Although I had previously read and enjoyed several pieces of Kiernan short fiction, most of the stories in this collection were not my cup of tea.

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan's fourteenth collection of short fiction, comprised of twenty-eight uncollected and impossible-to-find stories.

This is my first experience with Kiernan's work. It was kind of hard making my way through this collection of twenty-eight short stories. Several of the stories were similar. The formula of the stories felt the same. Some of the writing felt out of my league, given the terminology for some of the subject matter. I had to grab a thesaurus on a couple of stories because I couldn't grasp the scientific terms being used.

With that being said, there are some great stories in this collection. Werewolf Smile, The Carnival is Dead and Gone, The Eighth Veil, and Interstate Lovesong (Murder Ballad No. 8) are just a few of my favorites. The stories touch on the strange, bizarre, erotic, and disturbing.

The writing is lyrical... sometimes too lyrical, making for a dull reading experience. I read one or two short stories at a time so that I wouldn't burn out on the collection.

3/5 stars!⭐⭐⭐

I received a copy from Netgalley.

This particular author is one of my favourites of dark and bizarre fiction. Most of the time I love her work, there are the odd ones that I really don’t like or get at all. This collection of short stories has been on my radar since I heard about it. I was thrilled when I got approved for it on Netgalley (a hardcover is nearly $30). After reading a few of the stories I knew I had to have a finished copy and I did purchase a finished Kindle version.

Stand out stories for me were:

Werewolf Smile – a narrator’s flighty girlfriend posing for a series of disturbing photos based on a Red Riding Hood theme. There was something so dark and powerful about the prose that made this story stick with me more than the others. First story in the collection.

Charcloth, Firesteel and Flint – this is about a dude who picks up a random girl hitchhiking and finds himself sharing her memories of violent acts throughout history. Very vivid and uncomfortable.

The Eighth Veil – I loved this one, I wanted a full novel of this one. A group of weird people gathering in a bar to watch some sort of stage show which seems to be an execution.

-30- This one is about a woman who receives an anonymous photo of some sort of monster – is it real? Where did it come from? Who sent it? What is it? An intriguing mystery though was a little disappointed with the end.

The Carnival is Dead and Gone – This was another favourite, dude and has friend visiting a carnival of oddities and freaks head into a special area where the strangest of creatures are held including some sort of quivering mass with theatricals that resemble a giant vagina following some strange sex act. It was another one that was quite uncomfortable but utterly compelling and erotic as it was disturbing. It feels wrong but you can’t take your eyes away. The audience of the show seemed to find it really erotic. Something like this should not be erotic, but it was and what does that say about the state of my mind?

Interstate Lovesong (Murder Ballard No 8) Two sisters who pick up randoms and kill them on their journey get a shock of their own when they pick up a girl with an attitude of her own. Gory and fascinating.

These were the stand outs for me.

This collection is a host of stories from the strange, the weird, the bizarre, disturbing, erotic and sometimes just plain what the fuck was that? 28 of them. Some of them I loved, some of them I hated. Some of them were just bland. One in particular - Tempest Witch - I read the whole thing and didn’t get a word of it. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, dark and dreamy.

A good mixed bag.

Thank you Netgalley and Subterranean Press for approving my request to view the title.

This was a treat! It was weird, wonderful and wacky. A couple of stories I wasn't entirely sold on, but the majority were excellent!

I'm always a fan of strange stories, and stories that then keep me thinking about them, and that is just what these did. I recommend them for something a little bit different and original, a little bit twisted, and a whole lot of strange!

This was a set of tales like few others I have ever read. Culled from so many different ideas, each one had it's own personality and feel. Yet through them all was the seamlessly flowing writing, the grim feel of desperation, and the delightful darkness I was hoping for when I picked up this title. Perfect little interludes of beautiful discomfort.

I've been dragging my feet on this for two months and I've decided to throw in the towel. I can't bring myself to read any more solid walls of text.

"Great swaths of the rocky seafloor rising up to meet her beneath a carpet of calcified cyanobacteria and the branching lobes and solitary cups of archaeocyath sponges.There are knotted clusters formed by problematic chancellorids, an enigma to taxonomists, who must place all organisms in this box or that box; the chancellorids may be only sponges, or they may be slug like halkieriids protected inside their skins of star shaped, calcareous sclerites."

I wanted to like this so much, but I just can't get into it.

*Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC, but since I did not finish, I do not feel it's fair for me to rate or review at this time.*

This just wasn't my kind of thing. I only read 35% of the book and quit. I won't be reviewing this book or author. I don't think it would be a fair review.

I really liked the story that this collection opened with - it was dark and creepy and a little sexy. Unfortunately from there I felt the collection took a downward turn. I felt like I was reading the same story over and over again - a story whose content I personally found quite squicky. If you can be bothered to trawl through this collection for the few interesting nuggets then power to you, but personally I didn't find the effort worthwhile.

Dear Sweet Filthy World by Caitlin Kiernan- Here we have twenty-eight almost impossible to find stories from Caitlin Kernan, published for the most part in her own online magazine and available only by subscription to die-hard fans. These are dark tales on the grim side, where nothing good happens to anyone. Werewolf Smile starts things off and is one of my favorites. It's a stream-of consciousness tale of an avant-garde artist designing an art piece using the Black Dahlia murder victim as his template and the narrator's familiar as his model. Yes, creepy. There's a lot more besides that, and everything is down and dirty to the last gory barb. As I've said before, I'm not much of a horror fan, but the writing here is so immediate, so challenging, it's hard to resist. Cast your eyes across a few opening lines and you find yourself deep into a shadow world that wraps around you and holds you in its cool embrace until it finally lets you go.

As the blurb says, this is a collection of strange stories. When I first read what the book was all about I was super intrigued and I'm so glad I went for it and read it. To say that the stories are not what your usually read would be is an understatement. They are, at least to me, a mix of wonder, sadness, craziness and simply something that will leave you thinking about strange things. Each story is unique, so you will never be bored or uninterested. But I have to warn you, these stories are not for the faint-hearted. They are messy, even dark and definitely not a light read. But I'm sure that in the end you will find yourself enjoying them. If not, then maybe it's just me who's strange enough to like them.