Scan barcode
A review by raincorbyn
Unspeakable: A Queer Gothic Anthology by Celine Frohn
5.0
Queers and goths make natural friends, and many are both. The extraness, the melancholy, the outsider status, "accept me as I am and then let me be."
This delightful anthology out of the UK skews more comfy-camp or heart-wrenching than earnestly horrifying, and dark lord knows we could use that these days. As with all anthologies, some pieces will be more for any reader than others, but this was overall very consistently high quality, well-edited, and a real bummer to be finished with.
More an observation than a quibble, but it was interesting to read that in most of the stories, the queer characters were also the monsters. Don't get me wrong, we have as much right and proclivity to be monstrous as the general population, and who wouldn't love some superpowers such as being able to haunt or eat our enemies, or read every book ever? But the trope of queer-coding monsters and villains throughout history and literature kept drawing my attention, more by attrition than any one story being problematic. Still, some saucy revenge and indulgence in degeneracy are delicious, and I look forward to more from these authors!
This delightful anthology out of the UK skews more comfy-camp or heart-wrenching than earnestly horrifying, and dark lord knows we could use that these days. As with all anthologies, some pieces will be more for any reader than others, but this was overall very consistently high quality, well-edited, and a real bummer to be finished with.
More an observation than a quibble, but it was interesting to read that in most of the stories, the queer characters were also the monsters. Don't get me wrong, we have as much right and proclivity to be monstrous as the general population, and who wouldn't love some superpowers such as being able to haunt or eat our enemies, or read every book ever? But the trope of queer-coding monsters and villains throughout history and literature kept drawing my attention, more by attrition than any one story being problematic. Still, some saucy revenge and indulgence in degeneracy are delicious, and I look forward to more from these authors!