lame collection imo and wish i had both my time and money back. make no mistake, this is not literary horror, which is what it seems to be marketed as. it’s like, the antithesis of literary.

stylistically, this reminds me of paul tremblay’s the cabin at the end of the world. and i do mean that in the most pejorative, condescending way possible lol. i am to a degree influenced by the fact that i read this in conjunction with ray bradbury’s the october country collection of short stories which really highlights the inferiority in quality among this one. writing here is basic, clumsy and purely ineffective - establishes zero atmosphere/sense of the eerie/disturbing and wasn’t impressed with the ideas brought up in the sci-fi leaning stories. there was an attempt at snarky humor in the story ‘trigger warnings’ which would normally land for me, but the bit went on for too long.

would never have guessed this author has a phd in literature lol. the fact that he’s apparently frequently compared to kafka is laughable. completely flabbergasted by all the awards this thing has won.

slowly chipping away at my kindle purchases i made when i was being a dumbass and not reading samples prior to purchasing.