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A review by oashackelford
Slasher Girls & Monster Boys by Danielle Paige, Carrie Ryan, McCormick Templeman, Marie Lu, April Genevieve Tucholke, Kendare Blake, Jonathan Maberry, Nova Ren Suma, Leigh Bardugo, A.G. Howard, Jay Kristoff, Megan Shepherd, Cat Winters, Stefan Bachmann
4.0
Slasher Girls and Monster Boys is a collection of short horror stories that will give you goosebumps. Written by fourteen different authors, most of them not typically known for horror, each story in this collection tackles a slightly different subject in the horror genre. Some have unreliable narrators, and some, while not being scary, are just creepy.
I thought that this was a great collection. One of the reviewers of this book mentioned that in this collection girls are not automatically murdered in every single story, which is refreshing. While I didn't enjoy every story that I read, I did enjoy most of them and a few of them I will be thinking about for a long time to come.
Because each story is so different I will leave a small review of each one with no spoilers. I may mention a detail from the stories, but never the ending, or any twists.
The Birds of Azalea Street
This one out of all of them creeped me out the worst. I think that by far it might be the creepiest story in the collection. I think that any time a story starts out with a creepy neighbor watching teenage girls I am gonna get the heebie jeebies because it is just so wrong. This is the kind of story that makes you look over your shoulder when you are reading it because you feel like you are being watched. 4/5 stars
In the Forest Dark and Deep
This story was my favorite from the collection. a girl finds a clearing in the woods that looks like it would be the perfect place to have a tea party, so she returns to it day after day to find things like a table and tea cups have been added. I think this one was my favorite because you can tell where the author drew their inspiration from and because the inspiration is so obvious the author uses it to play with the reader's predictions. I also think this story creeps up on you slowly. When I read it, I had no way to guess the ending, but when the ending finally arrived I was well and truly creeped out. 5/5 stars.
Emmeline
A girl knitting alone in her bedroom is approached by an American Soldier during World War 1, and she asks him to stay with her. I don't think that this story was super creepy, or scary, but it does fit well into the horror genre. This may have been the most poetic of all the stories in the collection. "The flirty old moon eased his way across the warped and sooty floorboards and kissed my bare toes, turning my feet as luminous as the skin of the cinema stars." I think that the use of language in this story lulls the reader into a false sense of calm, making it harder to see what the outcome will be.
Verse Chorus Verse
This was my least favorite story so far. In this story a teen starlet is forced into rehab as a punishment from a recent DUI. The only problem is that something is wrong with the rehab facility. I didn't like this story because I didn't understand what was supposed to be happening with it. I know that in short horror stories you are never going to get the full picture of what is happening, but they usually also get to the point about why something is scary, so that even if they don't explicitly tell you why something is happening you as the reader can still draw your own conclusions. I felt like the author introduced three different reasons that something was going down at this rehab facility and then didn't wrap any of those ideas up. It was really difficult to tell what exactly it was that was causing all of the problems and it wasn't clear why these kids were being punished or what we were supposed to be scared of. 2/5 stars
Hide-and-Seek
I love any story where the main character dies on the first page and tries to play a game to cheat death. As always, death lets you pick the game and if you win it, you get to live. I thought that this story was a lot of fun because it gave you the feeling that death was around every corner and you never knew what he would try next. 5/5 Stars
The Dark, Scary Parts and All
This story is maybe the least memorable in the collection. A girl in an ELA class sympathizes with Frankenstein's monster because out of all the characters in the book we hear from him the least. Because of her bold choice she is noticed by the cutest boy in school. I don't think that this story is predictable or poorly written, it just wasn't very interesting or scary. Unfortunately without giving anything away I can't say exactly why. 2/5 Stars
The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh
Several teens, who get drunk while hanging out, accidentally hit a classmate of theirs with their car. Fearing for their futures, they have to decide what to do with the body. I really liked the set up for this story because you think you know where it is going the entire time, but it never ends up where you think it will. While I do think it was well written, it doesn't give you a dawning sense of horror or the creeps so this story got knocked down a few pegs because of that. 3.5/5 Stars
Fat Girl with a Knife
A fat girl is ruthlessly picked on by the kids at her school, but she never takes it lying down. She also never takes it too far, once her revenge is over she leaves her tormentors alone unless they pick on her again, and no one has ever tried it twice. Even though she is picked on, she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, so when she finds one of her tormentors crying in the bathroom she aims to comfort her, until things go awry. I don't think that I can say anything about this one other than it was well written and I would have like more examples of her getting revenge on her bullies. 4/5 Stars
Sleepless
I really thought that I knew how this one was going to end, but the author played on my preconceived notions and flipped the script on me. A young man and a girl are chatting online until one night the girl says that she has been ousted from her home and needs a safe place to go. The young man hesitates as he wasn't ready to meet yet, but nonetheless agrees. 5/5 stars
M
A murder is committed in front of a blind girl, but the blind girl noticed the murderer's distinctive smell. Now she has to find out who he is before he catches on to the fact that she knows and murders her or anyone else. I really liked this one, but I have been reading a lot of Agatha Christie lately and I got caught up in wanting to know why the murders were being committed in the first place. That is on me though. 5/5 Stars.
