Revenge: 11 Dark Tales - How One Book Scared the Hell Out of my Dog
This is going to be a little different review for me. Most of my book reviews are from folks that submit requests or when I do my book vs. movies pieces. Rarely do I review books from my personal reading collection, but when I finished Revenge by Yoko Ogawa, I knew I had to give this one a review. I’ve already upped my reading game from last year; almost doubling it (Thanks Horrorbound Read-a-Thon!). I can say that this book tops the list so far out of the almost 50 books read.
Revenge is a collection of 11 short stories told in the same setting. I’ve grown to like anthologies; they give me a nice mix of stories when I don’t want to commit to a full-length novel or novella. If it is a collection of several authors like The Wicked Library Presents: 13 Wicked Tales (S. Wytovich, N. W. Pyles, J. McHugh, and others), it gives me exposure to authors that may not be on my radar yet. On the other hand, if it is a collection one author’s short stories, the book gives me insight to the storytelling mastery that author has. While Revenge collected 11 great short stories of Ogawa, it had one really unique twist that kept the pages turning well into the night.
This isn’t the first book by Ogawa that I have read. I picked up The Memory Police earlier this year after hearing about it on the Reading Glasses podcast, and it was also fantastic. The first thing that came to mind when reading both books was Shirley Jackson’s style of writing. Ogawa is masterful in the way she places reader in idyllic setting and then slowly cranks up the creepy. Even with only a few pages, reader find themselves sorting soiled lab coats next to the morgue with hospital techs or wandering through a museum of torture devices. Everything is fine and dandy and beautiful, then… BOOM! Dead things. But that isn’t what was unique about this collection. No. What rocketed this book to the top of my list this year was how Ogawa seamlessly tied every story together.
Ogawa didn’t throw the connection in the reader’s face. But with subtle call backs to earlier stories, she connected everything into one menacingly creepy read. If you have seen Southbound then you know what I mean. Each story is great as a stand-alone, but when she draws that thread through them all, that is where the magic is. Very rarely will I audibly comment on a book. I live alone and my dog looks at me weird as it is when I sing to him (don’t judge me, I change the words to incorporate his name). But when I read the last few paragraphs of Revenge, I scared the hell out of Jax when I burst out with a “wow!” (he’s still a little cranky that I woke him up). I’m still thinking about this one, and for good reasons.
So, if you’re looking for a quick-read anthology, I couldn’t recommend Revenge by Yoko Ogawa any more. It will be hard to top this one for me, but I look forward to the rest of the year’s reading in an attempt to find a better book.
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