(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).
(This review may contain spoilers).
I’ve read quite a few collections of short stories, whether ghost stories or others. I tend to find ghost stories quite fascinating and I felt that it was really interesting to have glimpses of the different culture and beliefs that these short stories showed.
Although all six of the stories shared a similar theme, I liked that each one of them was different. I couldn’t say which one I liked best, because I felt that they were all quite different in their own way.
I couldn’t say that any of the stories in this collection were really scary. That might be because I read and watch a lot of horror things, though, so other people might find them scarier than I did.
I wasn’t quite so sure about the last story, I have to say. It was a bit disturbing, but I didn’t feel that it had the right amount of character and story detail that the other short stories had.
I did particularly like The Returned. That story was one that I felt had an element of sweetness to it and it also detailed one of the story themes I like. I won’t go into the details here, but although it did switch between two first person POVs, I didn’t find it really hard to read and I felt that actually worked.
A Good Student was a short story I would have liked to see further expanded. Actually, I did feel that all of the stories were intriguing enough (and had interesting enough characters) that they would have worked to be expanded into longer stories. Again, the only exception was the last story, but if it had been longer, I might have been less confused.
I felt the author did a good job of showing the culture without making the stories filled with boring information. I would definitely read other books by this author in the future.
Ink of Blood 