Tara Elizabeth

Meh

Revisado: 04-21-25

It's not like any of the stories were so disgraceful it made me turn it off. Some were boring though. Others were pretty entertaining. I won't read the anthology again and I'm not sure I'd read the author again. They're not really all that scary.

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Some for me

Revisado: 03-29-25

Other stories were NOT for me. The Pancake Family, I warn anyone who needs to hear this now, DO NOT LISTEN. I truly think that is the most disturbing story I've ever heard. Like, I told my brother about it and I wouldn't even go into detail because I'm not going to put those images into someone else's head. I won't be responsible for my little brother's nightmares.

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Started Strong

Revisado: 02-28-25

By the end, I was skipping a lot of episodes. First of all, a lot of the stories started to get really gross instead of really scary. Ew. Gross doesn't scare me. Disgust is not fear, it's disgust. Geez. Second of all, the sponsor spots went from simple commercials, to full blow infomercials. I was listening to the main narrator tell me about Hello Fresh and some kind of crypto currency for so long, that too ended up being disgusting. Have you ever looked at the price for Hello Fresh? I'd rather use a grocery store thank you. At least that offensive though. I for one, believe crypto to be complete garbage and was really turned off by this. I started to hate even listening to the introduction, that I would often just skip the episode altogether. Which is a shame. Because let me just say, the episode they dedicated to their friend (RIP Emma Froh), an episode in the 1st season called Requiem). In it there is a story she performed called A Knock At the Window. I'm not even kidding when I tell you that it's one of the best short stories I've ever heard. Like, Stephen King listened to this and got jealous he didn't think of it first. Fantastic. If you listen to only 1 episode, make it this one!

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Explanation

Revisado: 02-09-25

I've seen low reviews before, so I wanted to make sure I explained myself fully. Because I hated most of this book. A little thing I didn't like are the length of some stories, for instance, one story is in chapters and more than 4 hours long. I read Stephen King, so normally length does not bother me, but the narrator is so grating, I hated every second that I listened. Other stories were blatant ripoffs of greater stories. They come at night is both too long and a ripoff of The Fog. The twist here though, is that the things that come, kill everyone. It's not about justice or revenge. It's just murder for murder's sake. And the When I Snap My Fingers story is a story we've all seen, where an innocent gets possessed by a killer. The killer wins in a few of those stories. But in those other stories, it isn't a little girl who gets possessed. And it isn't a little boy getting framed.

To be fair, I liked a few stories a little bit. Under the skin is both encouraging and frightening. That old woman was majorly disturbed. Lights Out was pretty interesting. It was a bit like Brightburn, except this kid seems to have remorse for some of his actions. The Well was my favorite of all the stories, but then the author himself tried to ruin it for me. I thought it was the most straight forward, good vs evil, with a satisfying conclusion. Only then, in the author's note, he admits that he thinks it's a cruel story. The Teacher from Outer Space is about reasonable parents and it was still cruel. A Life for An Idea with it's animal deaths, that was cruel. My recommendation, don't listen to any of the author's notes. Not worth it. For instance, after All Birds Hate Me, about a boy named Eagle, who has a brother named Raven, and a crush on a girl named Lark, the author asks us readers if we noticed all the characters were named for birds? Umm, how stupid does he think I am? He obviously thinks he's smarter than ALL his readers. Sounds really pretentious.

Speaking of pretentious, I almost wished Babysitter was the same thing we've all heard a thousand times. But I can't even give it away because he actually didn't tell us anything. It's called Babysitter, but you never meet the children. You never even meet their parents. You're just told about a painting in the house of a creepy man and it seems to be changing every time she looks at it. But then, it ends with her doing something a bit foolish and once again the author ruins it by saying, "you readers can finish it however you want to". Umm, no. You're the writer! I was so angry. I cannot recommend this book at all.

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Mixed Bag, But I Dug It Well Enough

Revisado: 02-03-25

It's a mixed bag, but most anthologies are. I still recommend it. I always do bad news first, so let's start with my least favorites. Most of the stories I didn't like were unfair, bad guys won, good guys lost, world was screwed. Some of them were creepy, but just not worth another read because of the disappointing endings. My three least favorites were Russian Dollhouse, Last Call At the Sudden Death Saloon and Justin's Favorite. Justin was a nice guy who had taken care of his family when necessary and while a little bit frightening, it didn't end at all well for me. The Dollhouse wasn't nice at all. Not the beginning. Not the end. And I have a serious fear of worms and this story was disgusting. The Sudden Death Saloon was by far my least favorite though, but since I don't want to spoil it outright, I'll just say that there is no point. It's like, here's the good, here's the bad, the end. Nothing really happens to give the story a point for being a story at all.

