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Wrong Roads: Scary Stories from Coast to Coast
As we drive through America, we are often lured to venture from the familiar and into the unknown.This collection encourages you to do the same. To ride alongside your favorite horror authors as they take you on a trip you will never forget. There is no turning back.From new legends to old familiar haunts, the stories held within this tome will make you question whether anywhere is safe. Over 30 authors have crafted the most authentic and horrifying representation of each state. Not a single dark road will be left untraveled. You will never want to leave home again.
- GenresHorrorAnthologies
339 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 20, 2019
132 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 6, 2020
Excellent read! Something for everyone, ranging from chilly to bloody to interesting
April 26, 2019
I kept wanting to give this two stars, and the little pop-up that says "it was ok" when you hover over the second star kept dissuading me. Because it honestly wasn't.
Positives: the stories are short horror pieces, and while the conceit of "meet a scary thing on the road" could have been fairly restrictive, there's a decent range here. The decision to arrange the stories alphabetically by state helps ensure that the settings aren't too similar to each other, too. They're universally short, creepy, and while I think a few could have had the pacing smoothed out, I recognize that that's a personal preference.
On the downside, the book is incredibly poorly edited. There's missing punctuation in the list of backers; giddy switching between "—" and " – " and "--" and "-", often within the same story; font-size switching from one paragraph to the next between what looks like a default of 14pt to a default of 8pt; doubled paragraph indents; missing hyphens in adjectives; semicolons and commas living together, mass hysteria-- sorry, you get the idea.
And the text is frequently just wrong :
* "what you'd might imagine"
* "it was a black women"
* "terror and anxiety weld deep inside him" (after being bounced completely out of the story and re-reading several times, I'm pretty sure there's either half a sentence missing or that's "welled deep inside him"; I'd guess the latter from the style of the rest of the story)
* "get it your of your system"
* "it was most likely explanation"
* "[name] stood straight up in bed" (not according to the rest of the text, she didn't; sat up, maybe, but not stood)
* "I explained, trying sound casual"
plus missing capitals, capitals where there shouldn't be, missing punctuation, the classic "it's" for "its", and that's all just in the first 8% of the book.
Yes, these were there even after the update. As far as I can tell from what the publisher said, all these mistakes are in the paperback, too.
It's distracting as hell--like someone telling you a creepy story around a campfire, but they keep screwing up and switching the names of the protagonists around, or stopping for fifteen seconds while they try to figure out if they want to say "door" or "doorway". Reading this felt like needing to constantly stop to keep from stubbing my toe. According to the Kickstarter, $500 was paid for editing and $150 for interior book design, and according to me they should get their money back. Seriously. This was a terrible job.
Oh, and the cover--that lovely moody thing that's shown here on GoodReads? Isn't part of the epub. Or the PDF. You get WRONG ROADS typed in black on a white page.
Honestly, I'd be less disappointed if there'd been a huge squabble behind the scenes and the book hadn't come out. I've backed Kickstarters that ended up not being fulfilled before, and it happens. But the stories deserved a chance to be presented better than they were in this mess.
UPDATE:
I got a revised version of the .epub directly from the publisher. This fixed the font changes and extra paragraph indents, but it also removed all the paragraph indents, turned each line into a separate paragraph, and put the page numbers directly in the flow of the text, so that for example, instead of reading:
“You’re kidding,” [name] said, voice flat. “You have to be kidding.”
the text in the epub now read:
“You’re kidding,” [name] said, voice flat. “You have to be
37
kidding.”
END UPDATE
UPDATE THE SECOND:
I got another revised version of the .epub! The font size changes are less extreme, the line break issues are fixed, and there's a cover. However, all the issues with the content outlined above are still present.
END UPDATE
Positives: the stories are short horror pieces, and while the conceit of "meet a scary thing on the road" could have been fairly restrictive, there's a decent range here. The decision to arrange the stories alphabetically by state helps ensure that the settings aren't too similar to each other, too. They're universally short, creepy, and while I think a few could have had the pacing smoothed out, I recognize that that's a personal preference.
