Genre: Horror, Short-stories Published: Tin House Publishing & Dreamscape Audio, August 2024
My Rating: 2/5 stars
Drawn in by the dazzling cover and hooked by the idea of a short story collection dealing with the horrors of womanhood, I went into this debut collection with quite high expectations. Unfortunately, I was left feeling very underwhelmed by the content within.
Overall, there was a very consistent problem I found with all of the stories within this collection: there’s a lot of emphasis on “vibes”, and the “esthetic”, and using well-known horror-tropes to bring a message across. The issue is: there is no original or worthwhile message to be found at the end of them... These are pretty packages filled with nothing but packing-peanuts in book form… They seemingly build up to something, only to flicker out like a candle at the end, adding nothing to the already existing canon of horror (or feminist lit-fic) relying on the same tropes.
That isn’t to say that there isn’t a clear message behind them: the author has clear feminist ideas she attempts to bring across, as you will see in some of the premises for the individual stories. Unfortunately, none of them are creative, and many are so on the nose that they missed the mark for me.
Individual ratings of the 10 stories below. Beware slight spoilers as to their premises:
- Dogs: 2/5 stars
A woman is chased by a pack of predatory “dogs”. A metaphor that it’s só on the nose, that I struggled to focus on the actual story. Also on a personal note: I’m truly sick of the unnuanced trope of “all men are disgusting dogs” in feminist fiction. There’s so much more to discuss than that…
- You Can Never Be Too Sure: 2/5 stars
Female college student is trapped in her dorm by a storm, as an urban legend about a Boogeyman, said to prey on young women, makes the rounds… And nothing happens…
- Mystery Lights: 3.5/5
A company uses mystery lights in the sky to promote the reboot of their latest TV-show. This one had a lot to say about female rage and mother-daughter-dynamics. Interesting, if a bit too short to explore the themes in depth.
- The White Places: 1/5 stars
This one completely blended together with the previous one to the point where I initially missed the transition from one story to the next, because my mind wandered. Utterly unmemorable and didn’t go anywhere.
- Bright Lights, Big Deal: 2/5 stars
Woman gets disillusioned by the dark side of “glamorous New-York-life”, capitalism, etc. You’ve read this one before…
- Trogloxene: 2/5 stars
Young girl returns home after being trapped in a cave-system for 8 days. She returns different in disturbing ways…
Cool concept, some interesting visuals, but again: you’ve read this before, ánd better.
- Reclamation: 4/5 stars
A desert-wellness retreat turns cultish… a classic take on the wellness-horror-subgenre that has been taking flight lately. Reminded me a lot of Death Valley by Melissa Broder in terms of vibes. Probably my favourite of the collection.
- Clean Hunters: 1/5 stars
Again: utterly unmemorable…
- Reaper Ranch: 1/5 stars
A very anemic take on the nursing-home-horror-trope. Perhaps it’s my aversion to the popular use of this trope as a medical professional, but this one did felt very cheap and shallow to me.
- Vermillion: 2/5 stars
Feels like somewhat of a follow-up to Trogloxene, but because of the break between the two, I felt disconnected from both. I would’ve preferred to be unrelated, or be part of an extended novella/longer story.
Many thanks to Tin House Books and Dreamhouse Media for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
You can find this book here on Goodreads.
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