This was easily one of the best horror short story collections I've read.
I'm a fan of short stories, horror shorts especially, but most anthologies I've read were collections of many authors' stories. I've read collections from a single author before, but not one with so many stories in a single volume.
It's often the case with short story collections where some stories don't do it for me and the book is a bit of a mixed bag. Not the case with this one. I didn't dislike a single story in this collection.
There were a few that weren't as strong, namely the ones that likely originated from a writing subreddit like NoSleep, which I'm pretty sure the author has written for. There's always a certain level of suspension of disbelief, but when you expect me to believe the character is typing updates onto Reddit as these things happen, it's too much for me and detracts a bit from the story. It reminds me of some Lovecraft stories where there's a character writing their experience out in a letter and then they are like "Oh God, they're at the door. The window! I must aaaarrrgghh!" As if the guy literally still has the pen in his hand while diving out the window. It's fun as an homage, but I also wish we would move past such a gimmick. So yeah, a lot of NoSleep-style stories lose rating points for me.
There is also an undeniable repetition and redundancy factor in this volume. If you made a drinking game and took one every time a character said the blood drained from their face or responded with "No no no no", you would be sloshed after a few stories.
That being said, I enjoyed all these stories. Each one demonstrated a strong understanding and grasp of the short horror story structure and tropes. I enjoyed the more modern twists of classic urban legends like when people stop at a place, have a weird experience, and later find out the place doesn't exist or burned down decades ago.
There's also an undeniable sense of humor in many of the stories which may not be to every person's liking, but was to mine. Humor and horror walk hand in hand since they both involve managing the tension levels in your audience. You have to ramp it up while also knowing how to release it now and then so they don't become numb to it.
Some of my favorite 'serious' horror stories from the collection were:
We have been playing hide and seek for three days
I used ChatGPT and I regret everything
Some of my favorite 'funny' horror stories from the collection were:
My milkshake brings something terrible to the yard
Cheese
Caution: Falling Rocks
The town of Chelm
For brevity, I had to trim the list of funny ones I liked since they were my constant winners of the collection. I love straight horror, I swear, but there was something great about taking an absurdly comic premise and then following it to a conclusion with the framework of a horror trope.
This was a great collection and it helped me maintain a frame of mind while working on something of my own last weekend. I would highly recommend checking out any of Blair's work!