An excellent compilation of short fantasy stories that cover the full spectrum range of emotions of the female characters gracing its pages!

Magical, mystifying, and comprised of lurid prose. Barnhill’s sorrowful short story collection demands to be savored. The only thing dreadful about this wonderfully weird book is that it’s over too quick, lingers on the tongue, and incites cravings for more. Every book that follows pales in comparison.

Eight stories and one novella full of magical realism and creepy ladies. A woman moves on after losing her husband, to find love with a sasquatch; a pirate takes to the high seas. The novella, "The Unlicensed Magician", kept me turning pages all night.

Story collections are typically something I have a hard time getting into, but this one I was pleasantly surprised by. It was a solid read.

This short-story collection, from the vivid imagination of Kelly Barnhill, is captivating. Listening to it on audio is both a wonderful and challenging experience. John Lee does a superb job of narrating these odd and magical tales, but one has to listen closely or you will miss out on Barnhill's subtle use of language and the ingenious little twists in her plots. So good I want to go back and listen to or read them all again.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are 100% my own.

Dreadful Young Ladies & Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill is a short story collection full of the strange, magical, weird settings and characters that I delight in reading about. From the very first story about a widow who falls in love with a sasquatch, to the final novella-length story about a future dystopian ruled by a magic obsessed dictator, I was enchanted by Barnhill's prose and deft storytelling.

There is a clear, well-developed authorial voice present in these stories that enhances the almost fairytale nature of them. While each story stands apart as a unique tale, this voice as well as the magical--almost surreal at times--elements ties them together so that every story feels as though it belongs here.

Elements of this collections reminded me strongly of Catherynne M Valente's "The Bread We Eat in Dreams" to the collections benefit. I think fans of Valente or Katherine Arden will find a lot to love in Dreadful Young Ladies. LIkewise, if you enjoy magical, folk-ish, surreal, fiction, I highly recommend this book.

5-stars...I think technically if I starred each individual story the average would be more like a 4.25/4.5 but just the overall experience here was a 5-star one so I'm rounding up. I'll definitely be checking out Barnhill's other fiction.

For more of my thoughts be sure and check out my youtube review of this novel!

This was a wonderful, magical read. I've been really into short stories lately and Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories really hit the spot. Magic and folklore flow together throughout the book which helps tie the individual stories together. Some of the stories lean more towards fantasy and some towards horror and they all feature a "Dreadful" young lady in the central role. I definitely liked some more than others but that is par for the course with a short story collections I think. Overall this was wonderful. If you are a fan of The Girl Who Drank the Moon and want to see what the author can do in a shorter format and different themes should definitely check this out.

Kelly Barnhill’s new collection, Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories, explores love, loss, and longing in a diverse selection of stories that rely more on lyricism than plot for their surprising effects. Barnhill’s diverse cast of characters includes a range of fantastical figures—a sasquatch, an anthropomorphized insect, ghosts, mad scientists, magicians, and witches—but also individuals, usually girls and women, for whom the supernatural is a reflection of the tortured psyche.The volume offers a pleasant surprise to readers unfamiliar with Kelly Barnhill, and perhaps a transition point for younger readers looking for stories of greater maturity and complexity than their usual literary fare.

This is an outstanding collection of short stories featuring dreadful young ladies. The genres range from fantasy to magical realism to horror. The writing is good and the stories definitely intrigue while making you feel. If you're looking for a unique short story collection, this is a good one to pick up.

Read. This. Book.

I cannot stress that enough. I am going to chase my customers down until they leave with a copy.

The prose is graceful and fluid and BEAUTIFUL. The characters are written with so much affection that you develop a real, visceral attachment -- I'm still reeling. I miss the sasquatch. He was my best friend.

I’ll be perfectly honest, I put in a NetGalley request for Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories based solely on the cover. Oh, ok, maybe the comparison to Neil Gaiman helped, but mostly it was those beautiful dragonfly wings.

Dreadful Young Ladies is a single-author short story collection featuring the work of Kelly Barnhill. All of the stories are of a fantastic nature, though a couple lean more literary despite the fantasy elements.

