A host of the sharpest
young adult authors come together in this collection of terrifying tales
and psychological thrillers. Each story draws from a mix of literature,
film, television, or even music to offer something new and fresh and
unsettling. Even better? After you’ve teased out each tale’s references,
satisfy your curiosity at the end, where the inspiration is revealed.
There are no superficial scares here. These are stories that will make
you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From bloody
horror, to the supernatural, to unnerving, all-too-possible realism,
this collection has something for anyone looking for an absolute thrill.
I
find myself starting to read my “scary” reads early! What can I say, I
hate waiting! The anthology Slasher Girls and Monster Boys edited by
April Genevieve Tucholke compiled
14 stories sure to delight and fright readers! From the 14 authors,
I’ve read seven previous and intentions to start another of the author’s
series. So I was already invested with some of these author’s works.
The rest were new to me, but still rather enjoyable.
And like with any anthology, I’m going to quickly break the stories
down one after another. Because really, that’s how I would want to read a
review over an anthology that I might considering reading!
Feel
free to pick and choose only particular mini reviews to read as well,
but really this whole anthology was pretty wild! I really liked it! What
was even more fun was learning
which horror movies or stories inspired the authors to write their own
tale. Some I recognized, some I didn’t and only a small handful were of
ones I actually watched, because, yeah, I’m a chicken when it comes to
horror movies! LOL!
The Birds of Azalea Street by Nova Ren Suma
Figuring
out which movies this one was based off was pretty easy, but still fun
nonetheless. Tasha and her friends have always known that Tasha’s
neighbor, Leonard was a downright
creepy dude. Always watching the girls as they walked around the
neighborhood and such, hearing the camera snap as they walk by. Even the
birds in the neighborhood stopped coming to his feeders after some
incidents.
Then
Tasha and her friends notice a woman coming into the house with Leonard
one night and determined to save her from the creepy man, the girls try
to warn her about the
danger she is unknowingly in. But things get weird as the story moves
along, but I like to think I grasped some of those hidden secrets about.
It was a pretty good story too!
Rating 4.5/5 stars
In the Forest Dark and Deep by Carrie Ryan
Carrie
wrote a pretty creeptastic story here! One that still left me puzzled
by the end, but it was still fabulously told! Cassidy has always loved
playing in the woods in
a secret little spot of hers where she once had tea parties, much like
Alice did in Wonderland. The March Hare even makes an appearance.
Like LITERALLY makes an appearance!
The
story gets told through flashbacks to her time as a child at seven
years old and in the current time at seventeen years old. There was a
pretty gruesome incident that
happened years ago when she was seven and it seems that history is
bound to repeat itself again in the current time.
I
guess what confused me the most, was not being able to understand if
what we were seeing was really happening or if there was some
psychological twist I wasn’t sure I was
reading about. All in all, a pretty creepy read if a bit puzzling.
Rating 4/5 stars
Emmeline by Cat Winters
This
one was pretty freaky too! Emmeline is a young girl trapped in her
room, longing to find someone to love and love her in return. Then one
night, as her family was housing
soldiers, she had a rather intriguing conversation with a young
soldier. Although, it’s halfway through the story that we get a
surprising twist added to the mix. While I could guess it in part and
the thereafter, I was a bit puzzled with not grasping why
the soldier seemed to know, and then yet didn’t? It had a few more
shocks and twists to it in the end, but it was still a pretty chilling
story!
Rating 4/5 stars
Verse Chorus Verse by Leigh Bardugo
This
one was probably one of the most weirdest ones out of the bunch. And in
a good way, yet not completely satisfying way. Jaycee is a young rising
singer and after an accident
and drugs goes to rehab. It gets told through Kara’s point of view in
the present time, which is Jaycee’s mom and then what happened in the
rehab center by Jaycee.
It
was a little confusing switching back and forth, but then one night
Kara gets a terrifying phone call from Jaycee begging to come home. But
later all is forgotten, and
Jaycee seems to love the rehab place.
I
never quite grasped what was going on with this creepy clinic, but it
was obvious from the getgo that something wasn’t right with this place. I
wish there could’ve been
clearer answers, but the mystery and downright eeriness definitely
makes up for it!
Rating 4/5 stars
Hide-and-Seek by Megan Shepherd
Annie
is a young teen that is murdered by her stepfather. She knows this upon
waking as a ghost. Then Crow Cullom comes to take her to meet her final
end, but Annie isn’t
ready to go and knowing her lore about Crow Cullom challenges him or
Death really, to a game of her choosing to win back her soul/life. The
game is hide-and-seek and she must survive the game in 24 hours or else
Death will claim her.
But
trouble is bound to find Annie everywhere she goes and it takes
everything she has to stay one step head of Death because he is hunting
her at every turn. The ending was
pretty chilling too, but I was able to surmise what would happen by the
clues laid out for us and I was delighted to find I was right! LOL!
Rating 5/5 stars
The Dark, Scary Parts and All by Danielle Paige
Marnie
is the smart girl, and woefully unpopular. She is bullied constantly by
the whole school it seems, led by the most popular and vindictive
cheerleader of them all.
Then
there is Damien who seems to actually see her, though Marnie is
hesitant to trust his generosity as she’s been hurt before countless of
times. Marnie starts to have rather
weird, terrifying and vivid dreams. Some that even involve Damien. The
ending was kinda of surprising, yet I was able to guess it’s movie basis
even though I never saw it. Though it was still revealed in an
interesting way!
Rating 5/5 stars
The Flicker, The Fingers, The Beat, The Sigh by April Genevieve Tucholke
Theo,
his girlfriend, Scout, his sister, Grace and her boyfriend, Asher are
driving down the road one night headed to a party discussing horror
movies when suddenly they hit
a girl who had been walking alongside the road.