On the downside, the book is incredibly poorly edited. There's missing punctuation in the list of backers; giddy switching between "—" and " – " and "--" and "-", often within the same story; font-size switching from one paragraph to the next between what looks like a default of 14pt to a default of 8pt; doubled paragraph indents; missing hyphens in adjectives; semicolons and commas living together, mass hysteria-- sorry, you get the idea.
And the text is frequently just wrong :
* "what you'd might imagine"
* "it was a black women"
* "terror and anxiety weld deep inside him" (after being bounced completely out of the story and re-reading several times, I'm pretty sure there's either half a sentence missing or that's "welled deep inside him"; I'd guess the latter from the style of the rest of the story)
* "get it your of your system"
* "it was most likely explanation"
* "[name] stood straight up in bed" (not according to the rest of the text, she didn't; sat up, maybe, but not stood)
* "I explained, trying sound casual"
plus missing capitals, capitals where there shouldn't be, missing punctuation, the classic "it's" for "its", and that's all just in the first 8% of the book.
Yes, these were there even after the update. As far as I can tell from what the publisher said, all these mistakes are in the paperback, too.
It's distracting as hell--like someone telling you a creepy story around a campfire, but they keep screwing up and switching the names of the protagonists around, or stopping for fifteen seconds while they try to figure out if they want to say "door" or "doorway". Reading this felt like needing to constantly stop to keep from stubbing my toe. According to the Kickstarter, $500 was paid for editing and $150 for interior book design, and according to me they should get their money back. Seriously. This was a terrible job.
Oh, and the cover--that lovely moody thing that's shown here on GoodReads? Isn't part of the epub. Or the PDF. You get WRONG ROADS typed in black on a white page.
Honestly, I'd be less disappointed if there'd been a huge squabble behind the scenes and the book hadn't come out. I've backed Kickstarters that ended up not being fulfilled before, and it happens. But the stories deserved a chance to be presented better than they were in this mess.
UPDATE:
I got a revised version of the .epub directly from the publisher. This fixed the font changes and extra paragraph indents, but it also removed all the paragraph indents, turned each line into a separate paragraph, and put the page numbers directly in the flow of the text, so that for example, instead of reading:
“You’re kidding,” [name] said, voice flat. “You have to be kidding.”
the text in the epub now read:
“You’re kidding,” [name] said, voice flat. “You have to be
37
kidding.”
END UPDATE
UPDATE THE SECOND:
I got another revised version of the .epub! The font size changes are less extreme, the line break issues are fixed, and there's a cover. However, all the issues with the content outlined above are still present.
END UPDATE
May 15, 2019
The editing is awful!
Let me be clear- this book has good content. Several of the stories are actually very good. However the editing is a nightmare! Horrible grammar, sentences that make no sense, misspelled words and indentation errors abound! The stars are for content only. Had the editing been better it probably would have gotten four.
Let me be clear- this book has good content. Several of the stories are actually very good. However the editing is a nightmare! Horrible grammar, sentences that make no sense, misspelled words and indentation errors abound! The stars are for content only. Had the editing been better it probably would have gotten four.
February 20, 2020
I have the paperback version of the book, and trust me, all the errors are there. This is one of the most poorly edited set of stories I’ve seen. A very few good tales; many seemed like the author just ran out of material and gave up or hurriedly slapped an ending on to be finished. Several stories were out and out ‘THAT’S the actual ending?!’ Several stories were very similar to one another and a couple of them, I will swear came from tales the author had seen on either ‘The Twilight Zone’ or ‘Tales From the Darkside’, though they’re not 100% the same, but enough like them that it feels almost like plagiarism.
I was pulled out of a story with every grammatical error, capitalization error, spacing error, spelling error, and/or font change. The very few tales that are good are the ones that either have no errors or few errors. I was surprised that so many authors confused ‘its’ and ‘it’s’. One other spelling error that really stood out to me was ‘ammature’ for ‘amateur’.
Overall disappointed in this collection. They are extremely quick reads, but not really worth the time. The two stars are for the tales I enjoyed.
