Mel (Epic Reading)’s Reviews > I Know a Place: Rest Stop and Other Dark Detours > Status Update

Story #9 - Jubilee Juncture
I'm scarred for life from Buffy The Vampire Slayer over puppets... creepy weird puppets, especially ventriloquist dummy. So yeah this one scary for me!

Story #10 - Come
Very impressed with Cassidy writing an Ace/A-romantic first person story here. It's very well done, ironic as hell, and just clever in general. Take a typical trope and twist it so it doesn't apply to one teen.

Story #8 - Run for your Life
As non-Beatles fan I was wary going into this story that maybe it would be too Beatlemania centric. Wow was I wrong! You don’t need to know anything (realistically) except that the Beatles are iconic and the name of all four members. Other than that this short story twists and turns at every moment and basic history knowledge of music is all you need to catch the irony and cleverness.

Story #6 - Laugh lines
OMG!!! This one is killer! (Heehee). Written entirely in emails… and the final one is sooo insane I was both laughing and scared… like the supreme nervous laugh. Loved it!

Story # 4 - The Art of What You Want
This one is brilliant!!! An amazing twist!
Story #5 - The Lunar Eclipse
Short, sweet and sad.

Story #2 - only horrific if you know the name… interesting choice…
Story #3 - shudder. Nothing gross or even that scary here unless you’ve always found pregnancy and birth (like me) to be a bit alien. Then this is like the beginning of so many nightmares I’ve had.

Story #1 - Rest Stop (longer story)
Wow does Nat Cassidy know how to get me. Put a big spider in a confined space and sure enough I’ll have literal shivers, a want to stop reading (but I gotta know what happens to feel better right?), and an overall visceral reaction. This story is so bizarre and yet so good. The Saw reference made is perhaps a nod to some of Cassidy’s inspiration. Horror for horror’s sake.

Short story collection starts off with a longer novella.

I need to veer off the romance train I’ve been on recently, and 13 short stories from Nat Cassidy seems like the perfect way to do. I just need to remember not to read them right before bedtime!