Terrifying things live in the woods, the hospital, and even in your own home in this bone-chilling collection of horror short stories encapsulating the worst of the worst.
Ever wonder what’s up with the girl who lives in the upstairs of her broken-down house? How bad could repercussions of covering up manslaughter really be? Who really is your online best friend? Could your doctor really improve someone’s mood? Take a peek through these stories to find out how truly horrible the answers to your questions may be...
When I was in elementary school, I was told Slasher Girls and Monster Boys was the scariest book ever written. So of course, I had to pick it up for one dollar at a garage sale. I had spent years cowering away from it at the bookstore and library, but now that I’m a pretty palatable horror consumer, I felt I could handle what a fourth grader would call terrifying. Thankfully, I wasn’t peeing my pants like I thought I would when I was eight.
Slasher Girls and Monster Boys by April Genevieve Tucholke is a very decent collection of YA horror stories that definitely didn’t bore me. I would say all the authors succeeded at making you wonder where the story will go, which almost always gave a satisfying payoff, a good achievement for any short story.
The addition of each author listing their inspirations at the end of each chapter was a nice addition that was fun to look at and say, “Ooh! I know that one!” even if it sometimes made things feel a little derivative. Regardless, I enjoyed knowing the person I’m reading likes the same things as me, which is even more meaningful as someone who is often inspired to make art after seeing someone else’s.
However, Slasher Girl’s biggest downfall is that it is indeed a collection made for young readers, probably those much younger than me. I would say I’m a pretty well-rounded horror enjoyer, but even I admit I can be a huge scaredy-cat, and still not one of these stories made me feel even slightly unsettled. Most of the scariness or big twist was either modest violence or there being a monster. After a few monster stories, I was already getting tired, but it just kept coming. I know it’s not like the authors were checking in with each other to see how many monster stories there were, but it was gratuitous.
To make matters worse 5/10 of the monster stories had the twist be “and there was a scary guy who did something scary,” so there wasn’t much time to develop each creature’s unique features to make them truly fear-able.
I understand that, yes, this is a good method for scaring the little kids the book is meant for. Young kids these days are already obsessed with recognizable one-off monster characters, so it makes sense it would resonate more with this target audience. Still, my favorite stories were the ones who could break off from this mold, such as Emiline and Sleepless (Sleepless was the best, as someone who spends time online). I love monsters as much as the next guy (or probably more,) but one after another is not enough to scare me.
Overall, Slasher Girls and Monster Boys was not the epitome of terror I was led to believe in second grade, but it was a very entertaining anthology that, if it doesn’t scare you, will at least interest you. It has a good selection of authors with different inspirations, even if it lacks diversity in its content. I am very content with owning this book, and did enjoy reading it despite it clearly being for younger readers. You can’t really go wrong with this one!
Commentaires