Ghostly, Ghastly Tales - Review

Author: Anastasia Garcia

Genre: Middle Grade / Horror

Format: Hardback

Pages: 208

This was such a fun book to read during the spooky season. I picked it up specifically because of the cover. Not only does it glow in the dark, always a bonus for me, but just look how cool and creepy this book was. Also, it's a short story collection, which was a nice way to break up the books I was reading in October. Just a couple of stories here and there. I also loved that it looked like it had been checked out a lot, not in bad condition, just well-read. Which I always love to see in library books of any genre. 

As a short story collection, I really liked this one. Honestly, I don't think there was one story that I didn't enjoy to some degree. None that I DNFed and moved to the next one. A couple, I think I sped read, because they weren't so much holding my attention. But that could have just been me and not the story itself.

Now, this was a middle-grade book. It's geared toward younger readers, and I knew that when I snagged it from the library. I thought it would be a nice little break from the movies and other books I was reading during spooky season. Nothing too scary, just stories a younger me would have hidden under the blanket to read with a flashlight. Which, don't get twisted, was a hundred percent what this book was. While I didn't find the story super scary, I could imagine the type of reader who would.

One of the things I really liked about this book is that each story had a "Fright Rating". So the reader could decide how brave they felt like being. Like maybe it was too dark for that something that scary and should be saved for the daytime. I thought that was super cute, but it also gives a choice to how scared they're going to be.

However, I will say that even for me, toward the end of this book, it got a bit icky. Not like full-on too gross for middle-grade readers. It was definitely the kind of gross that makes an impression, but even I was like, uhm, gross. At one point, I was reading it out loud because I liked someone else. Please listen to how gross this book is. So, just a note, the last maybe four-ish stories get a bit icky in places.

I did really enjoy this, though, and I'm still in love with this cover. If I had more space to show off books these days, this was one I'd add to my collection.

HAPPY READING!!