There
were some intriguing twists to this one. And while it was clear what
movies were used as inspiration, I really liked their combo. Even though
I never saw either! The
ending was both the heartbreaking and yet satisfying kind!
Rating 5/5 stars
Fat Girl with a Knife by Jonathan Mayberry
This
one involved yet another bullied teen, who was overweight. Though she
wasn’t one to take the bullying lightly. She fought back and I did love
that about Dahlia! I mean
what she did with the dog poop and the mean girl was just classic! LOL!
What I wasn’t expecting to see from this story was a zombie apocalypse! And that’s where I will leave things!
Rating 3/5 stars
Sleepless by Jay Kristoff
Justin
recently has been chatting with a girl online. He really likes her, yet
knows his overbearing mother might not approve of her. As she is his
“special boy”. But when
it seems clear that the mystery girl likes him too, they both decide a
meet is necessary.
It’s
when the meet is in action that things get really creepy. Creepy in a
terrifyingly good way! It was pretty freaky, yet the ending was a total
twisted shock and I absolutely
loved that too!
Rating 5/5 stars
M by Stefan Bachman
Misha
is the daughter of an earl and after he died, she was passed along from
family member to family member in order for her to be taken care of.
Misha is blind and is seen
as useless. Though when she happens upon a dead body in her home during
a party, and runs into the actual murderer things take a terrifying
turn.
Despite
his warnings and threats, she’s determined to uncover who he really is
and turn him into the police detectives at the house. Though the killer
is smart and cunning.
He always seems to be one step ahead of her.
Once
again, I wasn’t at all familiar with these particular horror movies
used as inspiration for this story. The mystery element was good though,
but I felt a loss at what
was the creep factor of it all besides the murder mystery element
itself.
Rating 3/5 stars
The Girl Without a Face by Marie Lu
Yet another positively creepy read! The stories that tend to involve a "faceless" being have always terrified me. (No Face Zombie, anyone? Seriously, anyone know what that's from? *grins*) I'm not even sure where it stems from. I guess because there's no face, it's just all the more terrifying than red glowing eyes, razor sharp teeth, and any other horrifying feature. What you can't see has always terrified me more than what you can see.
Marie scares the you know what out of me right from the beginning when Richard and his parents move into a new house and for some odd reason, his closet door won't open. So he changes room, and then not too long later, this closet door won't open! Now why you would keep trying to open said closet is beyond me! But Richard soon starts having nightmares, ones that involve a girl with pale hair that he always sees from behind. He never sees her face.
There's some more back story that starts to tie into what Richard is seeing. And it's just freaking creepy! Closets have usually freaked me out more than what's under the bed, because closets just seem darker! I really liked how the incident from Richard's past tied into this horrifying experience of his. And the ending was definitely another one that just left me with chills! I guess my only complaint was some of the revelations. It was drawn out almost too good, to the point where I still couldn't quite puzzle things together.
Rating 4.5/5 stars
A Girl Who Dreamed of Snow by McCormick Templeman
This was yet another one of the odder ones. I had read McCormick's book last year and found it to be just sort of so-so. So I was wondering what I would find within this story. It's definitely another of the more complicated stories. But it's one that's steeped with history and myth.
Here we have a young girl, woman? named Nara who's on a journey to her father. Though the why of it all never really gets said. Then there's Mowich who's apart of a tribe whose women were dying because of a disease and lack of cure available, so he and other tribe members have taken to kidnapping women and selling them for profits. Mowich, though is one of the nicer guys. He doesn't really like what he has to do, but he is trying to save his sister who is suffering from said disease. Then there's a hunter in the woods and you never really know if he's bad or good.
There's danger in these woods, but there's so many things we don't know about all these characters. It definitely has an intriguing end, but it's still one that puzzles me. Much like M. Night Shyamaln's movies, where you think you have things solved, then there's just that one last piece of info that you can't fit into the puzzle, yet it clearly belongs somewhere! Lol.
Rating 3/5 stars
Stitches by A.G. Howard
This one was clearly a Frankenstein inspired story from the getgo, yet it definitely has some surprising twists. Sage, Clover, and Oakley are siblings and they live with their neglectful and sometimes abusive father. After their mother disappeared one stormy night, their lives had been irrevocably changed.
Then after returning from prison one night, their father claims he met a doctor who promised him he could change. By replacing the bad with good. And since there was a payout involved, the father agreed. He trades his "evil" body parts for good ones, ones that came from a good person.
There was quite a mysterious twist that came in at the end that helped to make things clear. Though it was more sort of an "oh" kind of revelation, it was still surprising in some ways. Just not the jaw dropper I had been hoping for. It still has some dark and twisted moments though and yeah, maybe some cringing!
Rating 3.5/5 stars
On the I-5 by Kendare Blake
This was yet another puzzling story, possibly because I wasn't familiar with the movie inspirations, but I was able to make some surmises, I just wasn't sure if I was right or not!
EmmaRae is a strange girl. Something bad happened to her, but it's not clear until later what. And in the meantime she is looking for a particular somebody to exact her revenge. Though clear answers are never given. I guess what I need to do is watch these unfamiliar horror movies then re-read these few stories to get a better understanding of things. But then again, they were only used for inspiration!
This one still had some creepy vibes and a nice vindicated ending to it, but again, there was still a bit of mystery and questions to the ending as well!
Rating 3.5/5 stars
All in all this was a pretty creepy compilation of stories! Some were downright terrifying, others more puzzling than that. But it was still a delightfully freaky read!!
Overall Rating 4/5 stars
