Horror stories terrifingly real stories
922207
It was a good book  It was  interesting  It has a lot of interesting stories it was a good read
3190272
Great stories take u into deep dark places and force u 2 confront ugly truths! this is a GREAT story by a courageous author.
2377570
Well written and imaginative. Haunting fictional tales of an abused little girl.
No, it is not believable enough to be classified as a memoir however the author has a dark imagination that makes for a truly scary tale.
637568
These are things we feel awful reading about and can't imagine living through something like this. These things can be hidden even in a less fearful situation than this ... like a spouse being sexually assaulted over and over. That has happened to someone I knew and we never caught on. We just don't think these things can happen so close to home! What and how to do is hard to know and I think reading these stories help us to know how and what we can say or do.
4964908
Super depressing anthology. For me, with my family full of addicts, these stories hit close to home, like all great stories do. Max Booth III and Mark Matthews had standout stories, which is saying a lot for this book. Scary for several reasons, the main one being the fact that thousands of people are forced to live stories like this in their day to day life. Great book.
760504
This is a book of short stories written from the different perspectives of those trying to survive the very beginning of a zombie apocalypse. The stories are well written with little if any grammatical errors and are some of the most original pieces I've ever read. They are subtly horrifying and frightening. There are brief glimpses of the humanity you must leave behind if you want to survive which also makes the stories heart wrenching in their own way. These are quite the diamond in the rough.
533552
These collections of supernatural folklore and legends are bone chillingly SCARY!!!! These are not those cheap horror stories that aren't really scary like in Goosebumps--these are sophisticated and truly frightening ghost stories as scary as those in you hear about in shows such as Beyond Belief Fact or Fiction, Haunted History, and Twilight Zone such as in the episodes "The Hitchhiker" "Nightcall" and "Long Distance Call". The Scary Stories To Read In The Dark Collection in my opinion are too scary for kids!! I was in 3rd grade when I first read these stories which was 20 years ago when these books were all over the bookstores and they scared the Hell out of me that I couldn't sleep for so many nights!! Stories such as The Wreck, The Evening Gown,  Something Was Wrong,  and the scariest in my opinion, Clinkety-Clink made me horrified to sleep alone especially in the dark when I was little!! I had to sleep in my parents' room for so many nights especially on Halloween when I read those books when I was little. These are very sophisticated ghost stories and folklore that still scare me today and I'm already 28. The Wreck is a very spooky story based on the urban legend about a young man unknowingly going to a formal with his dream girl who turns out to be a ghost. These books also teach you how to conjure up ghosts like Mary Worth or more famously known Bloody Mary. These stories are extremely scary-graveyards at night and seeing apparitions in abandoned churches and houses--I dare you to read these at night in the dark by yourself!!
4715098
This book is a gem!  It will stretch your imagination until you actually face facts that yeah the paranormal is real and sometimes horrifying.  This is a true story about what happens when a normal family is confronted by a sinister entity and seemingly otherworldly happenings.  It is a true story of horror and courage.  It will definitely have you looking over your shoulder when you hear "bumps in the night."
1737473
These are truly intense tales from people who have experienced the horrors of war and its aftermath.
One thing I did not like is that the producers chose to replay the same images time and time again. When they do things like this it throws their credibility into question.
1265214
This is the first collection of short stories  that delivers awesome  reading in every incredible  story  if you  have  read  any of IRW's work in the  past  you know he always delivers an attention  grabbing tale.  But, A-Zach of Horrors exceeds  all expections.  That should  be  enough  said  but I  feel  compelled  to  include  the fact that most of these will made  me more than a little  scared.  However ,  U is for Urinary  Tract terrified  me as well as COMPLETELY  freaked  me out plus it has horrible, horrifying  gross factors.  Quick, go get this book.  I loved it.
3840216
This is a collection of short stories depicting difficult, mostly war times. The stories are set in such horrible places (war-torn Africa, a Nazi camp, South America). Each story is different and unique, but they are all utterly disturbing. Some parts are so brutal that they make one wonder how far human nature can go. The stories can be read quite quickly. Some of them are better than the others in terms of the writer's style (though something might have been lost in translation). In general, these are all but easy to read stories and I would not recommend them to anyone to read for pure pleasure. However, they do give the reader something to think about long after closing the final page.
3872213
Although sometimes I couldn't believe the horror of this trip I guess it must be true. The author was excellent storyteller and I hope he went on to write more books about simpler issues
1536064
Terrifying that creeps like this exist, easy read, had trouble putting down, very scary reading at times, very brave at times
3848681
Too often these days, horror fiction is reduced to shocks and gore at the expense of story, atmosphere and keen observation of human nature. Not so, here. While you'll find disturbing images and situations aplenty, every story between these covers has something thought-provoking to say...questions to ask. Sometimes, those questions are left unanswered, which is refreshing. This author, like many of the very best, understands that the real horror in life lies in the uncertainty of it all.
1006412
Dark Screams: Volume Five, from Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar with Mick Garris, J. Kenner, Kealan Patrick Burke, Del James, and Bentley Little bring horror to life.  This is a five star anthology of stories that kept my attention.