I was pulled out of a story with every grammatical error, capitalization error, spacing error, spelling error, and/or font change. The very few tales that are good are the ones that either have no errors or few errors. I was surprised that so many authors confused ‘its’ and ‘it’s’. One other spelling error that really stood out to me was ‘ammature’ for ‘amateur’.
Overall disappointed in this collection. They are extremely quick reads, but not really worth the time. The two stars are for the tales I enjoyed.
August 12, 2019
As is to be expected with an anthology with this number of stories, a fairly mixed bag quality-wise. As others have said, it could have definitely have done with some extra editing, but I think a more significant issue was that the theme of the anthology meant that some of the stories feel very similar to each other. In addition some of the stories didn't feel particularly location-specific and could have been used for lots of states other than the one that they were.
June 21, 2019
Trueful
I am for the first time in my years of my years with my kindle disappointed I grow up in a true scary winding haunted road in riverdale Colorado. The first eighteen years of !y life I lived with wonderful scary things. I was looking forward to this book but found myself 😞disappointed.
I am for the first time in my years of my years with my kindle disappointed I grow up in a true scary winding haunted road in riverdale Colorado. The first eighteen years of !y life I lived with wonderful scary things. I was looking forward to this book but found myself 😞disappointed.
April 16, 2020
Like reading Reddit in prose form
My expectations of this book were to read about urban legends from across the US. Instead, it is a patchwork of random tales taking place within the states. So poorly written and edited, it was painful to read. I gave finally gave up this road trip in Oregon and turned back home in search of a better anthology.
My expectations of this book were to read about urban legends from across the US. Instead, it is a patchwork of random tales taking place within the states. So poorly written and edited, it was painful to read. I gave finally gave up this road trip in Oregon and turned back home in search of a better anthology.
January 9, 2022
Not bad but not good either
The grammatical and spelling errors would be easily forgiven and blatantly ignored like always..Or at least what i percieved to be errors. If my desensitized and spoiled butt didn't expect more out of these stories than the standard Creepypasta fluff we all know and love. My bad.
The grammatical and spelling errors would be easily forgiven and blatantly ignored like always..Or at least what i percieved to be errors. If my desensitized and spoiled butt didn't expect more out of these stories than the standard Creepypasta fluff we all know and love. My bad.
July 27, 2019
A few of the stories were okay, but the poor editing was so distracting that I was mostly angry while reading, rather than scared. Who edited this book for grammar, punctuation, and syntax ... a fifth grader? Amateurish!
October 3, 2019
Great read when not feeling good
Did not want anything heavy, just entertaining, this fit ..stories flow from state to state very nicely.. How to travel when you can not get off the couch..
Did not want anything heavy, just entertaining, this fit ..stories flow from state to state very nicely.. How to travel when you can not get off the couch..
January 10, 2020
Love anthologies
I really love anthologies and these stories deliver! There is something for everyone, I enjoyed them all and you will too!
I really love anthologies and these stories deliver! There is something for everyone, I enjoyed them all and you will too!
January 20, 2020
Boring, trite, cliche, and badly edited is the icing on the awful cake. It was only $0.99 but I still feel like I wasted money.
January 25, 2020
Great read.
If you like short stories, this is a book for you. Eerie tales of travel. Makes you wonder about your next road trip. 😱😱
If you like short stories, this is a book for you. Eerie tales of travel. Makes you wonder about your next road trip. 😱😱
July 7, 2020
Great Summer Escape!
Just finished, great summer escape! Short but impacting horror bites! Fun in short enough tales, perfect if you want a small escape. Enjoy!
Just finished, great summer escape! Short but impacting horror bites! Fun in short enough tales, perfect if you want a small escape. Enjoy!
May 25, 2021
Very short stories. Most written like a grade schooler but some gems hidden here and there.
August 15, 2022
THE WORST COLLECTION OF GRAMMATICAL ERRORS I HAVE EVER READ-- WHO EDITED THIS ?
A FOURTH GRADER ??
A FOURTH GRADER ??
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews