Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

      Trigger Warning is Neil Gaiman's newest collection of short stories addressing topics that question the boundaries of human capacity of disturbance and horror. True to Gaiman's usual style of writing, the stories contained in this collection are macabre in nature, at times bordering on terrifying, but never breaching the barrier into outright gory. They focus more on the building of suspense rather than the jumpscare value, in a truly H.P. Lovecraft style of story building.       What made this book stand out from Gaiman's other writings, and what made it interesting to me, was his explanation of his choice of title. In the introduction, Gaiman sets out to give a brief explanation of what the phrase "trigger warning" implies, how the landscape of storycrafting is evolving alongside social media, and how the personalisation of social media through user-tagging is changing the landscape of blogging and entertainment.       A "trigger...

“Some places are too good to be true. Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map. In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things…” (taken from the Goodreads summary ) ***       American Elsewhere by Robert Jackson Bennett follows the story of former policewoman Mona Bright, as she tracks down information regarding her deceased mother and finds herself in the small town of Wink, New Mexico. Suddenly the benefactor of her mother’s old house, Mona decides to temporarily reside in the town of Wink while she decides what to do with the house. The town is strange, mysterious, and dangerous as a whole, and even stranger as individual residents are introduced. The undoubtedly human residents seem quite content to make arrangements and conditions for strange unseen forces while never ever venturing out of their houses after dark; staple community members are unquestio...