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A review by hayhay321
All Souls' Night by Hugh Walpole
2.0
This was not one of my favorites. Granted, I am not a huge fan of the writing style from this time period, but I can also honestly say I only truly enjoyed a handful of the stories in this collection. I will say the author does a good job of exploring the idea of "horror" stories in subtler ways than is normally found in the genre (and calling this a collection of horror stories, or even ghost stories, really is not an accurate representation, as many other readers have pointed out). Several of the stories leave the reader with a slight feeling of unease, without quite knowing why. However, I also found myself finishing several stories feeling like I had completely missed the point, or even what was supposed to be at all off putting about the tale.
Unlike many others, I did not like Whistle at all. As this is the first story in the collection, it is very possible I went into the rest of the tales with a negative outlook. I very much enjoyed The Staircase though. Both Mr. Oddy and Spanish Dusk felt more like stories that simply had a twist ending than anything necessarily macabre to them. Tarnhelm, Mrs. Lunt and The Snow were all sufficiently creepy. The rest of the collection elicited feelings of confusion, pity, and mild grief for various characters. This is not a book would I would recommend to anyone unless I knew they particularly liked this style of writing.
I listened to this as an audio book, and I will say that the narration was very good, and seemed to fit the mood of the collection well. While I might not seek out further books by Walpole, I would be willing to check out other titles narrated by Matt Godfrey.
*I was given a free copy of this audio book from the narrator, via Audible, in exchange for an honest review.
Unlike many others, I did not like Whistle at all. As this is the first story in the collection, it is very possible I went into the rest of the tales with a negative outlook. I very much enjoyed The Staircase though. Both Mr. Oddy and Spanish Dusk felt more like stories that simply had a twist ending than anything necessarily macabre to them. Tarnhelm, Mrs. Lunt and The Snow were all sufficiently creepy. The rest of the collection elicited feelings of confusion, pity, and mild grief for various characters. This is not a book would I would recommend to anyone unless I knew they particularly liked this style of writing.
I listened to this as an audio book, and I will say that the narration was very good, and seemed to fit the mood of the collection well. While I might not seek out further books by Walpole, I would be willing to check out other titles narrated by Matt Godfrey.
*I was given a free copy of this audio book from the narrator, via Audible, in exchange for an honest review.