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Book Review // Unnatural Creatures. Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman

Unnatural Creatures. Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman {Goodreads}
Published by HarperCollins in 2013
Paperback edition; 462 pages {BookDepository}


Unnatural Creatures is an anthology, collected by Neil Gaiman, which holds 16 short stories about peculiar and fantastical creatures from werewolves and griffins to mermaids or even snake-speaking girls that only have place in our imagination.

What made me pick this up was that it sounded quite interesting but unfortunately, though I enjoyed some of the stories, the general feeling Unnatural Creatures left me was a tad meh-ish. I had a hard time going through some of the stories; they were dry and dull and in some cases, predictable. I even have to DNF one of them because I couldn’t bring myself to finish it and that isn’t something I tend to do. I finish everything I start reading but I just couldn’t this time and I didn’t wanna force it. Yet, as a whole it was a very aesthetically appealing; the design is gorgeous and more often than not I found myself admiring the cover and the illustrations before each story.

Denying there are some fascinating ideas within this collection would be lying and most of the stories were rather original and the ones I truly enjoyed the most were brilliant and left me in awe; there is a beautiful story about a griffin and his relationship with a minor canon; another about a quest and a very witty main character who decides to help the right person; a story about a laughing cockatoucan fascinated me and another about a girl, a tree and a “dragon” melted my heart and there is even one about death, very straightforward that one was, which closed the anthology greatly I believe.

However, I don’t think the entire book, all 16 unusual stories, met my expectations. My disappointment is rather obvious but it doesn’t mean any other reader couldn’t enjoy this. This simply wasn’t for me.


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