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A review by mehsi
The Halloween Store, and Other Tales of All Hallows' Eve by Ronald Kelly
I received this book from Netgalley/publisher in exchange of an honest review.
I had my eyes on this anthology for a couple of months but other things kept coming between things. So imagine my delight when I saw this book up on Netgalley. Now I would have no excuses to read the book, now I had to!
This book features various spooky, creepy, horrific stories all with Halloween in the spotlight. We see kids going for trick or treating, heads being used as pumpkin lanterns, murder, masks that do crazy stuff, and more. Before I get into what I rate each story and how I felt about them I want to say that I really enjoyed this anthology (because I did, a lot). The essays were a nice touch at the end. We don’t have Halloween here (or at least it is starting up a bit but probably will never be as big as it is in the US, so I love reading stories about them and the essays were just perfect as I learned some more about traditions and what items and things were around during this time. Oh, and I liked that we saw Fear County pop up in at least 2 stories (sometimes I was too far in the story to remember names of stuff).
Story 1: The Halloween Store: 4 stars. I wanted to rate this one 4.5 stars, but the ending… I would have liked to see an epilogue of sorts. Maybe to let us know what happens afterwards. Do the kids remember things? Will anyone be alive? But the story was good and gave a nice dark twist on a story that I have seen more often. Namely Halloween masks and wearing them. Kids, if you need to sign a disclaimer and the masks feel strange? Maybe don’t wear them!
I had my eyes on this anthology for a couple of months but other things kept coming between things. So imagine my delight when I saw this book up on Netgalley. Now I would have no excuses to read the book, now I had to!
This book features various spooky, creepy, horrific stories all with Halloween in the spotlight. We see kids going for trick or treating, heads being used as pumpkin lanterns, murder, masks that do crazy stuff, and more. Before I get into what I rate each story and how I felt about them I want to say that I really enjoyed this anthology (because I did, a lot). The essays were a nice touch at the end. We don’t have Halloween here (or at least it is starting up a bit but probably will never be as big as it is in the US, so I love reading stories about them and the essays were just perfect as I learned some more about traditions and what items and things were around during this time. Oh, and I liked that we saw Fear County pop up in at least 2 stories (sometimes I was too far in the story to remember names of stuff).
Story 1: The Halloween Store: 4 stars. I wanted to rate this one 4.5 stars, but the ending… I would have liked to see an epilogue of sorts. Maybe to let us know what happens afterwards. Do the kids remember things? Will anyone be alive? But the story was good and gave a nice dark twist on a story that I have seen more often. Namely Halloween masks and wearing them. Kids, if you need to sign a disclaimer and the masks feel strange? Maybe don’t wear them!