Status Updates From Christmas and Other Horrors...

Gravé of Small Birds by Kaaron Warren - 4/5 ⭐️
I liked this story but at this point I’m really feeling that so few of these stories have really been creepy. This was a classic fable-type tale about not being a shit person “or else” and it was well written. But it wasn’t creepy. Alas.

I listened to this on audio and the man voice was so soothing and the stories in the book were so good not too scary but spooky very good read.

Cold by Cassandra Khaw - 3/5 ⭐️
I wanted to like this more but it was so damn short!! Such a cool concept and imagery but I just felt like it was too fleeting for me to really sink my teeth into.

Löyly Sow-na by Josh Malerman - 4/5 ⭐️
I really liked this one! A subtle sense of creeping dread permeated the story and the tension built wonderfully. I’m always a sucker for a horror monster but also what’s more monstrous than being confronted by our own humanity?

All The Pretty People by Nadia Bulkin - 1/5 ⭐️
Shitty, unlikeable people have a dumb “I’m so hipster I’m so ironic” edge-lord holiday party and find out they’re all, in fact, shitty. No thanks. What a waste of paper.

Our Recent Unpleasantness by Stephen Graham Jones - 3.75/4 ⭐️
In true SGJ fashion, this was weird and unsettling and idk entirely what I think about it. I love the way he is able to instantly create this atmosphere of pervasive wrongness, a tension that never quite lets up. But also I often find his stuff gets crazy hard to follow and this was no exception.

The Ghost of Christmases Past by Richard Kadrey - 3/5 ⭐️
Cool concept, weak execution. I know short stories are, by their very nature, short, but this just felt too rushed considering how much emotional history it tries to wedge in.

Finally back to this after a 9 month hiatus…

Return to Bear Creek Lodge by Tananarive Due - 5/5 ⭐️
This was fantastic. Haunting and spooky and family trauma and a nasty (maybe also sympathetic) little creature? It’s like a wishlist of my favourite horror genre words/concepts (which was, naturally, brilliantly executed by Due). Her hint of this becoming a full length novel in her authors note pleases me!