Wow! This book was one of my top 2 most anticipated books of 2024 and it DELIVERED! 

I was hooked from just the dedication and foreword and I stayed hooked the entire time! I sped through this book! It was so fast paced, both the individual stories and the collection as a whole. I loved that the stories were on the longer side (20+ pages) because it really gave them time to develop. There were stories that were creepy, some that were fun, and some that were straight up horrifying! There were also mentions of Black history throughout the stories and I feel like they did a great job of saying enough about them to teach teens some history, but they still kept overall fun horror feel of the collection! But, I can see those mentions making teens interested enough to do their own research on those topics.

Some of my favorite stories were The Skittering Thing by Monica Brashears, The Brides of Devil’s Bayou by Desiree S. Evans, Black Girl Nature Group by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite, and Harvesters by L. L. McKinney! But I enjoyed every single story except for one. Queeniums for Greenium! by Brittney Morris was the only story I didn’t enjoy. I found both the main character and the story as a whole to be very condescending and judgmental to people who live a different lifestyle than them. The story made it seem as if natural & spiritual healing (herbalism, crystals, reiki, etc.) is inherently stupid & the people who believe in it are not only stupid, but evil. That path is obviously not for everyone, especially disabled people, but it’s not stupid. I did not appreciate the condescension from that story. But, other than that, every other story was great!

This collection is amazing for both teenage and adult horror lovers! I’d love to see it get adapted one day as a series with each story having its own episode! I have so many thoughts about the collection as a whole and the individual stories, so I will definitely be talking about this book on my YouTube channel (Book Tribe) soon!

Individual story ratings (synopses are covered as spoilers just in case people don’t wanna know what each story is about):

📚  Harvesters by L. L. McKinney-

haunted corn maze

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚  Welcome Back to the Cosmos by Kortney Nash-

body snatching space horror

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚  Ghost Light by Erin E. Adams-

a vengeful theatre ghost

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚  The Brides of Devil’s Bayou by Desiree S. Evans-

a deal with a demon turns into a curse on a family’s bloodline

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚  TMI by Zakiya Dalilah Harris-

a girl begins to hear other people’s thoughts

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: racism)

📚 Black Pride by Justina Ireland-

a cabin trip in the wilderness where people keep going missing

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: racism)

📚  The Screamers by Daka Hermon-

a ghostly axe murderer & his victims prey on a grieving family

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: grief, death of a family member)

📚  Queeniums for Greenium! By Brittney Morris-

a health retreat gone wrong

: ⭐️⭐️ (TW: fat phobia)

📚  Inheritance by Camara Aaron-

Soukouyans

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

📚  Black Girl Nature Group by Maika Moulite & Maritza Moulite-

2 Black girls go to a wilderness retreat only to discover that something strange is going on

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (TW: death of a family member, racism)

📚  Cemetery Dance Party by Saraciea J. Fennell-

a party at a cemetery unleashes an ancient evil

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚  The Skittering Thing by Monica Brashears-

a new friend invites 2 girls over to play a sinister game

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚  The Black Strings by Vincent Tirado-

a girl who can see when someone is going to die begins to see death on everyone around her, including herself

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (TW: death of parents)

📚  Local Color by Eden Royce-

a girl finds an old journal & goes on a dangerous treasure hunt

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

📚 Foxhunt by Charlotte Nicole Davis-

a town tradition gets flipped on its head

: ⭐️⭐️⭐️✨

Thank you so much to Flatiron Books for this arc! All opinions are my own.