Short story collections are always a mixed bag, and I find them difficult to rate. The stories that I really liked were clear 5-stars for me – 'The Serial Killer's Astronaut Daughter' is just as bizarre and brilliant as the title suggests, and I'd love to see it as a novel, or even a Hollywood film (it could have a great, dark Se7en vibe). 'A Lie You Give, and Thus I Take' was also killer – I love the way it plays with structure and expectations. Although there were a few other standouts, I've forgotten most of the stories (I read it a month ago), which I guess isn't great. I'd advise reading this sparingly, as I read it all in one go and it got a bit samey. A lot of the stories are about traumatised women, and the same ground is covered a few times. I also found the prose a little cloying.

That said, I'd definitely read more from Damien Angelica Walters, whether a novel or a story collection. The stories that I did like were enough to pull me past the ones I didn't, and I'm keen to see where she goes next.

(Also I love that the stories all had long, elaborate titles - I have no idea why that's my thing right now, but it is.)

Great collection of short stories. Damien Angelica Walters delivers the frights and chills. CRY YOUR WAY HOME is a must-read for fans of horror. Full review coming soon.

Cry Your Way Home is heavily steeped in tragedy and grief, which brought to light all the ways humanity is fragile. At its heart, the collection of short stories speaks of many kinds of losses - the forgetfulness of old age, the death of a beloved child, the ways bullying claims piece-by-pieces. It's a heart-breaking collection that is overwhelmingly honest and poignant, yet enriched with the horrors that take place behind the facade. Cry Your Way Home straddles the divide between Dark Fantasy and Horror - and makes for an interesting read.

The averaged rating i gave to all the stories in this collection comes to just under 3 stars. There were a few stories I really liked — the first one, a brutal Beauty and the Beast retelling, tricked me by being my favorite and making me think the rest of the book would be as good — but overall this was a disappointment.

Themes of this collection:
- grief
- sadness
- happy marriages falling apart due to the above themes
- chasms between daughters and mothers
- dead children and sad mothers (combine at will with the above ingredients)
- the sad reality of how girls and women are treated in our society
- sleepwalking. why is there so much sleepwalking
- ancient monsters
- no answers or explanations whatsoever

By all means, if that list interests you, give it a shot. As for my opinion, all I can say is that I was usually not interested.

I'm coming to realize I need short story collections to have fewer stories in them. It increases the chances that the individual stories will be longer and therefore more fleshed out/satisfying, and keeps me from getting burnt out and frustrated by the too frequent shifts from story to story. Cry Your Way Home fell into both these traps for me. Sometimes I can be satisfied with open endings. This collection included none of those times.

There were definitely good things about this collection, but I'm not sorry that I'm done with it.

Cry Your Way Home is a fitting title for a tome so heavily steeped in grief and despair. It touches on loss of a child in more than one way and in more than one story. Loss of a spouse, the pain of watching your husband forget you because of Alzheimer's, bullying, and more. Endless suffering can be found here.
Luckily for me I picked this up at a time when I have had enough sappy happy holiday cheer. There is some general dark fiction, and stories that straddled the line between fantasy and horror, occasionally dipping a toe in each. I hate to use the word "Enjoyed" in this case so I will just say there is mighty fine writing here.

I’ve read a few short stories by Damien Angelica Walters in various collections and always enjoyed her work so when I saw this on Netgalley I didn’t hesitate to request this book. It turns out that Walters is an even better writer than I thought; this is an impressive collection of stories that ranges across multiple genres and does so with ease. I loved the fact that a theme or plot point from one story made its way into the next, subtly linking each story and bringing this collection together nicely.
Damien Angelica Walters has a fantastic ability to swiftly set you within a characters mind and empathise with them from the get go. Each story grabbed me quickly and firmly held me until I had finished, and I really liked her writing style which was easy to read and still gracefully crafted.
Most of the stories have a subtle horror running through them, often supernatural, or for some something a bit more personal and emotive. This is done to great effect to compliment a story and not define it, these stories don't feel like they were written to scare but to illicit an emotional response and a lasting impression.
I’ll totally recommend this book, it’s fantastically written, and each story was great in its own way.