Thank you to V. Castro and NetGalley for the digital ARC. I'm sorry I didn't like the book.

 The short stories throw readers directly into the deep end of what should be the climax of a story without any of the build up. It makes it hard to care about the characters and leaves the settings feeling indistinct.

This reads like fanfiction. The plural first person POV, the in-depth description of characters' outfits and bodies, and the pop culture references all culminate in the distinctive voice of online fandom spaces. I really enjoy horror set in liminal spaces, and I was looking forward to the titular story, but I couldn't get through the rest of them to get there. Story one, "The Carnival of Gore" was not well written and felt unnecessarily horny. I couldn't suspend my disbelief for a dying man being aroused by the same type of creature whose bite may have killed him, in such a short amount of page time. Story 2, "The Four Horseman Inn" was fine, for the most part. Not particularly memorable. I don't understand why they let the zombie in, in the middle. There was nothing to make me care about the characters or their plight. Story 3 "Bruja Barbie and her Ken" is a smutty stalker reverse harem. Specific pop culture references and inverting the male gaze in a way that allowed it to stay just as toxic made this an  unenjoyable read. I gave up 2 pages into Story 4 "The Last Halloween." I couldn't follow the plot outside of the general understanding of it being a bacchanal.   

Having a diverse variety of lived experiences and desires available in literature is important and there is an audience for this book, but I am not it.