The collection starts off strong with “Mrs. Sorenson and the Sasquatch.” I enjoyed the author’s voice and how the story was told through the eyes of outsiders, and the hints of small-town life.

Beyond that, though, much of this book was a miss for me. Some of the stories just felt like they were trying a little too hard, and both “Elegy to Gabrielle — Patron Saint of Healers, Whores, and Righteous Thieves” and the novella The Unlicensed Magician featured female characters who were literally too good for this world and set my teeth on edge.

Barnhill has a way with words, and a lot of really interesting ideas. I can see why she’s an award-winning author, and I suspect a lot of people will find something to love in this collection. For me, I just wanted the stories to maybe dig a little deeper, and say a little bit more.

The short story is a difficult form. Authors often have to decide whether they want to convey an idea, or craft a short plot, or present a character study. I found that most of the stories had a certain element of whimsy or dark wonder, but not a lot of substance. Some people enjoy that sort of story, something to get you thinking about an idea, but I have to be in the right sort of mood for it and that’s just not where I am right now.

Pros: Cool ideas, lyrical writing.

Cons: Most stories fell flat for this reader.

Conclusion: Your mileage may vary.

Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories by Kelly Barnhill releases in hardback and digital on February 20th, 2018. Thank you to Algonquin Books and NetGalley for the advanced review copy.

This was my first book by this author. It was an Advanced Reader Copy. I fell in love with all the characters especially Harry and Alice. This author will definitely be on my list

This is my introduction to Kelly Barnhill's work. I've been wanting to read The Girl Who Drank the Moon for a while, even more so after my friend Arlene raved about it last fall. Barnhill has created a collection of diverse short stories, a novelette, and the eponymous "story" which is actually like a collection of flash fiction shorts about some very, very dreadful young ladies, all tied together by their focus on female central characters.


From the very first story, Mrs. Sorenson and the Sasquatch, Barnhill had me hooked. Coming on the heels of the popularity of the film The Shape of Water, it's no big stretch, but the charm of Mrs Sorenson, née Dryleesker, rings through every page. Open the Door and the Light Pours Through was an based in part on an epistolary format, something I don't usually enjoy unless very well done, but it is an enjoyable read. Dead Boy's Last Poem is brief but... fiery. The Dreadful Young Ladies of the title are short flash fiction sort of vignettes of young women of varying degrees of dreadfulness but some, like Annabelle, are quite humorous. The Taxidermist's Wife and Elegy to Gabrielle, Patron Saint of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves are both beautiful stories, the former with a tinge, at least for me, of growing edginess. Notes on the Death of Ronia Drake dives deep into stepmother horror. The Insect and the Astronomer is a tale of a witty, Latin-speaking shield bug and an astronomer with a collection of automatons named Angel#1- #19. I shed tears at the end of this one. Finally, we have what I estimated to be a novelette length story, The Unlicensed Magician, witty with its series of progressing passages that are successively Now, Now, and Now, yet again, plus an amusing cast of characters (some of the names made me laugh).

All in all, this is a nice collection of the author's shorter works and certainly makes me want to read her novels.

<i>Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories</i> falls in the 3.5 star range for me. Like many short story collections it's a mixed bag of stories with some really outstanding ones and some ones that are entirely forgettable. Starting with the strongest first- "The Unlicensed Magician" is the powerhouse of the collection. I would have loved it even more if it were a stand alone novella or novel--there are enough characters and plot lines in it to have made it so. My second favorite was "Elegy To Gabrielle-Patron Saint Of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves" which featured similar themes, namely the effects of magic on a small town. However, there are quite a few stories that missed the mark for me including the stories the collection is named after, and "The Insect and the Astronomer" which was the weakest story in the collection by far.

Thank you, Netgalley, for the ARC.

I’m normally not a huge fan of short stories. I’ve been trying harder to read outside of my comfort zone lately and when I saw this ARC at YallFest, I knew I wanted to read it because while short stories aren’t my favorite, dreadful young ladies are.

Barnhill wastes zero time in launching us into the peculiar. Our first “dreadful young lady” is a new widow who rekindles an old flame with… Sasquatch. Honestly, that made me pause enough to consider DNFing this but I decided to press on after my girlfriend and I had a conversation about whether Sasquatch is actually an animal or not (please do not fall down the google ‘is Sasquatch an animal?’ hole like we did). I’m glad I didn’t DNF it because the stories really just get better from there.

