Monsters and Other Tales of Humanity
by Carla Dash

Revealing both how terrifying and how heroic individuals can be when untethered from relationships, Monsters and Other Tales of Humanity portrays the ways people cope with loneliness. A woman is haunted by Death, who progressively resembles her drowned fiancé . A child seeks beauty in a handsome stranger’ s greenhouse and holds out hope for a savior. A woman’ s husband is murdered by police, and her monstrous children enact a bloody revenge. A negligent mail carrier believes stars are disappearing from the sky, heralding the annihilation of the universe. A video game character’ s dissonance with the actions he must perform precipitates a choice that could destroy his world. Speculative and lyrical, these stories explore the human need for connection and how the lack of ties warps lives.

5 out of 5 fairies

A hauntingly beautiful collection of short stories, of varying lengths that will stick with you after you’re done reading. I won’t go into each story, but the one that stuck with me the most, especially given the state of the world today, is easily Monsters. While other stories touched me for other reasons, that one, given some of the horrific news that lands in my inbox day after day and shows up on my newsfeed over and over, just really stuck. While each story is quite different from the rest, they’re all vivid, even the shortest. Although they might not all have the most vivid imagery, (some do), they all call up a great depth of emotion. I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a short story collection that will reach into your heart, and twist and turn your emotions into knots, grasping at the very core of what makes us human.

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo
Bookshop | Meerkat Press | Goodreads