Death - 4/5 About: Family life and death. Review: Good ideas, needs a bit of editing, unsettling and surprising ending. This story felt kind of familiar to me, like something I'd watch in an adult comedy cartoon (which I enjoy).
2. Acceptance - 3/5 About: A DMT trip. Review: I thought that it's highly unrealistic for our main character to try DMT by themselves, when Max and the hippie friend suggest and provide the drug in the first place. However, I liked the description of the trip and felt challenged creatively. I think this is also something I'd watch in an adult comedy cartoon. Unfortunately, I thought the ending was a bit unsatisfactory.
3. Underground - 2/5 About: A couple go down a hatch and meets someone unexpected. Review: I don't want to give too much away, but I would've liked more description of the main characters, setting etc and a more distinct atmosphere. I also did not enjoy the reveal, have no interest and didn't really see the point. I wish time periods at the beginning and end were more clearly established. However, I liked the last sentence and every sentence matters in a short story. Maybe I just didn't get it.
4. Perception - 3/5 About: Two friends race together outside and there's a genocide or mass killing of some sort at night. Review: This was alright. It gave me vibes of aliens and UFOs taking cattle, but I don't know if that was the intention. I do wish this short story took more of a futuristic direction.
5. Missing - 4/5 About: Main characters attend a friend's funeral and strange events occur linked to the friend's death. Review: I liked this. I enjoyed the reminiscing of the past and character interactions.
6. Attraction - 4/5 About: Main character has the same dream about a house for 14 years, is pursuing an art degree and works at a coffee shop. Then visits the house one day and finds someone unexpected. Review: I liked this. The story resonated with me and reminds me of Coraline. It was relatable and meaningful.
7. Conspiracy - 5/5 About: A post-apocalyptic society. Review: Really good! This is the best short story yet. The beginning is really detailed and well explained. We follow our main characters until the end and I felt that there was a really good explanation for why the world is this way. This short story reminded me of Orphan Black in the best way possible and that's quite hard to achieve in so few words. Kind of reminds me of The 100 as well, which I like.
8. Invasion - 4/5 About: An invasion on a military base. Review: I liked this, but thought it was too similar to Perception. I feel this is a better version of an invasion story, because the characters and purpose are established better.
9. Deception - 3/5 About: Main character is being questioned about extraterrestrial events that he cannot recall. Review: I don't think this is the best short story to end this collection. I liked the interrogation process and I also felt a bit frustrated for the main character, but the plot doesn't really pull me in.
Average rating: 3.55 rounded to 4 out of 5.
Overall thoughts and opinions: I think you need a certain mindset for these short stories. It's incredibly short, even for a short story at 43 pages. Therefore this book took me about an hour to read because I reread the short stories a few times, so that my reviews were as fair as possible. The formatting is good and perfectly readable. I thought the start is solid and there are common themes such as death, aliens, and the paranormal. I would've liked to seen a story about time-travel and feel it would have fit in, but I understand it might not be feasible. Lastly I think with some editing in general (specifically grammar), the work will be more polished but there is a good try.
I do want to note that it's ok for short stories to remind me of other media I am aware of and tend to enjoy anyway. I don't really read a lot of short stories, so it was an adjustment for sure. I believe my perspective is normal for short stories as the reader must fill the details by themselves and really consider what they're reading. It is not disrespect or a slight implying unoriginality.
Edit: I should disclose that the author approached me via Instagram DMs asking me to read and review their short story collection. I don't usually write very long reviews on my Instagram (@amolikareads). However, it was my choice entirely to read and review this. The book is free as of writing this review on the Kindle store, so I did not pay for this book but no one else would at this point. I was not forced nor paid to write this review. These are all my honest thoughts and opinions.
