Slasher Girls & Monster Boys, stories chosen by April Genevieve Tucholke

I almost never recommend short story collections.  It's usually because I can't justify telling someone to watch a dozen little mind-movies when half of them seem pointless or hackneyed.  I'm writing this review because I just got punched by one of the best YA collections I've found in years.  YEARS.  Good horror and good short stories make my day.  This book just slammed them together in the best way and I could not find a bad story in the bunch.  Not one.  This is not a book, it's a frigging unicorn.  A really creepy unicorn.  Maybe this one:

I'm guessing this one isn't powered by giggles and joy.

 Anyway, the YA genre has certainly come a long way and gets a lot more gruesome than it did back in my day (sorry, Mr. Pike), but it seems paranormal romance (aka "my boyfriend is hot and toothy") has gotten spread around like hybrid herpes and the horror genre itself hasn't really been properly bringing its kid sibling along.  I decided to give this one a chance because of, well, the cover alone:

 Even if YA's not your prime choice, SGMB has *chops*, with everything from shapeshifting vigilantes to mountain legends to zombie comedy and while some of it wasn't especially brand-new subjects, all of it gave me some creeps, some new authors to look for and, in places, a longing for the good old horror that swept in before torture and remakes took over. Some of the stories may be what you consider typical fare for a collection.  A Lewis Carroll-inspired story is almost par for the horror course, I think, but Carrie Ryan's "In The Forest Dark and Deep" made my skin crawl and I now desperately need to avoid teacups.   The very last story, a revenge piece called "On The I-5" by Kendare Blake, felt so clear and cold to me that I wanted to see it on a screen, to see if the diner lights and desert grave were that vivid *outside* my head. (I just received a reply from Ms. Blake saying this story is being adapted to film, so buckle up and keep an eye out.)


A feature that made my day as well was the bit of info at the end of each story, written upside down:  the film, book or song that inspired the author.  There's a bit of everything in here, from slasher movies to classic novels to a Nirvana song that I had to actually Google.  Some of the stories' inspirations are easy to spot, others not so much.

TL:DR Tucholke knows how to pick 'em and this book has a flight of tastes that kept me reading.

A Taste For Monsters by Matthew J. Kirby

London, circa 1888.  A would-be nurse disfigured by phosphorus.  A dude with a head so big he would snap his neck by lying down.  An infamous killer and the ghosts of his victims.  Welcome to Matthew Kirby's 19th century.  I was today years old when I realized this is the most aptly-named book I’ve met lately; a person with a taste for monsters of any sort, spectral or alarmingly human or just misunderstood, is the ideal reader here.

Our heroine Evelyn is homeless after losing her job in a match factory.  A match that will strike anywhere was deemed worthy of a few missing jaws, and she is gobsmacked (pun intended) with a rowdy case of phossy-jaw (phosphorus jaw).  The doctor was able to save part of her jawbone and some teeth, so she feels lucky.  The simple fact that *that* is considered lucky should tell you where this is going. Just go with me when I say the condition is horrifying and it’s unlikely she would be able to chew gum or stop scaring small children anytime soon.  I of course Googled the term and promptly lost my appetite for several hours, but if you feel the need, go for it. 

She wears a shawl draped over part of her face and wants to find somewhere to hide away so she can stop feeling like nightmare fuel.  After scraping by on the streets for some time, she’s off to London Hospital to apply for a nursing job.  With no credentials and a face that only a butterknife would love, it’s no surprise she is turned down.  What is surprising is the job she is offered – attendant to a special reclusive patient.  This is generally when people say “uhhhh, no” but the jawless can’t be chewers – I mean choosers, sorry - and Evelyn accepted.  Her patient? Joseph Merrick, also known as the Elephant Man. I presumed the matron’s idea was that they will either accept each other as equally disturbing and be cool with the arrangement, or they will feel even worse together and perhaps form a suicide pact.  Either way, he finally has someone willing to come attend to him all day and she has a hiding place.

As you might expect, Evelyn sees this dude in various states of undress and goes off her feed for a while, but eventually the two become good friends.  Just as things are getting about as normal as you can get in this situation, strange apparitions start popping up every night and scaring the living trunk off Joseph.  Given that it’s the late summer and early fall of 1888 in London, it’s not hard to put two and two together in an alley with a uterus and see Jack the Ripper’s handiwork.  But why are the ghosts throwing themselves at a shut-in who can’t even get around town? He recruits Evelyn to help put the spirits to rest.

The reason I liked this book – despite some nauseating descriptive bits – is that it does not just twirl around advising readers “look beyond physical form because scary people are cool” with nothing substantial underneath.  That’s good advice but it’s not exactly protein for a reader who loves historical fiction with ghosts and mysteries.

A note:  I confess I’m a big fan of Ripper-related fiction and I loved that he was part of the story without turning it into a gore-fest.  If you need the whole story to turn around him, give this a pass and try Mike Resnick’s Redchapel.  If you’re cool with him being a large piece of the kidney pie but not the whole pan, A Taste for Monsters should do the trick.

Dreadful Skin

I love books that take a real-life mysterious event and give it a much cooler explanation.  Cherie Priest pulls that off

Boneshaker

I have long resisted reading steampunk.  Possibly because I'm not very mechanically-minded and all the cogs and steam made me nervous. Maybe because I have a fear of goggles and seeing the extra layers and straps in the costumes made me feel fat.