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syndicaited 's review for:
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions
by Neil Gaiman
finally! finished! this! book!
i intended to use this book to jumpstart my reading journey again (after all in high school it was my second nature to grab a horror anthology, steal behind the stacks, and devour stories about cannibals and resourceful would-be victims of murder) and neil’s name was bandied abt my circles of an author i may enjoy.
at the end of almost three months of trying to make it through this book: alas i am so sorry to my recommenders, he is probably just not for me!
two and a half stars for the delightful wedding not-present in the foreword and The White Road, and honorable mention to Murder Mysteries forthe tasty little unreliable narrator full-circle twist at the end. I also liked flipping back and forth between the foreword and the stories for the context and publishing history.
every other story felt unremarkable and/or laced with a middle aged male horniness (and yet, not a single fuckable character to be had—the men, pathetic, except MAYBE for the werewolf claims adjuster that killed the sea creature and fucked its mom, that was fun; all the women are sirens, caged animals, mysterious eldritch horrors, and completely one dimensional) that i was just… tired of by the end. wonp wonp.
an aside i promise did not influence my review of the book but i think provides important context: in his personal life he fumbled a baddie and then subtweeted her on his goodreads account. weirdo behavior!
i intended to use this book to jumpstart my reading journey again (after all in high school it was my second nature to grab a horror anthology, steal behind the stacks, and devour stories about cannibals and resourceful would-be victims of murder) and neil’s name was bandied abt my circles of an author i may enjoy.
at the end of almost three months of trying to make it through this book: alas i am so sorry to my recommenders, he is probably just not for me!
two and a half stars for the delightful wedding not-present in the foreword and The White Road, and honorable mention to Murder Mysteries for
every other story felt unremarkable and/or laced with a middle aged male horniness (and yet, not a single fuckable character to be had—the men, pathetic, except MAYBE for
an aside i promise did not influence my review of the book but i think provides important context: in his personal life he fumbled a baddie and then subtweeted her on his goodreads account. weirdo behavior!