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trashgobby's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
raven_morgan's review against another edition
5.0
Read because I try to read everything that the podcast Writer and the Critic review.
And damn, I am glad I did. So much lyrical, gorgeous writing in here, so many short stories that seem half poetry, half prose. So many vivid images that will linger with me (most notably right now, the woman who begins to peel her skin away to find a book inside). Seriously good.
And damn, I am glad I did. So much lyrical, gorgeous writing in here, so many short stories that seem half poetry, half prose. So many vivid images that will linger with me (most notably right now, the woman who begins to peel her skin away to find a book inside). Seriously good.
5elementknitr's review against another edition
4.0
Three pages into the first story, and I already LOVE this book!
These stories are so beautifully written. They are a creepy slow burn. You have a feeling of dread that never gets quite relieved. There's no boogeyman jumping out at you. It's a cold touch in the dark.
About halfway through, I realized all the stories were about change. Someone changing into someone else (or something else).
The only criticism I can think of is they may have wanted a proofreader to take another run at it. There were a few typos here and there (page 208 in particular had, like, three).
These stories are so beautifully written. They are a creepy slow burn. You have a feeling of dread that never gets quite relieved. There's no boogeyman jumping out at you. It's a cold touch in the dark.
About halfway through, I realized all the stories were about change. Someone changing into someone else (or something else).
The only criticism I can think of is they may have wanted a proofreader to take another run at it. There were a few typos here and there (page 208 in particular had, like, three).
lamusadelils's review against another edition
4.0
Más que terror, este libro contiene cuentos de temas variados con elementos perturbadores y extraños. En general, son bastante buenos y atrapan la atención.
Con todo y que hay situaciones improbables y elementos fantásticos-mágicos-sobrenaturales, las historias se sienten humanas y permiten perderse en la narrativa fácilmente.
Si bien hay eventos inusuales, quizá lo más perturbador a veces son las reacciones de los protagonistas y los paralelos a situaciones sociales que se pueden vislumbrar (unos más obvios que otros).
Con todo y que hay situaciones improbables y elementos fantásticos-mágicos-sobrenaturales, las historias se sienten humanas y permiten perderse en la narrativa fácilmente.
Si bien hay eventos inusuales, quizá lo más perturbador a veces son las reacciones de los protagonistas y los paralelos a situaciones sociales que se pueden vislumbrar (unos más obvios que otros).
sunnybopeep's review
3.0
I’m disappointed with my own reaction to Helen Marshall’s first short story collection. It promised me everything that I could have ever wanted, and it is well-reviewed within the weird horror community. The author’s background in medieval studies and her interest in body horror really SHOULD have culminated in stories that gave me that spine-tingling “made for me” feeling.
I mean, just look at this excerpt from the introduction:
“There is something fleshy about Helen's writing-deliciously, disgustingly, of the skin and bone and messy organs.”
I was supposed to love this!! But… I didn’t. The stories just did not strike a chord with me. They were confusing, too abstract, and even… boring. Were they scary? Yes… but less in the way that makes you scared to pee at night, and more in the way that makes you feel bad about all of your personal relationships. 😔
Content Warnings
There’s a lot of weird body horror…
lkeipp's review
3.0
Taken me a while to read this - disturbingly odd sometimes needs to be set aside.
ctgt's review against another edition
4.0
Another wonderful collection of stories that I can't really call horror but more fantastic with occassional horrific moments scattered throughout. One of my weird fiction websites ran an interview with Marshall that really spurred my interest in her work, so I guess if I had to categorize this collection it would fall in to the weird genre. I enjoyed how Marshall was able to create these strange, almost outlandish situations but put normal everyday people in the settings to see how they would react. I could picture myself in some of these stories.
As with most collections there were a few stories that didn't resonate with me but I will highlight some that I thought were brilliant.
Blessed-In these days where kids(and adults) seem to get caught up in the idea of needing all the latest/best of...everything, this was a heart wrenching story with a gut punch ending, of a young girl caught between her divorced parents as they give her presents of The Blessed for her birthday.
Her dad bounced her on his shoulders and then heaved her off again so she landed gently on the ground, and she stood tip-toed until she could see over the top of the crate. Chloe fingered the straw shyly, not daring to touch it yet, not daring to stroke the soft leathery skin.
“For your birthday, kiddo,” he said in a warm, excited voice. “You’re almost seven, and we wanted you to have this—”
“Lucia of Syracuse,” her mum interrupted. He gave her a look, but it was an affectionate look, one that showed he didn’t mind much. “Died 304. A real, genuine martyr.”
Sandition-Probably my favorite story about the unfinished Jane Austen book and just how the rest of the text was discovered.
Something caught her eye, a smallish discoloured lump on the side of her neck, no bigger than a dime. She squinted, touched it with a finger. The skin was dried out, rough, but the space itself was numb, as if all the nerve endings had been disconnected. She shook her head, tried scratching it with a nail. A queer sensation ran through her body, as if the area was simultaneously hypersensitive and blanked out with Novocain.
