The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

This collection of short stories was one of the most original writing I had ever read. It was weird and creepy or macabre at some points, but it was mesmerising. In this book, a dead baby followed a family member, a neighbourhood was cursed for the lack of kindness, a woman was obsessed with the sound of a heartbeat, teenage girls played at conjuring ghosts while others exhumed the body of their idol…I was fascinated by Mariana Enriquez’s fiction. The stories are unusual, scary and surprising. The real and the unreal are intertwined and hard to separate. The themes include the female body, sexuality, fetish, illness, paranormal activity and cannibalism. My favourite story was Kids Who Come Back. Mechi, the main character, works in an archive full of documents about the missing children. She gets involved in their stories and is overjoyed when she finds one of the teenagers in the city square. Soon, many more children appear, but there is something wrong with them all…Those stories are not for everyone. They include contents that might be triggering for some readers. The way the real world blends with the macabre is quite disturbing. On the other hand, this book has no disgusting or gruesome detailed descriptions. I would recommend it to fans of unusual and creepy fiction.

Much of the book, is body horror that can be difficult to get through with a weak stomach. These stories often feature mutilated or rotting flesh but Enriquez doesn't seem to want to discust for the sake of it as almost all of the stories seem to be more concerned with the psychological aspect of the horror as it shows the body breaking down after trauma such as hair and weight loss.Mixing gore with psychologically reminded me of JG Ballard's work in the 1970s. Specially with Enriquez's story Where Are You, Dear Heart which mixes death, fetishes and obsessions.Some of the stories in this collection can be gruesome but I didn't find it hard to read as Enriquez is a good writer. She is good at keeping the stories grounded and the characters feel real and interesting. It must be hard to write short stories but I was able to get into the stories in the first couple of sentences.Furthermore each stories seems fresh and she is often takes on old horror tropes such as resurrection, ghosts, curses amd presents them in a new way. Which made me want to read on.However I can't give it too much praise as often the stories just stop and I felt that in some instances there was more interesting ideas that the author could uncover if it went on further.I get the nature of short stories often end abruptly and usually with a twist but with this book in some cases I felt like 'is that all there is?'.Other people may like this style but it seemed like she came up with a good premise and couldn't really move forward or explain the supernatural events so just finished the story.Nevertheless still an interesting, dark and disturbing read would recommend to horror readers.

I really enjoyed these short stories a number of them were quite macabre. There was a lot of disappeared kids or even adults that made you chilled to the bone. We meet drug dealers and prostitutes, the rough crowd and the bawdy. Several of the stories have a supernatural element to them and my favourites were the first and the last. But I enjoyed them all. I haven't read a lot of short story collections apart from recently Dubliners by James joyce. The quality of writing is excellent and each story leaves you with bad dreams ha ha.

Very good short stories, spooky enough that I had to turn the bedroom light back on! The stories were cut in a way that was unusual, like they had a climax but then missed off any kind of... drama or explanation or something. They missed something. But that made it more fascinating to read in some places and more infuriating in others! Now I'm wondering if I didn't just read the first chapters of a dozen books.

A fantastic selection of stories and it is clear why it has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.Primarily based in Argentina, these stories bring the paranormal to the modern day and give you a little bit of a spook. All the stories had endings (I hate short stories that don't have any sense or meaning!) and I think some of these stories would be fantastic developed into a novel or television adaptation.

i loved this book!twisted stories that i was able to picture very vividly and it read so smoothly!would recommend

Beautiful, unsettling and profound! This is a collection that will stay with you for a very long time. I’m in love with the writing style! Pure darkness and bloody vivid imagery.

Horror stories that are contrived and predictable