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A review by sucredidymus
Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories by Lisa Mannetti, Brian Kirk, Richard Thomas, Josh Malerman, Paul G. Tremblay, Amanda Gowin, John F. D. Taff, Kevin Lucia, Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Coake, Mercedes M. Yardley, Neil Gaiman, Damian Angelica Walters, Stephanie M. Wytovich, Clive Barker, Maria Alexander
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.0
The stories are definitely a mixed bag.
I didn't prefer the writing styles of many of the stories in the beginning and end of the collection - they seemed to try too hard to be beautiful and smart, which pulled focus from the actual story. I also am not a fan of run-on sentences that are hard to ingest, and many of the stories had that style. It took a while to mentally rearrange long, comma-filled sentences into shorter ones that made more sense.
On the other end of the spectrum, the were plenty of stories in the middle of the collection that were written in a more straightforward style, and it made them easy to enjoy and imagine as I read.
Overall there were great ideas but the execution and pace didn't always hit the mark for me.
I didn't prefer the writing styles of many of the stories in the beginning and end of the collection - they seemed to try too hard to be beautiful and smart, which pulled focus from the actual story. I also am not a fan of run-on sentences that are hard to ingest, and many of the stories had that style. It took a while to mentally rearrange long, comma-filled sentences into shorter ones that made more sense.
On the other end of the spectrum, the were plenty of stories in the middle of the collection that were written in a more straightforward style, and it made them easy to enjoy and imagine as I read.
Overall there were great ideas but the execution and pace didn't always hit the mark for me.