Allyson Bird

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book. I had heard that it wasn't so good by a few people so I came in with a negative outlook towards this collection. The stories were actually fun to read and I found them to be original. I enjoyed the little paranormal twists that the stories had and would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is into that or horror. This collection is a good introduction to Allyson Bird, if you ask me.

I mostly enjoyed this series of short stories, although it did take me a couple to get into the mood for them: I found that the first ones were too short, with a rather cliché ending and I feared that the rest would be the same.

Luckily, that was not the case, and there were a few where the author managed to create a spooky ambiance without resorting to obvious tricks, in particular Shadow upon Shadow and Silence is Golden, which were fun, creepy reads. I would have preferred less gore, but show more it wasn't so vulgar that it ruined the story for me.
I also enjoyed that Bird chose her ghouls from Antiquity and old legends. It sometimes felt a bit academic, but I did learn from whence the first vampire came - a nice piece of trivia since I do occasionally indulge in vampire literature!

The writing is strong and consistent. I would like, overall, to have seen a bit more originality and character development to really get into a more psychological scare. Definitely potential. show less

Bull Running for Girls is full of wonderful, frightening, moving ideas and images. Bird has a great mind for scene and situations, and great strong women characters. I look forward to seeing more of her later work, as I feel this collection was just missing polish. Great potential for future weird and horror writing.

I approached this book of short stories with high hopes. So far I have been impressed with JournalStone's offerings and find them to be a good source for well-written horror, fantasy/dark fantasy, and science fiction. I also love the bite-size nature of short stories and have read more collections and anthologies over the years than I can really count. On paper (so to speak) this book had everything going for it . . . except for the stories themselves.

Don't get me wrong, the ideas in the show more stories are all first-rate, it's just the execution that was lacking. For the most part I met characters that I did not connect with on an emotional level, and found endings that left me flat. In fact, the endings of the stories were my least favorite part, not because they did end (that happens when I really connect with the characters and events) but because nearly every one ended in the same fashion. They just ended. Abruptly. With no clear resolution. I know that there is a place for stories with a surprise or ambiguous ending, but it doesn't have to be every single one. That's not a technique that should become the trademark of an author, but should be used sparingly to increase the tension.

It got to the point that every story I started got me wondering how flat I would be left at the end. The only story I really enjoyed was "In the Wake of the Dead" because 1) I connected with and cared about the characters at least a little bit and 2) The ending was less ambiguous than the others.

Overall this was a very weak outing by an author who clearly has great ideas, but just needs to work on the execution of them. show less