Save Yourself
Catherine Perez
Slasher Girls and Monster Boys
By Multiple Authors
Have you ever thought about the origin of some of your favorite stories? How about Alice in Wonderland except the bunny is the villain...
A group of authors come together and take classic stories, movies, and even shows that have happy endings and transform them into something the reader would almost not even recognize. There is a total of fourteen short stories that are included in this book. Each story takes a previous work of art and twists it in a way you would never have imagined or thought possible. When reading these tales, I find that some are far more frightening than others, but they are all scary in their own way.
I don’t like many books, but this particular book kept me interested throughout the whole time I was reading it. There are many parts within the book where I questioned what was happening; books like this are the ones I end up liking the most because they get me to think deeper about the situation of the character. In the story "Hide-and-Seek," a girl has twenty-four hours to hide from death to save her life. The suspense that is used makes the book enjoyable to read because it kept me invested in the story: “She let her arm fall away from her ribs, releasing a gush of blood that soaked her new sundress, rolled down her bare leg, pooled thickly on the uneven boards. Dying wasn’t so bad, not really”(Shepherd 117). This causes the reader to ask questions about what is occurring in the story; it makes the reader want to continue reading to figure out what happened to the girl and what got her to that state. In the story "In the Forest Dark and Deep," Cassidy found a clearing when she was young but noticed something was watching her every time she would go play there. The way the authors uses descriptive vocabulary in their writing allows me to form clear images of the setting and what is happening. The author of the story, "In the Forest Dark and Deep" decides to describe a scene like this: “Reaching from behind, he raked his claws across Tommy’s chest, flaying it open. Tommy tried to suck in a gasp, but it gurgled in his lungs and came back out, speckled red. Death rolled over him like a storm building, at first soft and distant, then boiling dark and streaked sharp with lightning until it swallowed him whole”(Ryan 55). The details used here allowed me to form the exact image that the author was trying to portray through her words. This scene and many others in this book were written with this same attention to detail. The details were well worth it because they were what kept me reading, and are what will keep you reading when you pick this novel up.
I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in supernatural, mysterious, and gruesome stories. Many of the stories include these topics. If you get bored easily--like me--when reading a long story, then this book is great for you, considering this book consists of multiple short stories. If you are easily scared, then this book is not for you. A demonstration of this is shown within "In the Forest Dark and Deep": “The March Hare watched her, his hands dancing in the shadows, causing the girls to shift and move. Teacups swinging toward their mouths and splashing them with scalding tea”(Ryan 49). After reading this, most people will find it disturbing and not want to continue reading. The word choice in this story and all of the other ones also was a major reason why this book can be found extremely disturbing. In the particular quote above, the March Hare is watching one young girl intensely as he burns a group of dead girls with hot tea. The March Hare is controlling the group of girls like puppets. He has tied their hands up using wires and is controlling their movements while standing up in a tall tree. This is awfully disturbing because this short story is based on the children’s book, Alice In Wonderland. This short story is almost nothing like the original. Also, the thought that this was created from a story intended for small children can make the reader even more uncomfortable.
This book is intended for an audience of young adults. I would consider the vocabulary used in this book simple, making it easy for the reader to comprehend the events.
Have you ever thought about the origin of some of your favorite stories? How about Alice in Wonderland except the bunny is the villain...
A group of authors come together and take classic stories, movies, and even shows that have happy endings and transform them into something the reader would almost not even recognize. There is a total of fourteen short stories that are included in this book. Each story takes a previous work of art and twists it in a way you would never have imagined or thought possible. When reading these tales, I find that some are far more frightening than others, but they are all scary in their own way.
I don’t like many books, but this particular book kept me interested throughout the whole time I was reading it. There are many parts within the book where I questioned what was happening; books like this are the ones I end up liking the most because they get me to think deeper about the situation of the character. In the story "Hide-and-Seek," a girl has twenty-four hours to hide from death to save her life. The suspense that is used makes the book enjoyable to read because it kept me invested in the story: “She let her arm fall away from her ribs, releasing a gush of blood that soaked her new sundress, rolled down her bare leg, pooled thickly on the uneven boards. Dying wasn’t so bad, not really”(Shepherd 117). This causes the reader to ask questions about what is occurring in the story; it makes the reader want to continue reading to figure out what happened to the girl and what got her to that state. In the story "In the Forest Dark and Deep," Cassidy found a clearing when she was young but noticed something was watching her every time she would go play there. The way the authors uses descriptive vocabulary in their writing allows me to form clear images of the setting and what is happening. The author of the story, "In the Forest Dark and Deep" decides to describe a scene like this: “Reaching from behind, he raked his claws across Tommy’s chest, flaying it open. Tommy tried to suck in a gasp, but it gurgled in his lungs and came back out, speckled red. Death rolled over him like a storm building, at first soft and distant, then boiling dark and streaked sharp with lightning until it swallowed him whole”(Ryan 55). The details used here allowed me to form the exact image that the author was trying to portray through her words. This scene and many others in this book were written with this same attention to detail. The details were well worth it because they were what kept me reading, and are what will keep you reading when you pick this novel up.
I highly recommend this book to those who are interested in supernatural, mysterious, and gruesome stories. Many of the stories include these topics. If you get bored easily--like me--when reading a long story, then this book is great for you, considering this book consists of multiple short stories. If you are easily scared, then this book is not for you. A demonstration of this is shown within "In the Forest Dark and Deep": “The March Hare watched her, his hands dancing in the shadows, causing the girls to shift and move. Teacups swinging toward their mouths and splashing them with scalding tea”(Ryan 49). After reading this, most people will find it disturbing and not want to continue reading. The word choice in this story and all of the other ones also was a major reason why this book can be found extremely disturbing. In the particular quote above, the March Hare is watching one young girl intensely as he burns a group of dead girls with hot tea. The March Hare is controlling the group of girls like puppets. He has tied their hands up using wires and is controlling their movements while standing up in a tall tree. This is awfully disturbing because this short story is based on the children’s book, Alice In Wonderland. This short story is almost nothing like the original. Also, the thought that this was created from a story intended for small children can make the reader even more uncomfortable.
This book is intended for an audience of young adults. I would consider the vocabulary used in this book simple, making it easy for the reader to comprehend the events.
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