A review by isaiahh
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror by Sofia Ajram

dark emotional inspiring sad tense

4.5

"I'm pissed we tried to live our way and ended up dying theirs and for that I gotta give up my life. [...] I don't regret any of the choices I made [...] So the least I can do is dance about it."

Short stories collections/Anthologies are not what I usually navigate toward in literature, but as I've been exploring (and loving) queer horror, I had to read this. And my God what a great decision that was.

Bury Your Gays a hundred percent delivers on its promise of tragic queer horror. Out of the sixteen stories, some resonated with me more than the rest, and some were not to my personal taste, but I can honestly say I found them all to be very well written, and so interesting! This anthology is definitely not the faint of heart, with its lovely mix of body horror, murder, undead, and a lot (a lot) more. It is horriying and disgusting and heartbreaking, but it is also incredibly loving and hopeful at times.

I terribly enjoyed reading Bury Your Gays, and some of these stories will stay with me for a while (both as beloved tales and as sources of inspiration for my own writing); but none more so than the opening one, by M. V. Pine. It packs a punch and left me reeling from it. A bold way to kick off the anthology, but the perfect choice in my opinion. 

My personal five favourites:

• Worth the Dying Shame by Matteo L. Cerilli
• This Body is Not Your Home by Son M.
• All of Our Boys Are Missing by Joe Koch
• Lost and Found by Charlene Adhiambo
• American Gothic by LC von Hessen

+ Special mentions to Sardines by Gretchen Felker-Martin and Cleodora by August Clarke.