"Life, Love and Death: Short Stories" Book Review

My Rating ★★★★☆ 4 Stars An anthology comprised of romantic, horror, futuristic, fantasy, paranormal short stories. I tried not to go into this book having expectations, but it’s hard to achieve that, nonetheless I went in with an open mind. Surprisingly I really enjoyed this. The writing style was clear, very concise and easy to follow. I tend to enjoy and follow the plot of a story more when the writing is clear – less time is spent trying to decipher code, pretentious writing. The use of pronouns rather than names in the first story (as well as 2 others) confused me a tad bit. I had to reread to try to figure out the sex of the characters. I’ve never really liked stories which follow this pattern though, so it isn’t necessarily a negative thing about the book, it’s simply not a preference of mine. A few stories were more memorable than others and at times I found myself rushing to the end to read the climax. And yes, the climax for these stories was actually at the end. How odd but exciting. I also found myself wishing the stories were longer, much longer in some cases. They were way too short *sad face*. This is the first book I’ve read by this author and I love her dark mind. A few stories had me wondering how she came up with the ideas. The darker stories were definitely more gripping and spoke directly to my dark soul e.g Clay Soldiers. I think this one was by far my favourite since it was creepy. The final story “Revolution Imminent” sounds like something that would be a fast-paced, action packed sci-fi thriller movie. I look forward to reading any future titles that are along the horror genre, once the writing style remains simple and unpretentious.

"The Radleys" Book Review

My Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3.5 Stars

I chose this title after reading The Humans by the same author. While this was an enjoyable enough read I didn't quite like it as much; however, this isn't a comparison so I'll get on with the review for this book. 

The story follows the life of a family called The Radleys, who has kept the family curse a secret from their two kids. For years, the parents have led the children to believe in a way of life and in a lie in order to "protect them". But, we all know that telling a lie to protect someone only turns out to hurt them in the end, and this is what happens here. The daughter, on a night out, finds out who/what she truly is. 

The Radleys presented us readers with adequate backstories in my opinion. The writing style was simple, concise, easy to follow, unpretentious. 

I'm not exactly sure what was missing since I couldn't find anything solid really to dislike about this book. I just know I didn't like it as much as I wanted to. 

After reading this I still have much respect for Matt Haig and his writing style. I'm a sucker for writing style, will always be.