20th Century Ghosts

She is saying something about home. She is saying something everyone knows.

This has been on my TBR for years so I'm disappointed that I wasn't a huge fan of it. Joe Hill is one of my favorite authors, but this was his first book and it just didn't hit like I had hoped it would. The fatphobia in this is absolutely rampant and really destroyed my interest in a few of the stories. The f-slur and the n-word were also both used at some points. As for the stories themselves, a lot of them didn't do much for me. I'll include my full ratings here:

Best New Horror - ⭐⭐⭐
20th Century Ghost - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pop Art - ⭐⭐⭐
You Will hear the Locus Sing - ⭐⭐
Abraham's Boys - ⭐⭐
Better Than Home - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Black Phone - ⭐⭐
In the Rundown - ⭐⭐⭐
The Cape - ⭐⭐
Last Breath - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Dead-wood - ⭐⭐⭐
The Widow's Breakfast - ⭐⭐⭐.5
Bobby Conroy Comes Back From the Dead - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
My Father's Mask - ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Voluntary Committal - ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5
Scheherazade's Typewriter - ⭐⭐⭐⭐

A few of them were hard-hitting in the best of ways, but overall I found the collection somewhat forgettable. I do think My Father's Mask and Voluntary Committal both could be expanded into novels or series and make for a good time. I'm also very intrigued to see how they adapted The Black Phone because it didn't feel to me like something that could be expanded into a full-length film. Overall, probably wouldn't recommend this collection highly, but it's probably worth reading if you want to see Hill's earlier works.