The Girl Without a Face
A young man is tormented by a ghostly girl with no face. The reader struggles to understand why this girl is tormenting him until more of the story is revealed. I struggled with this story a little bit. It wasn't bad, I just thought that it was a little boring.
3/5 stars
A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow
Five men go hunting in the North for a girl with white hair that they can sell to a southern man for a lot of money. However, after catching her they get a lot more than they bargain for. I thought that this story was really interesting, but I would have liked to understand more about what illness was killing off the southern women, and what culture the northern girl came from, just to give the story more context. 4/5 stars
Stitches
An abusive man sees the error of his ways and is told about an experimental surgery where the parts of him where sin live can be replaced with body parts from a cadaver who was righteous. The theory is that the parts from the righteous person will enable him to make better life decisions, but the person who must help him with is operations is his daughter. This tale reminds me of gruesome gothic style horror stories and I really enjoyed it. 5/5 Stars
On the I-5
A fourteen year old girl is in a diner alone waiting to retrieve a dead body, but all the wrong kinds of men keep laying eyes on her. I really wasn't sure where this story was going but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that if the author ever decided to expand this story into a book that would give us more details about the girl's life, mission, or how this cycle got started, I would be very excited to read it. Instead for now I will have to draw my own conclusions. 5/5 Stars
I thought that this was a great collection. One of the reviewers of this book mentioned that in this collection girls are not automatically murdered in every single story, which is refreshing. While I didn't enjoy every story that I read, I did enjoy most of them and a few of them I will be thinking about for a long time to come.
Because each story is so different I will leave a small review of each one with no spoilers. I may mention a detail from the stories, but never the ending, or any twists.
The Birds of Azalea Street
This one out of all of them creeped me out the worst. I think that by far it might be the creepiest story in the collection. I think that any time a story starts out with a creepy neighbor watching teenage girls I am gonna get the heebie jeebies because it is just so wrong. This is the kind of story that makes you look over your shoulder when you are reading it because you feel like you are being watched. 4/5 stars
In the Forest Dark and Deep
This story was my favorite from the collection. a girl finds a clearing in the woods that looks like it would be the perfect place to have a tea party, so she returns to it day after day to find things like a table and tea cups have been added. I think this one was my favorite because you can tell where the author drew their inspiration from and because the inspiration is so obvious the author uses it to play with the reader's predictions. I also think this story creeps up on you slowly. When I read it, I had no way to guess the ending, but when the ending finally arrived I was well and truly creeped out. 5/5 stars.
Emmeline
A girl knitting alone in her bedroom is approached by an American Soldier during World War 1, and she asks him to stay with her. I don't think that this story was super creepy, or scary, but it does fit well into the horror genre. This may have been the most poetic of all the stories in the collection. "The flirty old moon eased his way across the warped and sooty floorboards and kissed my bare toes, turning my feet as luminous as the skin of the cinema stars." I think that the use of language in this story lulls the reader into a false sense of calm, making it harder to see what the outcome will be.
