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A review by zaheerah
All These Sunken Souls by Circe Moskowitz
3.0
*I received a copy from the publisher via Netgalley in return for an honest review. This in no way affected my opinion of the book.*
All These Sunken Souls features short horror stories from bestselling authors to rising new authors. I was super excited to read this anthology, featuring some authors whose work I’ve previously enjoyed to some new (to me) faces that I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for. This anthology kicks off so strong, and I was thoroughly enjoying each new story, however, I felt towards the end, it really lost steam. Rating anthologies is somewhat tricky because while I put the overall book at three stars, some of these pieces are 5-star quality.
Some of the standout pieces include:
Kalynn Bayron starts the anthology with a thrilling piece about a monster eager to satisfy its need to kill and finds its match in its newest victim. This one threw me off in the best way possible. It was such an unexpected ending and was the best choice to begin with.
Ashia Monet’s haunting tale about a mysterious entity that arrives at a church. I liked how this one dealt with religious hypocrisy, and the visuals in this short were one of the best. I was not the biggest fan of Monet’s debut, but this one was spectacular.
All My Best Friends Are Dead by Liselle Sambury. 10/10. My favourite. It reminded me of those late 90s/early 2000s teen shows that had always had one Halloween/horror episode in their lineup. But with actual horror and not sanitised for a young audience.
Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass. A young man joins his family gathering, headed by the patriarch of his family and discovers a secret that followed his family for years. I was a bit unsure at the start, but by the end, this was the story that made me put down my phone at 1 a.m. and forced me to sleep. So creepy; I loved it.
Overall, there are many more I could praise. Still, there are also many which were disappointing and the general feeling I had regarding them was that they all had excellent ideas and thrilling concepts. The execution of them is where I found myself almost skipping to the next story. But the ones that I did enjoy were some fantastic and frightening reads.
All These Sunken Souls features short horror stories from bestselling authors to rising new authors. I was super excited to read this anthology, featuring some authors whose work I’ve previously enjoyed to some new (to me) faces that I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for. This anthology kicks off so strong, and I was thoroughly enjoying each new story, however, I felt towards the end, it really lost steam. Rating anthologies is somewhat tricky because while I put the overall book at three stars, some of these pieces are 5-star quality.
Some of the standout pieces include:
Kalynn Bayron starts the anthology with a thrilling piece about a monster eager to satisfy its need to kill and finds its match in its newest victim. This one threw me off in the best way possible. It was such an unexpected ending and was the best choice to begin with.
Ashia Monet’s haunting tale about a mysterious entity that arrives at a church. I liked how this one dealt with religious hypocrisy, and the visuals in this short were one of the best. I was not the biggest fan of Monet’s debut, but this one was spectacular.
All My Best Friends Are Dead by Liselle Sambury. 10/10. My favourite. It reminded me of those late 90s/early 2000s teen shows that had always had one Halloween/horror episode in their lineup. But with actual horror and not sanitised for a young audience.
Papa Pearlie by Ryan Douglass. A young man joins his family gathering, headed by the patriarch of his family and discovers a secret that followed his family for years. I was a bit unsure at the start, but by the end, this was the story that made me put down my phone at 1 a.m. and forced me to sleep. So creepy; I loved it.
Overall, there are many more I could praise. Still, there are also many which were disappointing and the general feeling I had regarding them was that they all had excellent ideas and thrilling concepts. The execution of them is where I found myself almost skipping to the next story. But the ones that I did enjoy were some fantastic and frightening reads.