Amanda B

Great horror stories, mostly good narration

Revisado: 04-06-25

As a longtime fan of horror, it’s becoming harder and harder to find books that don’t bore me to the core of my cold, unfeeling soul. This was a great collection of unique stories. A couple times I even got a little spooked. Includes some graphic content, which might be too much for some, but I felt it all added to the stories, didn’t feel superfluous or repetitive. I am frequently disappointed with “extreme” horror stories because, too often, authors rely on shock value to prop up mediocre plots.

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Excellent collection!!!!

Revisado: 05-13-24

Really solid collection of well-written, sinister stories told by excellent narrators. I want more. Highly recommend.

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Very enjoyable listen

Revisado: 09-13-23

I got this book because it was on sale. It was one of those titles that had sat in my wishlist for a long time, never quite making it to my cart. I’m glad I finally bought it. The story was engaging, funny, heartwarming, mildly suspenseful, and very well narrated. Great speculative fiction. Highly recommend.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Engaging story, great narration

Revisado: 08-14-23

I agree with most of the reviews that this seems heavily inspired by It, but written Malfi’s style. That delayed my decision to purchase the book because it sounded like it might be a ripoff of one of my favorite King novels. I’m glad I decided to buy, the story was engaging from start to finish. The story can be similarly summarized as It but only in summary and not in detail, this book tells its own tale.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Great stories, excellent narration

Revisado: 07-10-23

This series is really more thriller than horror, but that’s okay because it’s still creepy. I was worried, based on some of the descriptions, that this might veer into torture porn, but it didn’t. While there are scenes of violence and rape, the author gives graphic descriptions with minimal detail. Enough to create the picture, but leaving the reader to fill in the worst bits from their own imagination. (But I’m also a horror junkie so it could be that what I consider minimal detail might be too much for a more sensitive person.)

Great collection, I enjoyed books 1, 3, and 5 more than 2 and 4. The second and fourth books didn’t grab me as much but were still engaging enough to keep me listening. The narrator is fabulous. Great tone and inflection with a wide variety of voices and accents and, aside from one female character, he did a good job voicing women and children.

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Great radio drama performance

Revisado: 06-29-23

This collection was performed with a full cast in the style of a radio drama. The stories and performances were great and I enjoyed all of them. Some people complained about the background noises and music but I think they really added to the whole experience. Nice collection of creepy stories brought to life.

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Mixed bag

Revisado: 06-27-23

I got this after listening to a couple other anthologies from Sinister Smile and this was not my favorite. Being institutionalized is terrifying so I was looking forward to a whole collection that would creep me out…but was disappointed with this assortment. I skipped through about half of the stories because they didn’t grab me. I was hoping for the horrors within asylums or at least exciting tales of the insane, but many were about experiencing or living with someone who has dementia or Alzheimer’s, etc. which, while scary in real life is kind of boring for a horror story. There were also a handful that were so disjointed or unfocused, presumably to open a window into the mind of madness, that they fell flat and I lost interest. If you’re desperate for content, there are a handful of great stories in here but overall I wasn’t impressed.

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Solid anthology, highly recommend

Revisado: 05-09-23

I love horror anthologies but it’s hard to find a collection where the majority of stories are engaging and even harder to find stories that scare me. This one is fabulous. In any collection of short stories there are bound to be a few that don’t speak to me, but the quality of everything else more than made up for those. There’s a good mix of types of stories. Many were frightening because of their plausibility, but there’s also good supernatural stuff too. I knocked a star off of the narrator because some of his accents are a little off.

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Good but not great

Revisado: 05-07-23

Fine anthology although I enjoyed the first half more than the last. I found the overarching connecting theme a little underwhelming. Not something I’d listen to twice, but not totally disappointed I spent a credit on it.

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Nice assortment of sub-genres, okay narration

Revisado: 05-06-23

I’m giving this 4 stars because there are some solid stories in here, but it’s on the cusp of 3 stars because I skipped the ends of some stories and the narrator makes really strange voices for child characters. I don’t know a better way to describe it other than he makes all kids sound mentally handicapped. The book as a whole gets 4 stars for me because it’s hard to find a good horror anthology and there’s good mix of the horror sub-genres (realistic, fantasy, sci-fi, supernatural), there are a couple really good story concepts, and the narrator does well for the main characters.

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