Awesome stories. ( )

The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates is a collection of short stories that are guaranteed to give you the chills. After just a few pages it becomes obvious that this author not only know about the stuff of nightmares, she can write about it as well. Her creative stories in this collection touch on our own worst fears and vulnerabilities and, I suspect, will haunt the reader for some time.

The first story, The Corn Maiden is the centerpiece and sets the tone for the rest of the book. This tale of an evil child who with the help of her minions kidnaps a younger classmate is creepy, strange and scary. Many of these stories feature children or siblings who are seeking revenge or taking sibling rivalry to a whole new level. Whether it is a step child delivering revenge for past misdeeds, a young child who cannot accept a new baby in the family, or a brother trying to eliminate his twin by poison, these tales are dark, claustrophobic and chilling.

While some of these stories are straight out frightening, others are strange, creepy and suspenseful. If these tales are showcasing Oates’ nightmares, then what an unusual mind this author has and how lucky are we that she shares her nightmares with her readers. If you are wanting to take a walk on the dark side than I would suggest giving The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares a try. ( )

I read the title novella and found it interesting enough, but just wasn't driven to read the rest of the short stories in the collection. I'm not a huge "book of short stories" fan...although I like reading them in magazines. Go figure. ( )

I guess the publisher and myself have two entirely different ideas of "terrifying" and "nightmare". I didn't see anything in any of these stories that could have possibly been described with either of those adjectives. I can't say they were bad stories or that they were badly written...they just weren't what I was expecting. ( )

While these stories were interesting, I must read too much horror because I didn't find them particularly horrific. All of the stories ended weirdly abruptly, and the title story in particular had some really annoying little elements that prevented me from enjoying the story (like the triple repetition of words that made me cringe every time) plus the ending was weird and tonally completely different from the rest of the story. The obsession with twins was a bit weird too, especially since both stories had very similar relationship dynamics, it felt like I was reading the same story.
In short, don't think this writer is for me, but some of the concepts were very interesting ( )