The stories I enjoyed in this fully captivated, unnerved, or even just plain out scared me.
Rating: 3/5
Poe’s classic tale told of a state of the art hospital boasting a curiously experimental treatment, but things were not as they seemed. In The Half That You See, twenty-six writers from around the globe share their literary optical illusions in never before seen stories of portentous visions and haunting memories, altered consciousness and virulent nightmares, disordered thinking and descents into madness. Take a walk down the paths of perception that these dark fiction raconteurs have tunneled for you, but keep a tight grip on your flashlight: the course twists and turns, and once you’re on route to your destination, there is no turning back. That which creeps about in the poorly lit corners of the human mind has teeth, and it’s waiting for you.
I received an ARC copy from the publisher at one of the author’s requests! Thank you so much, Robert Ottone for thinking of me! And thank you Rebecca Rowland for the opportunity to read and review this anthology!
This was such an interesting read. I’ve read several short story collections, but they’re usually all by the same author. I’ve only read one with multiple authors, which that only had 3 stories by 3 authors. This one, however, has 26 different authors! Woah!
They all follow similar themes along the lines of visions, haunting memories, nightmares, madness, and just about everything in between. All the stories were wildly different and unique. Not one of them felt the same. As it should be considering they’re all by different authors. Since there were so many, of course, there were some that I enjoyed and some that I didn’t. And as always, I definitely had a few that were my favorites.
All the stories were wildly different and unique. Not one of them felt the same.
I’m not going to go through all the stories otherwise this review would go on forever. I enjoyed over half of the 26 stories. Including Chalk, Falling Asleep in the Rain, Raven O’Clock, and Mesh. But a few of my favorites were ~ Officer Baby Boy Blue, Prisoner, Daughters of the Sun.
And ironically, my top favorite was the very last short story in this anthology, The Red Portrait. I think this one easily became my favorite as it involved an artist. I always love a good story involving artists and art, I especially enjoyed the idea that I could resonate so well with the idea of getting completely lost in our work. Though this particular case of getting lost was definitely a bit overboard.
All my favorites, the ones I listed and the ones I didn’t, I enjoyed these because these ones fully captivated, unnerved, or even just plain out scared me. Some these were darker than others, and some even tricked you into thinking it wasn’t so dark, then giving you a twist that shocks you entirely. All of these are all well written and a quick read.
I enjoyed these because these ones fully captivated, unnerved, or even just plain out scared me.
When it comes to how I rated this, it hard for me to decide as some of these I would easily give 5 stars too, where there were others I wouldn’t. I decided on doing a percentage of the stories I enjoyed in this collection. Which was about 60% of the stories, 15 out of the 26 to be exact. So that averaged to be about 3 stars. The ones I didn’t enjoy, it was mainly I primarily just didn’t vibe well with the content of the story itself. But I highly recommend picking this up! Especially if you enjoy psychological horror stories!