All These Sunken Souls / Circe Moskowitz, Editor / Book Review

ALL THESE SUNKEN SOULS

Ghosts and ghouls, angels and demons, slashers and their victims: hold onto your fingers and toes as you jump into this terrifying horror anthology.

From Victorian manors with a taste for blood to tooth fairy hijinks and inescapable asylums, these ten twisted tales demand you leave the lights on long after you've finished reading.

THOUGHTS

This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year... and also one of my most disappointing reads. Don't get me wrong. There are some great stories in this anthology. But a lot of them just weren't to my taste, and that made this collection a bit of a slog to get through.

PROS

Horrific	Some of these tales are absolutely horrific, in the best way possible. What else could you ask for from a horror anthology? Splashing blood, shambling zombies, and more: this book really does play on the worst fears we have (and some fears we didn't have until now).
Powerful	There's something really powerful in these stories, because horror is not a genre that has, historically, been particularly kind to melanin. But these authors grab the genre by the throat and let their hero(ine)s survive, struggling back to their feet in triumph. This book is a reclaiming of a genre, and I love that.
Range	This book has an incredible variety of horror in it. Not all horror is created equal. Creeping darkness, shadowy basements, countryside manors, and the horrors that happen in broad daylight: there's a bit of everything here for the horror fan, whether slasher or psychological thriller or demonic possession. Rage and revenge take the lead.

CONS

One of the problems I have with short story collections is that not all stories are created equal. Especially in a collection like this, where all of the stories are so vastly different, I found my interest waning. This collection starts off alright, and it definitely ends on a high note. But the lull in the middle was disappointing. I found the stories confusing and boring, which is never a good combination.	Lull
There's a lot of gore in this book, of which readers should definitely be warned, but that's not my real critique here. That's just part of the genre. A lot of these stories didn't quite seem teen to me, to the point that I kept checking, repeatedly, the publisher's marketing category for this book. The themes are older and the content can be, too. Though it is nothing that an older teen wouldn't be able to handle, it still didn't feel quite like a good fit for the category.	Mature
Now, I don't mind horror that strays a bit from reality--give me tentacle monsters all day long! But to be truly horrific, I think horror needs to have its roots in the real world. It needs to be grounded in our own fears, our own reality, and I think a lot of these stories fell flat because they just didn't quite hit that note of This Could Be Real.	Nonsensical

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐
4/10

Fans of Editors Shelly Page and Alex Brown's Night of the Living Queers will like this new Black horror anthology. Those who loved Liselle Sambury's Delicious Monsters will like the dark twists on tropes at play in this collection.

Details Publisher: Amberjack Publishing Date: October 17, 2023 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.