Night of the Living Queers edited by Shelly Page & Alex Brown

Source: NetGalley – Thank you to the publisher!
TL;DR: A fun collection overall with a few standouts and only two big disappointments.

Collection: For the most part the collection felt cohesive but there were two jarringly dark stories I didn’t care for.
Characters: A fun and diverse cast, none of them stood out, but I enjoyed them nevertheless.
Setting: Varied in location! Everything felt like it took place somewhere distinct, which was very nice.
Spooks: 7/10 on Spooks. Most of these were more creepy horror than shock. In fact, I’d say all were more creepy than shock, which was just fine by me.

Thoughts:

Night the Living Queers is a mostly fun leaning collection of horror stories with a mix of dark and light endings. I enjoyed nearly all of these, finding some to lean more into the ‘campy’ side of horror, and a few had a surprisingly dark ending I enjoyed. A few did throw me out and make me incredibly uncomfortable though, the reason for the loss of a star on the 1 to 5 scale.

The only big issue I had were the two specific stories I remember throwing me out. One focused heavily on the survivor of a Hate Crime which we see on page. Unfortunately this is not warned or noted for the reader in any way. In addition, the tone of the stories proceeding this story was almost entirely light and funny with a few dark but campy ones. So the abrupt switch to something this heavy was upsetting. The lack of trigger warnings was not a HUGE issue, though I genuinely wish they’d been included, what confuses me is that a later story does in fact include those warnings. Why just one? Was it up to author preference? Did the editing team not see them necessary? Or is it simply that the ARC I recieved hadn’t fully been updated? Either way I feel this should have been explained because I was incredibly confused by these, especially after how dark and vivid the story of the hate crime was.

On the whole I enjoyed this, besides my issues with the warnings or lack thereof. Please do be careful as not all of these stories are as enjoyable as others, as mentioned above, but for the most part they are fun. A collection I enjoyed – 4 out of 5 stars.

[TWs:
Graphic: Homophobia, Suicidal thoughts, and Hate crime
Moderate: Death of parent, Transphobia, and Violence
Minor: Toxic friendship, Drug use, and Mental illness]