57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides

For my full review of this title, click here, as I've published it under the ‘ebook' version and Goodreads is nothing if not complicated when it comes to sharing thoughts on multiple editions of a book.

I quite enjoyed the narration of this one. The speaker did a good job of not making me die of secondhand embarrassment when he read quotes from other characters; the inflection of his voice felt very natural - like someone telling a story to an acquaintance, rather than someone trying to take up amateur voice acting.

Though it was a little odd to hear a very clearly grown man narrating a story about teenagers, I was able to suspend disbelief by telling myself the main character was looking back on everything from either the far future or beyond the grave - I can't say which without spoilers, and not knowing was part of the enjoyment factor of this tale for me.

I personally recommend reading along with the original short story while listening to this audiobook - both available for free, btw - if you can, because that's what I did and I found the experience a bit more impactful than when I initially started with only the audiobook. Something about seeing everything spaced out visually added to it, for me.

I relistened to this today while listening to the whole anthology it's in, and it really stands out, and definitely not just because it's the only one (afaik) with a gay main character. It really captures a lot of what I remember about being a teenager, even though I had a different set of experiences from the MC. Just a very good piece.

Original review: It feels strange to give a star rating to short fiction, but this is very good. It's free to listen to on Google Play. It's definitely horror and extremely bleak. Like the title says, it's written in the style of a list of explanations, and I liked the unusual format.