My Sibling The Mythical Being! discussion

Oh my darkness, you will not believe what I just found.

I was looking down a list of Sienna Mercer's books (because it said she had '41 distinct works' and I was curious if she'd written anything else) and I found this book called Half-Minute Horrors. Here's a blurb I found on Goodreads:

How scared can you get in only 30 seconds?
Dare to find out!

Dive into the shortest, scariest, spine-tinglers, hair-raisers, and eye-poppers ever created.

These instant thrills come from astounding talents, including Lemony Snicket, James Patterson, Neil Gaiman, R.L. Stine, Holly Black, Brett Helquist, and many more. You’ll never look at your closest door, your cat, your sock drawer, or even yourself in the mirror the same way again.

So basically, it's a collection of horror stories which apparently only take thirty seconds to read, by a huge selection of different authors including James Patterson, Lemony Snicket, Neil Gaiman, Holly Black and (you've guessed it) Sienna Mercer!!!

Even though Mercer probably only wrote one of the stories, and it would only take you about thirty seconds to read, I was really excited on finding out about this! Can't believe I've never heard about it before!

So, what are your thoughts on this? Has anybody read or heard of it before? If not, do you think you'd like to read it? :D

Never heard of it but it sounds AWESOME!! I have to read this. :D

I know, I'd like to read it too. Perhaps we could do a group-read with anyone who's interested?

Aaaand...a year later the group read is happening! Next month (October 2015) we're going to be reading Half-Minutes Horrors. Make sure to leave any thoughts right here on this thread. Though please hide any spoilers using the spoiler tags, to do this simply write < spoiler > your spoiler here < /spoiler > without the spaces. It will look like this (view spoiler)[ Ta Da! (hide spoiler)].

Prepare to be spooked!

I am so excited! I haven't read many scary books before but I like Horror books and this sounds so unique! Can't wait to see what I think of it!

I started this yesterday and I've already read 20 of the stories. Can I just say...wow. Every single story so far has been really good! A little bit spooky, creepy and, surprisingly, funny. I've laughed a good few times reading this. Definitely recommend so far up if you're interested. Also I didn't realise till I started reading this but a couple of the stories are comic strips which is really cool.

My favourites so far are:
-The Chicken or The Egg by Jerry Spinelli
-In Hiding by Kenneth Oppel
-The Legend of Alexandra and Rose by Jon Klassen
-An Easy Gig by M. T. Anderson

Ooh, I didn't know that about the comic strips. I haven't started it yet but I am definitely excited!

I finished this and overall it was really good. Some of the stories got a little dull and repetitive so I ended up rating it 4 out of 5 stars.

As well as the 4 stories I mentioned up there ^ my favourites of the book were:
-The Goblin Book by Brad Meltzer
-Worms by Lane Smith
-Chocolate Cake by Francine Prose
-Unannounced by Aliza Kellerman
-Skittering by Tui T. Sutherland

I enjoyed Mercer's story. It wasn't anything special or stand-out but it was spooky and well-written.

I read this book over the course of two days and it was a good read! I only gave it three stars in the end, because there were many stories I came away from unsatisfied and disappointed, but there were certainly some greats and I would recommend it.

I agree with most of your favourite stories, Sophie. An Easy Gig was so disturbing! I actually cried (well, shed a few tears) because it was so horrible. Honestly some of the stories made me wonder if this should really be a kids book, lol. Especially that 'Deep Six' one by Faye Kellerman with (view spoiler)[ teen murder (hide spoiler)] in it.

I also agree with what you said about Sienna Mercer's story - even in a story about a page long I think her fabulous writing was apparent, and that was great to see. The first time I read it I was quite impressed but then I read it again and it was more sort of 'meh'. I think it's one of those jump-scare ones that is only as good the first time you read it. But still a worthy 'half-minute horror'. (view spoiler)[Was anyone else expecting something about vampires or werewolves though? :D (hide spoiler)]