Verse Chorus Verse
This was my least favorite story so far. In this story a teen starlet is forced into rehab as a punishment from a recent DUI. The only problem is that something is wrong with the rehab facility. I didn't like this story because I didn't understand what was supposed to be happening with it. I know that in short horror stories you are never going to get the full picture of what is happening, but they usually also get to the point about why something is scary, so that even if they don't explicitly tell you why something is happening you as the reader can still draw your own conclusions. I felt like the author introduced three different reasons that something was going down at this rehab facility and then didn't wrap any of those ideas up. It was really difficult to tell what exactly it was that was causing all of the problems and it wasn't clear why these kids were being punished or what we were supposed to be scared of. 2/5 stars
Hide-and-Seek
I love any story where the main character dies on the first page and tries to play a game to cheat death. As always, death lets you pick the game and if you win it, you get to live. I thought that this story was a lot of fun because it gave you the feeling that death was around every corner and you never knew what he would try next. 5/5 Stars
The Dark, Scary Parts and All
This story is maybe the least memorable in the collection. A girl in an ELA class sympathizes with Frankenstein's monster because out of all the characters in the book we hear from him the least. Because of her bold choice she is noticed by the cutest boy in school. I don't think that this story is predictable or poorly written, it just wasn't very interesting or scary. Unfortunately without giving anything away I can't say exactly why. 2/5 Stars
The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh
Several teens, who get drunk while hanging out, accidentally hit a classmate of theirs with their car. Fearing for their futures, they have to decide what to do with the body. I really liked the set up for this story because you think you know where it is going the entire time, but it never ends up where you think it will. While I do think it was well written, it doesn't give you a dawning sense of horror or the creeps so this story got knocked down a few pegs because of that. 3.5/5 Stars
Fat Girl with a Knife
A fat girl is ruthlessly picked on by the kids at her school, but she never takes it lying down. She also never takes it too far, once her revenge is over she leaves her tormentors alone unless they pick on her again, and no one has ever tried it twice. Even though she is picked on, she doesn't have a mean bone in her body, so when she finds one of her tormentors crying in the bathroom she aims to comfort her, until things go awry. I don't think that I can say anything about this one other than it was well written and I would have like more examples of her getting revenge on her bullies. 4/5 Stars
Sleepless
I really thought that I knew how this one was going to end, but the author played on my preconceived notions and flipped the script on me. A young man and a girl are chatting online until one night the girl says that she has been ousted from her home and needs a safe place to go. The young man hesitates as he wasn't ready to meet yet, but nonetheless agrees. 5/5 stars
M
A murder is committed in front of a blind girl, but the blind girl noticed the murderer's distinctive smell. Now she has to find out who he is before he catches on to the fact that she knows and murders her or anyone else. I really liked this one, but I have been reading a lot of Agatha Christie lately and I got caught up in wanting to know why the murders were being committed in the first place. That is on me though. 5/5 Stars.
The Girl Without a Face
A young man is tormented by a ghostly girl with no face. The reader struggles to understand why this girl is tormenting him until more of the story is revealed. I struggled with this story a little bit. It wasn't bad, I just thought that it was a little boring.
3/5 stars
A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow
Five men go hunting in the North for a girl with white hair that they can sell to a southern man for a lot of money. However, after catching her they get a lot more than they bargain for. I thought that this story was really interesting, but I would have liked to understand more about what illness was killing off the southern women, and what culture the northern girl came from, just to give the story more context. 4/5 stars
Stitches
An abusive man sees the error of his ways and is told about an experimental surgery where the parts of him where sin live can be replaced with body parts from a cadaver who was righteous. The theory is that the parts from the righteous person will enable him to make better life decisions, but the person who must help him with is operations is his daughter. This tale reminds me of gruesome gothic style horror stories and I really enjoyed it. 5/5 Stars
On the I-5
A fourteen year old girl is in a diner alone waiting to retrieve a dead body, but all the wrong kinds of men keep laying eyes on her. I really wasn't sure where this story was going but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that if the author ever decided to expand this story into a book that would give us more details about the girl's life, mission, or how this cycle got started, I would be very excited to read it. Instead for now I will have to draw my own conclusions. 5/5 Stars