Book Review NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS Eds. Shelly Page and Alex Brown

Thank you to the editors Shelly Page and Alex Brown, and publishers Kensington Books, as well as NetGalley, for an advance digital copy of NIGHT OF THE LIVING QUEERS. All views are mine.



I enjoyed many of the stories in this collection, but a few fell flat. Below is a sentence or two about each story.

Introduction: [Halloween is] a time for... acceptance, remembrance, celebration, and rebirth. It's when many people feel they no longer have to hide the best parts of themselves. loc10

1. Welcome to the Hotel Paranoia - Mexican Gothic, spooky hotel, lots of ghosts and spirits, it all stands for something else, but what isn't clear enough, this one is a little anticlimactic. 
2. The Visitor - I had to listen to this one with the screen reader like 8 times. It really doesn't come together well.
3. A Brief Intermission - This is a story that becomes worth it in the final lines.
4. Guested - What a perfectly miserable execution of the second person narrator, but a very interesting premise.
5. Rocky Road with Caramel Drizzle - A horror story about books; meta-horror is often great.
6. The Three Phases of Hunting - Two friends gather at the local mall on Halloween night to exorcize Terrifying Bob the Pizza Stealing Pirate, and it is adorable!
7. Nine Stops - Classic Trang Thanh Tran, with wonderful surreal imagery and dialogue that's just jarring enough to add suspense. 
8. Leyla Mendoza and the Last House on the Lane - This story contains some really brilliant descriptions of gender nonconformism, using "tomboy" as the anchor gendered identity this experience is not.
9. In You to Burn - An interesting take on friendship and starting fires 🔥 
10. Anna - A fresh twist on the werewolf story, wonderfully southern Gothic; also addresses gentrification in New Orleans. 
11. Hey There, Demons - Fantastic demon character, here. More than one for sure, but one in particular. 
12. Save Me From Myself - An interesting take on shadows and the self, weird and gory and definitely great.
13. Knickknack - Haunted house stories can be amazing, especially if they're also a beautiful coming of age story.

Rating: 🐺🐺🐺🐺 / 5 Werewolves 
Recommend? Yes
Finished: June 28 2023, August 17 2023

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