Some of the stories are kind of meh, some are top notch. ( )

This was, for me, a wildly uneven collection of short stories. I truly enjoyed a little over half of the 15 stories, with several 5 stars among them. The remaining ones didn’t connect for me at all. Pop Art was probably the best, one of those stories that will stick with you long after finishing it. My other favorites: 20th Century Ghost; You Will Hear the Locust Sing; Better Than Home; Bobby Conroy Comes Back from the Dead; and Voluntary Committal.

Hardcover version that has been sitting on my shelf for four years, waiting to be read.

I read this for the 2018 Halloween Bingo squareGhost Stories: any story involving ghosts or hauntings, including haunted houses, buildings, graveyards, etc.

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I took some time over this book, not because I wasn’t hooked, but because I dip in and out of books of short stories. If you’re expecting to get Stephen King type stories (Joe Hill being his son), think again. There’s an element of that — after all, Hill has read his father’s stories for years, but these are undoubtedly from his own imagination. Hill is not a replica of his father. This collection shows what writers can achieve when they truly think outside the box without fear of having readers wonder what the hell they just read. And yes, I wondered. There’s horror here, but that’s not all. Sometimes the most disturbing moments are the most ordinary. Abraham’s Boys sticks in the mind, as does Voluntary Committal, which makes a nice novella to end the collection. The Black Phone film took the best from the short story found in this book, and built on it — a slight disappointment here for me because I saw the film first. My Father’s Mask has to be the most open to interpretation and I’m unsure I liked it. You Will Hear the Locust Sing is truly strange, as is Pop Art, yet the latter stays with you. In the introduction, Christopher Golden calls it transcendent. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but it has a peculiar haunting quality and it’s not horror or a ghost story. This is a difficult collection to recommend, as enjoyment will depend on the open-mindedness of the reader to accept extraordinary stories. ( )

4.5 stars. There are some really really creepy and unsettling stories in here! ( )

Amazing stories, each one so different from the previous. One to scare you, one to horrify you, one to almost make you feel a bit sick in the back of your throat as you read, waves of emotion from another. All so, so startlingly good. I'm sad they are finished.

Also, make sure you read the acknowledgement. Wink. ( )