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Morbid Curiosity Cures The Blues: True Stories Of The Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox And Unusual From The Magazine "Morbid Curiosity" (2009)

by Loren Rhoads(Favorite Author)

3.72 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1439124663 (ISBN13: 9781439124666)

languge

English

genre

Horror

publisher

Scribner

review 1: This was terribly disappointing. The annoyances were numerous including, but not limited to:- The format of the book - It's printed in newspaper type with two columns per page as if it were still a zine. It makes reading it difficult.- The introduction - This is printed as in a regular book and starts out okay, but quickly devolves into self-congratulatory drivel. Yes, yes, you are the coolest, gothest ever. We all bow to your amazingness.- The writing - Almost universally mediocre. These were the 40 best items?- The illustrations - If you had a goth friend in high school who doodled cartoons in their notebook, you'll recognize these.Out of 298 pages and 40 or so essays only one of them was worth reading - Souvenir of Hell by Brian Thomas - about visiting Auschwitz an... mored Birkenau. Thank you, Mr. Thomas, for writing about this experience in an intelligent and honest way.This book got two stars because of Mr. Thomas' essay - a long-winded way of saying you might as well skip this.
review 2: Puppies, kittens, and sun-dappled meadows! Maypoles and pastels! I suspect that a substantial amount of the enjoyment I derived from this book is rooted in the fact that I spent a decent chunk of it thinking to myself, "Wow, I'm not that maladjusted." This was when I wasn't thinking, "Wow, I'm not that open-minded," or "Wow, this is profound/funny/gross/etc." These thoughts were peppered by the occasional shrug/sigh at the rare encounter with the sillier/more pretentious/simply less effectual bits. There was also a shudder or two elicited by things that, I'm sorry, are just gross. Or wrong. Or both. How very un-San Francisco of me. But there you have it. And I don't live there anymore. This anthology presented a unique goodreads shelving challenge, running the gamut as it does (I found myself simultaneously thinking fondly on my SF days and bidding good riddance to some of the terminally alternative clusterf**ckage--sorry, but there's no better word--that occasionally rears its head). That said, out of nearly three hundred pages worth of material, while some tales are definitely better-rendered than others, I'd venture that there's not a clunker in the lot (even the ones I found slightly silly/pretentious and more than slightly repugnant). Rare, that is. There are some particularly moving tales in the last section, entitled "Beyond Death: Exploring Behind the Curtain," notably Allegra Lundyworf's "Grandmarama" and Jill Tracy's "The Keeper of the Shop". Of course, a person can only spend so much time meandering through the mausoleum before she finds herself nursing a mother of a gothic hangover and needs to come up for the sunshiny air. And bake a batch of vegan cookies whilst listening to folk music and brewing herbal tea. Or knit sweaters for one's (imaginary) Scottie dog whilst perusing the latest Woman's Day. Which is perhaps the beauty of this book: it is possibly the ideal tool for unearthing your inner Sandra Lee. Because, damn it, the sun will come out tomorrow. Even over the cemetery. less

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