Love her novels (most recent one I read was Babysitter but I honestly never finished because itās twisted itās about the Oakland County Child Killer and you can tell she did her research⦠about to read 48 Clues into the Disappearance of My Sister) and her short stories but of all of her anthologies Haunted Tales of the Grotesque is my favorite and it lives up to its titleā¦
The Doll-Maker and Other Tales of Horror, Black Dahlia and White Rose: Stories, The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares. But my favorite which Iāve rec-ed before is Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque the titular story Haunted is so sick and twisted and I cry tears of fear every time I go back to read it (which I have multiple times). She has the most viscerally disturbing and discomfiting style and a unique ability to crawl under your skin, more so than any other horror author Iāve read and horror is not even typically her primary genre!!
Love her novels though they are lengthy but Joyce Carol Oates has a gift for writing disturbing short stories. Pictured are a few of her horror themed compilations and I would also recommend the classic story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, which was loosely adapted into the 1985 film Smooth Talk starring Laura Dern!
Itās a few short horror stories that all surround the same house in Cardiff, Maine. The third story made me cry so hard, I couldnāt get it out of my head š šæ
My dad teases me about how when I was a little kid, my favorite thing to do when I was on the landline phone with somebodyābe it a relative or one of my best friendsāwas to breathlessly describe the things that were in my bedroom so that they could have a mental picture of everything I loved and chose to surround myself with, and where I sat at that moment in time. Perfectly Imperfect reminds me of that so thanks for always listening and for sharing with me too š