form of a pitch for a graphic novel, this one is a fin format that didn’t really grab me. I think it could work well as a graphic novel, but I really preferred the imagined version of the story to the one written on the page, but I only imagined it because of what was on the page, so I suppose it all works out? I don’t know.
House of Windows: Did you like “House of Leaves”? How about that one plotline in “Recursion”? Have you read either of those books? YOU SHOULD! This is eldritch architecture, which is a rather specific genre, but a ton of fun. Great cut to black at the end too.
The Last Conversation: I really liked this one. I like how it keeps you in the dark, and then then final (first?) entry really twists the dreadful knife at the end. It had be asking questions the whole way through, and then as soon as you get the answers (at least the ones it’ll give you) the whole thing resets. Great stuff.
Mostly Size: This one is also childlike, and I think I prefer it to the “Red Eyes”. It has that feeling of being prey, not of insignificance or of being hunted as an individual, but of being hunted as an animal. Great stuff.
The Large Man: COOL WORLD! I really liked the setting here, and the noir type feeling to it. Great foreshadowing, fun reveal, moderately spooky, great read.
The Dead Thing: This one wasn’t so scary for the unknowable horror involved, but for the situation our main character is in. Domestic horror right here. The final few paragraphs didn’t hit me nearly as hard as the text chain we get in the middle of the story, and that one hit pretty hard.
Howard Sturgis…: Its… fine? I don’t know, I feel like a lot of these short stories are really creative in some way, be it the format or the setting or the specific thing doing the spooking, but this one didn’t really do it for me. It felt a little predictable for the last few paragraphs, where it was hitting you with the gut punch, and I feel like the rest of the stories didn’t do this. I feel like this is a case of a good story in great company, so it’s comparatively not so awesome.
The Party: I feel like I didn’t get this one. I felt like I missed the spook? Like we go to the party, and then we talk a little, then we see the thing, then she goes for a smoke and then that’s kind of that? Theres’s unease throughout, but not enough for this one to be worth it for me.
The Beast You Are: I really liked this one. This had me not wanting to put it down and exit the world and story, while also not wanting to turn the page in case a character I liked ended up dead. I enjoyed the world here, and the characters were super loveable
I will also note that there is “Making Of’ commentary at the end for each of the short stories. I highly recommend reading this, even if it relates to a story, you didn’t particularly enjoy.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Domestic abuse, Grief, Death, Self harm, Murder, Violence, Animal death, Alcoholism, and Confinement
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