Pieces of Broken Things-How one man deals with his wife leaving him after twelve years of marriage
Love, she said, love was messy and incomprehensible and she, almost forty now, almost the big four-zero, didn’t want messy and incomprehensible. She had, she told him a little bashfully, replaced her heart with the only thing she could get to fit— a tiny clock the pawn shop owner had handy. She showed it to David. She undid the front of her cream silk blouse, and David got a glimpse of a little ormolu face with two prim hands nestled in the little hollow between her breasts.
He decides to dig a hole and bury her things because they bring him too much pain
When he looked at the hole, he felt a little of the love shudder out of him. It was just a tiny bit of love, but it flopped in the dirt by his feet for a moment like a fish. His heart slowed, just a few beats, but it slowed.
In the High Places of the World-How the incidents surrounding Soledad's birth shaped the rest of her life
A fact: during Soledad’s birth, a dove crashed into large, glass window of the delivery room of the Hospital do Coração de Messejana, snapping its neck instantly. They had thought the baby dead in the womb, and her mother, grey-faced with the pain of pushing, saw only the flurry of feathers, saw it slantwise through eyes that had long since ceased to register details.....
The doctor in charge saw the bird, and in that moment his eyes flicked away from the trembling mound of flesh of the mother. He was not an inattentive man, but his eyes slipped for that brief moment, and so he was startled when he turned back to realize that he now held in his hands a wailing girl.
A higly enjoyable collection for those who like stories that are a bit off the beaten path.
8/10
As with most collections there were a few stories that didn't resonate with me but I will highlight some that I thought were brilliant.
Blessed-In these days where kids(and adults) seem to get caught up in the idea of needing all the latest/best of...everything, this was a heart wrenching story with a gut punch ending, of a young girl caught between her divorced parents as they give her presents of The Blessed for her birthday.
Her dad bounced her on his shoulders and then heaved her off again so she landed gently on the ground, and she stood tip-toed until she could see over the top of the crate. Chloe fingered the straw shyly, not daring to touch it yet, not daring to stroke the soft leathery skin.
“For your birthday, kiddo,” he said in a warm, excited voice. “You’re almost seven, and we wanted you to have this—”
“Lucia of Syracuse,” her mum interrupted. He gave her a look, but it was an affectionate look, one that showed he didn’t mind much. “Died 304. A real, genuine martyr.”
Sandition-Probably my favorite story about the unfinished Jane Austen book and just how the rest of the text was discovered.
Something caught her eye, a smallish discoloured lump on the side of her neck, no bigger than a dime. She squinted, touched it with a finger. The skin was dried out, rough, but the space itself was numb, as if all the nerve endings had been disconnected. She shook her head, tried scratching it with a nail. A queer sensation ran through her body, as if the area was simultaneously hypersensitive and blanked out with Novocain.
Pieces of Broken Things-How one man deals with his wife leaving him after twelve years of marriage
Love, she said, love was messy and incomprehensible and she, almost forty now, almost the big four-zero, didn’t want messy and incomprehensible. She had, she told him a little bashfully, replaced her heart with the only thing she could get to fit— a tiny clock the pawn shop owner had handy. She showed it to David. She undid the front of her cream silk blouse, and David got a glimpse of a little ormolu face with two prim hands nestled in the little hollow between her breasts.
He decides to dig a hole and bury her things because they bring him too much pain
When he looked at the hole, he felt a little of the love shudder out of him. It was just a tiny bit of love, but it flopped in the dirt by his feet for a moment like a fish. His heart slowed, just a few beats, but it slowed.
In the High Places of the World-How the incidents surrounding Soledad's birth shaped the rest of her life
A fact: during Soledad’s birth, a dove crashed into large, glass window of the delivery room of the Hospital do Coração de Messejana, snapping its neck instantly. They had thought the baby dead in the womb, and her mother, grey-faced with the pain of pushing, saw only the flurry of feathers, saw it slantwise through eyes that had long since ceased to register details.....
The doctor in charge saw the bird, and in that moment his eyes flicked away from the trembling mound of flesh of the mother. He was not an inattentive man, but his eyes slipped for that brief moment, and so he was startled when he turned back to realize that he now held in his hands a wailing girl.
A higly enjoyable collection for those who like stories that are a bit off the beaten path.
8/10
toria's review
5.0
Just when I thought I had found my books of the year, this book arrives and blows many of them out of the water.
matthewssmith's review
5.0
Deeply strange things occur in these stories and because the people that populate them adapt so quickly, they themselves seem darker, not the types of people we would trust to be alone with in a poorly lit stairwell. There are so many beautiful words, so many disturbing images, and the stories run deep, if not long, because each explores several different aspects of humanity simultaneously. Body issues, relationships, philosophies, psychological landscapes, and fears branch off from the seemingly straight forward narrative, reconnect, or tangle themselves into knots. Helen Marshall's characters are cut off from one another, from all others, but most importantly, the people to whom they should be closest, the ones they need the most. That's the deepest horror at the core of all the others in this collection. Losing love, never finding love, never being loved. Being utterly alone.
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