Thursday 21 May 2020

Review of 'Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances' by Neil Gaiman

Grey background with black writing that reads: "The Thames is a filthy beast; it winds through London like a blindworm, or a sea serpent" - 'Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances' by Neil Gaiman

I have a confession to make: I am now someone who watches things and then goes about reading the book. Pretty monstrous, I know. I watched the TV series of Good Omens last year and absolutely adored it (I need a series 2 asap), and then pretty much immediately picked this off my shelf to read. I'm not the biggest fan of short stories so at some point I'm hoping to get my hands on a full length novel of his (what would you recommend??), but I enjoyed this nonetheless.

This is a collection of creepy, supernatural short stories interspersed with equally creepy poems. From retellings of fairy tales made scary to tales exposing our deepest fears, this really was a stellar volume of short stories. The poems were well thought out, and a very welcome break from stories that could become a little tiring - I find with short story books that if each story is written in a similar way it becomes quite a drag.

One of my favourite stories was 'A Calendar of Tales', which had a story for each month of the year based around 12 tweets that Gaiman had been sent. It really was a clever read full of fantasy and really vivid stories. The only thing I can compare it to is it being like a more grown up version of the Goosebumps books I read as a kid.  Which, as a sidenote, were one of the most memorable and terrifying things I read, and I'd love to see if they lived up to my memory of them!

This is the best short story collection I've ever read before, and really makes me want to read his other books. I gave this 4 stars.

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