One Buck Horror – Volume 1 is a horror anthology consisting of five short stories, which reminded me of my own childhood and how I devoured all of R.L Stine‘s books like it was going out of fashion. With intriguing plots paired with an interesting old school horror way of storytelling, I was amazed at how much I was able to reminisce when I was reading this book and quite enjoyed how traditional horror mixed well with modern writers. Freaks, monsters, slime, murderous intentions and more, these are some of the most basic features in horror and all present in One Buck Horror – Volume 1.
Horror anthologies have come back into fashion lately. For a long time anthologies were put on the backburner for carious reasons (probably because people didn’t deem it as popular any more). However, anthologies have been making a comeback and there are numerous type of horror sub-genres to choose from… One Buck Horror – Volume 1 is one of those quick read types, which is actually perfect for a Sunday afternoon when there’s nothing on television.
My favourite story was perhaps the second story in the volume, which was called A Lullaby for Caliban, which was written by Mark Onspaugh. Without giving too much away of the storyline, I can simply say it’s about freaks, carnivals and intriguing twists that all comes down to Mary Jo. I also quite liked the last story in the anthology, called The Ginger Men by Julie Jansen that comes down to the weird tale of a family and green ginger… (I know, I’m bad for not giving away too much of the plots)
There were some faults I found with the book’s editing though, I was able to catch some minor grammatical errors while I read, but other than that, I saw no problem whatsoever with the book.
One Buck Horror – Volume 1 is perfect for a quick horror fix for both adults and teenagers, although I would much rather recommend this to Young Adult readers who might want to test the water in the horror genre. The copy I got to review had a big font size as well, which is also a good indication that older folks with a bit of eye problems would be able to enjoy it with much ease.
So the verdict is that I’d buy it for my god daughter in an instant and I know she’ll enjoy it just as much as I enjoyed reading R.L. Stine‘s Goosebumps novels when I was a kid. Do it for the children.
