Book Review: "Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology" by Various Authors

Yes, it's horror again. I'm feeling kind of down and whenever I'm down I read horror because it makes me feel better. Have you heard about that study that states people who are in depression should watch and read horror in order to make themselves feel better? Yeah, I checked it out some time ago - you should too. Human Monsters is exactly what you think it is, it is about monsters who are human - those who lurk in the normal world, not in the shadows, not in the darkness - they stand right in front of us. They are us. Let's go through my favourite stories in the anthology...

Everyone's a Critic by Greg Sisco was probably one of the best stories because it felt so modern. It's about a culinary 'genius' (he owns a restaurant) who has gone to confess his sins to a church across town. He is confessing to murder because of a bad review and states that he's planning to commit another one. He is obsessive and compulsive, looking at reviews for 'dry chocolate cake' and watching the CCTV for everyone in the last few weeks who ordered chocolate cake in his restaurant. He looks at a rival leaving one-star reviews on local restaurants to eliminate competition. He rages about how nowadays 'everyone's a critic' without actually doing any real work in the world they are commenting on, even threatening to kill a child who left a bad review on a film he personally enjoyed. It is one of the best examples of compulsive behaviours turning into violent terror I have seen in 21st century short stories. It is highly recommended and darkly funny. The ending is something you will never see coming - or perhaps you will. It just depends how much attention you are paying to him.

Monster Misunderstood by Catherine McCarthy is another one I found really interesting. It's about a young boy who has been taken into an office after reportedly trying to set his school on fire. He observes the world around him and believes he can get away with not telling anyone about himself. He is scared but at the same time, he doesn't want to be alone. We both fear and yet, feel horribly sorry for this kid because there's no way that a child would think of doing such a thing unless something was really wrong. He tries chewing on Starburst for long amounts of time to stop himself from talking and often interjects his mother's talking with non-sequitors. The story is very well written in that it keeps us teetering over this edge of what is actually happening and who the monster really is here. It isn't until he meets with a bunch of boys that we finally realise what is truly going on. Again, the ending is not something you would expect, and yet, it makes perfect sense if you were really paying attention.

Other great stories include One Man's Trash by Samantha Kolesnik which stars a man who sells basically anything, most of the items have some weird sexual fetish purpose. Another one is Me and My Shadow by Linda D. Addison which is about how one woman experiences her own shadow as a sort of maleficent entity - or is it? Many of the stories in this anthology have that similar theme of dealing with people who will not stop, going to any lengths to get exactly what they want. Another theme is that it contains people who we would not normally think are monsters, some we feel sorry for and some we feel are marginalised in some way. I was honestly quite surprised about how good this anthology was.

Complete with some aspects of dark humour and tension, this book contains some real gems of horror and I am definitely glad I found it on the cheap. These stories are also very 21st century, so it makes them even more terrifying because they are entirely possible in our own day. Involving the internet, getting paid at whatever cost and isolation from other humans, we witness the decline and fall of humanity through a few choice people who perhaps take things a bit too far.