Through the Woods
Ratings182
Average rating4
Tells a story the way words couldn't capture. I love these short scary stories and art style!
An amazing graphic novel with a series of scary short stories. I enjoyed this book very much, the art work spoke to you and frightened you in a way that text alone could never do. You won't put this beautiful book down! You can order this material at the Colona Public Library. ~Ashley
Hoooooh....
Pretty scary :-) I'm pretty sure some of that will linger and give me nightmares.
Beautiful artwork! The short stories are cute, but lackluster.
I read a couple of stories with my 10 year old nephew and even he was mostly just perplexed and disappointed by the endings instead of intrigued or even mildly spooked. Like me, he did love the art though.
It wasn't necessarily scary but the eerie vibes were there. The art carried; as it should. Beautifully drawn and good use of spacing on the pages! Wish the stories were scarier tho TT
The best stories are the ones you still think about when the book is closed. I definitely recommend reading this with creepy music in background tho. I did it for me. 🙈
Great illustrations disturbing and creepy short stories but a few felt incomplete maybe that's the nature of short horror stories and I just didn't like the open ended endings. Definitely give it a read.
The art style is super pretty and the stories were nice. Zero checking out from library regrets here.
Graphic novels with short stories cut off at the right (or wrong?) moment.
I loved the artwork, truly. I felt it added to the eerie atmosphere very well and complimented the writing. However, I only enjoyed a couple of the stories out of this collection
The art style lends itself incredibly well to providing a mental image while still letting your mind fill in the blanks. The stories are all creepy without being trite or overused. Magnificent short stories!
Horrifying fairy-tale inflected collection of comic shorts. Absolute perfection. Carroll has an eye not only for developing grotesque images, but utilizing them with efficiency so they strike home with narrative weight and beauty.
Through the Woods is eerie, yet in its own way cozy. It's the sort of book you curl up with on a cold quiet night just to freak yourself out. Which is what I did last night. Went to bed afraid of my own teeth which is normal and I'm fine.The short stories are...well, short. They also don't have much text. However, I like that this feels more consistent than a lot of anthologies. The tone of all five stories is similar—everything is creepy and immersive, and you can sink into each. The illustrations are stunning.The art style and peripheral nature of male characters reminded me of [b:The One Hundred Nights of Hero 28433627 The One Hundred Nights of Hero Isabel Greenberg https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506013534l/28433627.SX50.jpg 48547479]. It's also an interesting contrast to [b:Her Body and Other Parties 33375622 Her Body and Other Parties Carmen Maria Machado https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1485266434l/33375622.SX50.jpg 54116423], another woman-centric horror anthology.
this was creepy & the art was gorgeous! I usually don't end up loving short stories but I think the format worked really well with the scary stories. there were some stories I liked more than others but overall, I really liked this.
Ooky spooky! This was such a creative and chilling collection of short stories! A commonality with collections like these is that there's generally at least one not-as-good story in the bunch. Here, however, they're all equally compelling! My one complaint is that the stories were all too short and felt incomplete. I do enjoy an ambiguous ending, but some of them were too ambiguous and I felt we moved on to the next story too abruptly. I may revisit this in the colder months. :)
2.5 stars
Ok so the artwork in this book is amazing. Unfortunately that's pretty much the only good thing I can say about it. When I got this I thought it was going to one story in graphic novel form. That's not the case though. This is 5 short stories. Each story gives you enough where you're starting to get sucked in and then the story would end. All 5 stories have open endings and I hate that. I didn't find it creepy or scary but nothing tends to scare me so I can't fault it for that. That's really all I can say about this graphic novel.
This is a strange and lovely book. If I I judged this book entirely on illustration and panel flowing from one scene to the next, easy 5 stars. The graphics are very well done and effective. However, the stories feel almost like they are choppy. Some of the stories, specifically the ones with the worms was really good, while the others were just ok. I'd give it a chance just so you can look at the images and embrace the crazy style.
I'm a person who gets frightened really easily, and I'm surprised to find that it is not that scary, which was fine with me because that means I can read it, but other people might find it disappointing if they're looking for a scary read.
The illustrations was magnificent though, and the choices she makes regarding the art fits perfectly with every story. That being said, the stories are pretty OK. Regardless, I enjoyed it.
One of the most fascinating things about reading horror is figuring out what personal dread is haunting the author's mind. For Junji Ito, it's that viral infectious evil entity that you can't escape, like a stench of the idea of the spiral. Stephen King has got a thing for the creepy nature of childhoods spent in small towns. Emily Carroll clearly has a thing about body snatchers. Changelings, possession, the slow creeping dread of realizing that someone close to you is not who they used to be.
The only story in this collection that I read before was His Face All Red, and its still probably my favorite. It's the most open-ended of the stories, and perfectly encapsulates that body snatcher fear, while also incorporating some Tell-Tale Heart style guilt and paranoia. The rest of the stories have a similar tilt. A girl waits for her father to return while each of her siblings slowly disappear, a new bride hears the voice of her deceased predecessor coming from the floorboards, a young woman watches as her best friend is taken over by a strange entity. All are stories about people left alone in strange and haunting scenarios, who see things that no one else can. Carroll also has a thing for outcasts, the people who are never good enough, not well-liked or remembered. The most vulnerable among us.
Carroll is not only fantastic at telling creepy stories but using every bit of her artistic ability to support their frightening nature. Her style is classical and deceptively simple, with a gothic and abstract flair. I will never get tired of her work. I wish I could write something this spooky.
Couldn't resist snapping up this debut print collection of five horror stories written and illustrated by Emily Carroll. The stories are creepy and fun and usually have a surprising twist. The illustrations are inventive and the use of color is impressive. I've since learned that the author has developed a following from her website, emcarroll.com, and I'm going to need to revisit that.