A review by jgintrovertedreader
20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

4.0

I struggled with where to shelve this. Some of the stories are ghost stories, some are horror, some are just eerie, and some are just straight-up fiction. But they're all good.

Joe Hill shows an amazing range in this collection, going from a story about a boy who wakes up as a giant bug, to a bittersweet ghost story, to a story that's sort of a reflection on father/son relationships and the glory of baseball.

My favorites are probably "Abraham's Boys" and the title story, "20th Century Ghosts." That might be because I read this to start off what I plan to be a month-long horror-fest (we'll see how that plays out) and these two fit the bill. "Abraham's Boys" is about Abraham Van Helsing's children, and I think anyone can see the possibilities there. Hill does it justice. "20th Century Ghosts" is about a ghost in a movie theater. It was oddly touching.

My least favorite was "My Father's Mask." There's probably something there that I just didn't get, but I don't have a clue what that was supposed to be about. It was just weird and disturbing and I don't know why.

I'll be picking up more of Joe Hill's work.