There are stories of ghosts, of witches and murderers, magic and the slightly obscene. While the pacing was off in the book (the super choppy length of the stories was kind of jarring), I genuinely enjoyed reading this. Barnhill does a great job of mixing folklore and magical realism.

I did have some problems with the way the eARC was formatted. It was really hard to tell where one story began and one ended, and what paragraphs were grouped together. Hopefully this is something that will be fixed with the eBook.

I gave this a four star rating and I recommend it to anyone who likes short stories, peculiar loves, and dreadful young ladies.

I enjoyed most of the stories in this collection. I mean who wouldn't enjoy a book that starts put with a story about a woman and a sasquatch in a relationship. The magical realism was done well throughout. My only complaint is with the first few stories not being divided enough. I got confused without a clear starting and stopping point between each story. If you enjoy Barnhill or fantastical stories that both intrigue and occassionaly scare you, then this book is one I would recommend.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the advanced EARC of this work in exchange for my honest review.

Dreadful Young Ladies is a collection of short stories that range from fantasy to horror fiction. I am obsessed with the cover! It is so beautiful and symbolizes the magic and fantasy underneath. It is whimsical with a touch of creepiness which is how I would describe this book.

The first few stories knocked my socks off! Unfortunately, the book slumped in the middle with some confusing and uninteresting (to me) stories, but it did pick up at the end with the final story The Unlicensed Magician. Below I will give you the name of the story, a brief review of it, then a simple synopsis. I gave this book 3 Stars overall because I like the majority of the stories within it.

Mrs. Sorensen and the Sasquatch was original and put me in the right mindset to read this book. I learned right away to expect the unexpected from this collection after reading about a widow who falls in love with a Sasquatch.

Open the Door and the Light Pours Through was a touching ghost story which I found enjoyable. I really enjoyed how much character depth Kelly was able to give us with such a short story.

Dreadful Young Ladies is the title story of this book like the title track on a CD. I found the short little snippets that made up Dreadful Young Ladies were all very different and intriguing. At the start of each "chapter", we meet a new girl or woman and the story slowly reveals her dreadful secret.

The Taxidermist's Other Wife I didn't care for this story but I did highlight a bunch of quotes about taxidermy. My husband does taxidermy as a hobby so there was lots of good info.

Elegy To Gabrielle-Patron Saint Of Healers, Whores and Righteous Thieves Meh. I did enjoy hearing of the magic that was happening in the village as Gabrielle grew up...

Notes on the Untimely Death of Ronia Drake This is where the book began to lose me. I didn't find this story enjoyable and I got confused in parts. Maybe it was just me? I didn't understand how the witch came into the story and why the step mother hated her husbands first wife so much. I probably should re-read it, but I just don't have the time for re-reads.

The Insect and the Astronomer This one completely bored me. I skimmed through it and tried to catch on to what the point was, but I never got it nor did I care.

The Unlicensed Magician was really great! This was my favorite story in the collection. It has a Dystopian feel to it and I found myself very invested in the Sparrow and the people who loved her. One thing I will say though is that I felt this story dragged on a bit too long. Fun Fact: This short story won the World Fantasy Award!

Kelly Barnhill is a wonderful writer. Her stories are full of beautiful writing and colorful imagery. I could envision the landscapes she describes and could see the characters she created. That is why I hate saying anything negative about an artists work. Some of these short stories were misses for me, but as I have said before in other reviews, books and works of art are subjective. While I didn't enjoy all of this book, the next person will love the whole thing. Writing a book is one of the hardest things to do. I have so much respect for writers and give them all credit for doing something that I cannot.

Kelly Barnhill's Dreadful Young Ladies and Other Stories is a real treat for those who love lushly imagined weird worlds. Barnhill's style reminds me of early Jeanette Winterson ( i.e. Sexing the Cherry; The Passion) with their blend of magic realism and folklore. Though I found some of the stories a little too long, others linger in my mind like vivid dreams. Recommended for fantasy lovers.

I received an e-ARC from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.