The Ones That Got Away
Stephen Graham Jones
These thirteen stories are our own lives, inside out. A boy's summer romance doesn't end in that good kind of heartbreak, but in blood. A girl on a fishing trip makes a friend in the woods who's exactly what she needs, except then that friend follows her back to the city. A father hears a voice through his baby monitor that shouldn't be possible, but now he can't stop listening. A woman finds out that the shipwreck wasn't the disaster, but who she's shipwrecked with. A big brother learns just what he will, and won't, trade for one night of sleep. From prison guards making unholy alliances to snake-oil men in the Old West doling out justice, these stories carve down into the body of the mind, into our most base fears and certainties, and there's no anesthetic. Turn the light on if you want, but that just makes for more shadows.
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0The Ones That Got Away is a collection of horror short stories from one of my favorite horror writers, Stephen Graham Jones. The stories largely focus on primal fears and how these can affect childhood and sometimes, how that carries into adulthood. Overall, this was one of the better anthologies for me, and I ended up at least enjoying most of the stories.
There were a few that were a little too confusing or gross for me (The Meat Tree particularly stands out for that) but there were some that honestly became new favorites (Raphael, Lonegan's Luck and Father, Son, Holy Rabbit). I also really liked that the collection included a section at the end where SGJ explained what inspired the story and it was so fun to read after each story.
Overall, anthologies can be hit or miss for me but this is one of the better ones that I've picked up and is a great taste of SGJ's writing because it really runs the gamut of atmospheric to gory to disturbing and I found some new favorites here.
If you want slightly more detail, I've got a dedicated review for this one on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AOHnTzLCxc&t=1s
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