Included in this frightening volume:

Everything You've Always Wanted by Mick Garris was a truly horrible story.  He's being feted for the anniversary of the one film he made.  He's in a hotel suite in Indianapolis.  He showers & looks in the mirror at his naked body.  "That stomach:  How & when did it grow like this?  It was like some kind of flesh luggage."

Later he meets the former star of a different older movie.  "This creature was obviously female, as she had enormous round breasts climbing out of a scanty silk-and-sequin peekaboo gown that revealed more than anyone would want to see of her.  Her arms crinkled like crepe-paper gift wrap when they bent, at odds with the smooth immobile skin of her face & breasts....She was quite monstrously sexualized in her presentation, but about as desirable as a camel in a skirt."

The One & Only by J. Kenner was a haunting tale that took place in New Orleans, a voodoo capital.  "But when he looked at her--when he got lost in the hot ice of her eyes--he knew that she was right.  That she was his future, his past, his present."

The Land of Sunshine by Kealan Patrick Burke had a mute wife & a troubled husband tortured by her silence.  ..."though it had never bothered him before, her muteness now more than ever seemed like an infirmity destined to compound the inevitability of their dissolution."

Mechanical Gratitude by Del James will do anything to protect his '68 Camaro & does just that.  "It took corners like a shark cruising on asphalt."

The Playhouse by Bentley Little was a haunting little tale about a real estate agent who makes life changes by visiting a playhouse on a property she's listing.  "Wait a minute, she thought.  Mud?  Lois frowned.  The property had been foreclosed on close to two months ago.  It was summer.  The mixture of dirt & water should have long since dried out."

I would like to thank Random House Publishing Group - Hydra & NetGalley for a complimentary kindle copy of this book.  It did not change my opinion for this review.

Link to purchase:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Dark-Screams-Volume-Five/dp/B00TNDLRRA/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Dark Screams: Volume Five</a>
3206858
Some of theses stories made my blood boil. Some were touching. However, the ultimate effect is how real these accounts are, and how many similar occurrences I can recall observing as a student of the public system.  What is truthfully terrible is how much degradation is carried to the college level. Soon the debts of these ill-prepared students will collect to a future fallout.

This is a book worth sharing in my generation. Maybe then they'll see past the illusion I've dispelled since long ago.
426847
My review of Alexander Brown's book Traumatized begins with a funny story: while I was a guest at Southern Fried Comic Con at Jackson, Mississippi last June, I had the pleasure of meeting Alex and picking up a copy of his book. Seeing as how the book was a collection of short stories, I thumbed through it and settled on a story entitled From Midnight to One. Fifteen minutes later, I was absolutely scared out of my mind and refused to read the rest of the book. For not only had Alex scared me beyond belief with such detail regarding three witches and their victims, but he had also shown just how far into the darkness he was willing to write. When I saw him at another con, I politely told him that his book scared the absolute crap out of me and that I could not read the rest of it. He, much to my surprise, found it to be quite a compliment that the Goth Librarian was terrified of his work.

Traumatized is not for the faint of heart. The stories are beyond conventional horror and yet done with an original style not be matched by many others in the genre. The stories drip with great helpings of Southern Gothic while the unrelenting gore is just behind that door, curtain or even shoebox filled with voodoo dolls. The stories begin with the set up of the plot and characters; however, one realizes quickly that is not well and will not even resemble a fragment of sanity once the stories come to their own ends. Several stories that stood out in originality were From Midnight to One (of course!), Live Through This (a tale of obsession gone horribly, horribly wrong), Two Miles (Judgment Day in Hell) and The Acquired Taste (you'll never want sushi again). These stories are more than fair representatives of Splatterpunk; each story forces the readers to stare into a dark abyss that will not go away, no matter how many times we say our prayers at night.

If you like reading books that make the things that go BUMP in the night quiver in their boots, then Traumatized is for you. But don't say I didn't warn you.