The stories I think are good, are good because there's justice or comeuppances and very often, incredibly creepy. I have several I want to mention and here I go. Cool for Cats is cool because I love cats and justice tastes like milk. Bettor's Edge is about a man who bets on anything and literally, everything, even death. But the real story is about a dead girl. Trust me, it's good. The Glimmer Girls is also, coincidentally, a story about dead girls, but this one is even scarier. I loved the ending. Haunted World is a story about all those dumb people that assume they know everything about ghosts, including the fact that they cannot hurt you. My absolute favorite though, was The Putpocket. Never realized the opposite of a pickpocket could be so much more terrible. But this story had horror and heart. I really dug it.

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I Love Shine!

Revisado: 01-30-25

I read A.M. Shine's The Creeper before I read this book. It was good, really good, so I was excited to read this one immediately afterward. Especially since I've seen commercials for the movie based on this. After completing it, I'm very interested in watching the movie. I'm curious as to how the handled the adaptation. Did they keep all the same twists? The same deaths? The same ending?

Sorry, this isn't a proper review yet. The story centers around Mina, a young woman that often fights with her sister about how irresponsible she is. So, she takes a random job that has her driving to a place she isn't familiar with and her car breaks down near some woods. Before long, she's hunkering down in a bunker type place with 3 other people that explain how they're being watched by strange beings every night and they must stand there like their animals at the zoo. I'll admit, Madeline seemed strange, but she seemed strong. And Daniel and Kira were not as strong. It's clear Madeline is keeping them alive with her wits and instincts alone.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The narration was great. I even liked where he went with it. Without spoiling too much, I feel like it had a very They Live vibe. And I know there's another Watchers book out. I'm intrigued to read that as well. I'm hoping Shine goes into exactly what these Watchers are and where they came from.

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Only One Really Wonderful Story

Revisado: 01-17-25

There is a story in this anthology called Henry and the Snakewood Box. Even when this one started, I wasn't jazzed, but then it got so good. Like SO GOOD. A man named Henry has a bit of a demon problem and he comes up with a clever and hilarious way to deal with it all. It's got thrills and chills, a sweetness and a bit of humor. Sad to say though, almost every other story is just not what I hoped this collection would be.

One story I found kind of amazing was a spin on Snow White. Very girl power. I didn't realize though, that this "girl power" would turn into all out man bashing in other stories. There's another story about a troll that was okay and a story called Listen I found particularly interesting. But unfortunately, most of this comes out unfair and quite pretentious. I wouldn't recommend it at all unless you like your horror, not at all horrific and a bit snooty and condescending.

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Nothing Really Great Here

Revisado: 01-16-25

I have to agree with everyone else when they talk about some of the narration being annoying. I actually skipped certain stories that were just too long to listen to the voice telling me the story. What really bothers me is that many of the stories didn't have ghosts. Not really. And in a book called "Best Ghost Stories", I need there to be ghosts. Some also got a little political, which I don't really mind, but then some didn't really give me a point and others just got really racist. Others went on way too long. Some didn't go far enough and I felt like I needed more.

Bad specifics: The Open Window is about an ignorant little girl and I did not find it nice at all. Caterpillars was so gross I couldn't finish it. And the story about the lepers should have been much scarier than it was. How did they write a story about lepers and it not be at all scary?

The good: The Monkey's Paw, obviously. Classic and well told. The Black Cat was perfect, but Poe has always been a favorite of mine. Henry James had a nice revenge tale and The Lost Ghost, while not scary, was ominous and sad, but sweet at the same time.

Overall though, I don't think I'd recommend it.

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I sort of liked one of them

Revisado: 10-30-24

So, the first story was very creepy and while not really my speed, I thought I'd hang on and get to better. The next two were eerie and disturbing, but left me wanting more explanation. The only story I really dug was about a hit and run, however I'm not sure it ended well as it was sort of a cliffhanger. The other stories revolved around some horrible people that deserved much worse than they got, and two particularly confusing ones that had me changing, very quickly, from scared to annoyed. I just bought another Ibsen book and I'm really hoping he does better with novels than he does with short stories.

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Only Made It Through 2 Stories

Revisado: 10-27-24

I wanna be honest, so I'm telling you upfront that I did not finish this book. I read the first story, which was disturbing, but not truly scary. I like to be scared. I don't like to be disturbed. Then I listened to the second story and it was just sad. Like, really depressing. I thought about continuing on, but whoever compared him to Stephen King was crazy. Not terrifying enough and there was really no point to everything. No message. I did not like this and probably won't seek out Malfi again.

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