A review by rosebudthom
A Darker Shade of Noir: New Stories of Body Horror by Women Writers by Joyce Carol Oates

4.0

I usually don't like reviewing collections as they're varied and hard to generalise, but I can say with confidence I enjoyed A Darker Shade of Noir a lot! I was first drawn in by the idea of body horror from purely female and enby authors, and it didn't disappoint. Part I is very minor horror, mostly just what I would call odd. Part II absolutely had me in its grip, especially with Margaret Atwood's Memempsychosis (the opening story of Part II) and Gross Anatomy by Aimee LaBrie. Part III was a good wind-down, I felt, coming in strong with Joyce Carol Oates' The Chair of Tranquility and ending strong with Sydney by Sheila Kohler, both of which played on what I feel to be very female fears. All in all, I'd recommend this to any horror fan, as it has a bit of everything, and I feel the term "body horror" was used nice and broadly to refer not just to maladies of the body, but also the very nature of being trapped within a body, and foreign bodies invading ones' own.
Thank you to Edelweiss for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.