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A review by sil3nos
Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap
This short story collection was recommended to me by a reddit user when I asked for horror recommendations. And not all stories in here fit that bill, but I still highly enjoyed most of them. Now, one thing I am missing here is a sort of glossary with all of the Filipino terms the author uses that most readers from the west will be unfamiliar with, but then, I could just Google most (it's just that in german trains, that's mostly impossible) and it was more my problem than the stories', I'll have to admit. Another issue I had with some of the stories was how ambiguous the endings were (I mean, the author's website literally says that she likes ambiguous endings and it is true). Most of the time, I couldn't fathom what had just happened and would've liked a little debriefing.
What I really liked here was the spin on tropes that I found really interesting: What if your college roommate was a monster and killed people but you were actually fine with it? What if the person from that creepy urban legend you once heard was real and she's actually happy she gets remembered at all? What if magical girls were getting older and tired of fighting monsters? There were always a few things in story that made me go "Oh, so this is where this came from" or "This is an interesting idea". And I really liked that.
My favourites were (in that order)
- How to swallow the moon: Kind of felt like six crimson cranes and the priory of the orange tree, but make it good.
- A cup of salt tears: Really got me into the atmosphere
- Have you heard the one about Anamaria Marquez?: Really spooked me out and then took a very interesting twist at the end
- Misty: Similarly to a cup of salt tears, I really appreciated the atmosphere. Plus, I liked the open ending in this one.
What I really liked here was the spin on tropes that I found really interesting: What if your college roommate was a monster and killed people but you were actually fine with it? What if the person from that creepy urban legend you once heard was real and she's actually happy she gets remembered at all? What if magical girls were getting older and tired of fighting monsters? There were always a few things in story that made me go "Oh, so this is where this came from" or "This is an interesting idea". And I really liked that.
My favourites were (in that order)
- How to swallow the moon: Kind of felt like six crimson cranes and the priory of the orange tree, but make it good.
- A cup of salt tears: Really got me into the atmosphere
- Have you heard the one about Anamaria Marquez?: Really spooked me out and then took a very interesting twist at the end
- Misty: Similarly to a cup of salt tears, I really appreciated the atmosphere. Plus, I liked the open ending in this one.