A review by effingunicorns
The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

dark mysterious sad tense

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

If vaccines actually caused autism, the people who think the stories in this collection qualify as horror wouldn't last a week. Like, even reading The Lottery itself for me is just, "Ah, yes, an arcane set of rules which seems horrific and arbitrary to the observer but perfectly natural to the people taking part. Must be a day ending in Y!" Which isn't to say it's a bad collection! Jackson still has all those sharp little details and only ever seems to linger on things if it's to really drive home how bad the awkwardness and confusion can get, so I'm probably going to recommend it to people on that basis if it ever comes up, but I genuinely feel like this is just some basic-ass literary fiction rather than horror.