A great read by this author. I definitely recommend checking this one out!
Thank you NetGalley for providing a copy of this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I always like to say that short stories are the ones that will show you how good the author really is. In the case of “The Odd & the Dead” it says “not that good”. What we’re getting in this book is seven very short stories and one novella - all of them going somewhere around being in the horror genre. Out of those 8 I mostly liked the first (about creating a perfect boyfriend) and fifth one (what happens when you know the future). All the rest was nice and quick to read, but they’ll definitely not stay with me for very long. As to the novella - I don’t really know what to say. It wasn’t too bad, but nothing special either. I kind of liked the concept of vampires living in the water, but it might have been written much better than it was.

A mixed bag, as most short stories collections are. I appreciated the range but did find myself DNFing some of the ones in the middle. My favorite was "The Boyfriend." I'm not sure how many of the other stories' details will stick with me after a week or two. Overall, not great or terrible. Thanks to Dancing Flame Books for the advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

THE ODD AND THE DEAD includes eight stories, three unpublished and five previously published.

“The Boyfriend:” Justice has a cool promotional opportunity if she can find a finance quick. She turns to the trolley she rides to work, and once she finds a doable candidate, she’s dealing with some frightening personal problems. The world building and body horror are fun pared with a bizarre, dystopian workplace.

“Devil in a Blue Skirt:” After losing his sister and his landscaping business to a corrupt businessman man, Inigo is hellbent on revenge.attempt

“The Nightmares of Flight:” The protagonist air travel be one’s more and more terrifying as his dreams come true.

“Green Girl:” A clown with a green paint fetish and a crypid create chaos for poor Vanessa.

“The Pawned Box:” A gadget that is way more than simply “just a loud, semi-radioactive paperweight” triggers Pepper and Kent to attempt to prevent a tragedy.

“Jack’s Plan:” Larry’s friend Jack has a great idea to solve their money problems—rob a few banks.

“Stressors:” Police officer Jenks is ready to reclaim the life stolen from him, no matter who he needs to eliminate to make it happen.

“Rise of the Vampnura:” A twist on the traditional vampire trope, “a blood sacrifice to a mystical swamp” creates a species of amphibian-like water-vampires. Telepath Valentine is the resort town’s best hope for stopping their leader’s nefarious plans.

I liked the range and creativity of the stories. My favorites were “The Boyfriend,” “Green Girl,” and The Pawned Box.”

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Thanks to Dancing Flame Books for providing an Advance Reader Copy via NetGalley.

Thank you to netgalley for providing an e-galley for review. The Odd and the Dead by Jody Smith is a collection of short stories and one longer novella. Just like the title said, these are odd stories that focuses on dead-like creatures. The problem was, I felt like had read all of them before and there wasn't enough differences to really make them all that enjoyable. In any short story collection some stories are stronger than others and it definitely holds true with this collection as well.

TW: Gore, blood, suicide, murder, racism, kidnapping, domestic abuse, cheating

*****SPOILERS*****
About the book:Seven short stories and one novella, THE ODD & THE DEAD is a journey into the fantastic, the bloody, the comedic, and the darkly unusual.
The Boyfriend: in this grim and comedic tale of government overreach, a woman accidentally conjures a man so that she can be properly promoted. Devil in a Blue Skirt: a man seeks revenge as an otherworldly force goads him along. The Nightmares of Flight: a man is being tugged between the terrors of hallucination and the horrors of reality while on a flight over the North Atlantic. Green Girl: kidnapped, a young woman’s future appears to lie in the paws of a creature she always assumed to be a myth. The Pawned Box: a pawnbroker and a junker come together in an attempt to save the world from forces unknown. Jack’s Plan: life is tough and it’s good to have friends, but sometimes those friends lead you astray, sometimes those friends are more than they ought to be. Stressors: a man knows his family has been replaced by mechanical interlopers and he’ll stop at nothing to right the situation. Rise of the Vampnura: in a small beach town, something fishy is going on after dark, and one man and one woman are all that is keeping the aquatic vampires from rising and taking over, but stopping them won’t be easy and the weapons won’t be conventional.
Release Date: 05/17/2022
Genre: Horror
Pages: 200
Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 3.5

What I Liked:
• I love the cover
• The gore is over the top
• The stories aren't too long

What I Didn’t Like:
• The random rambling that came off confusing

Overall Thoughts:

The Boyfriend - This story is a gory mess of a woman so desperate to move up to better things, but not wanting to get married. This felt relatable to me as sometimes I don’t want to get married. I liked this story a lot but for a few parts I was confused on the deaths of certain people and why they were telling us. Some of the story was easy to get lost in what was being said because it kind of just throws you into the thick of it all and expects you to know why.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️4.5

Devil In A Blue Skirt - This one is pretty short and not a favorite. I thought it was nice the Inigo decided at the last minute to not become a murderer but for me it fell flat.
⭐️⭐️⭐️3

Nightmares of Flight - I hate the dream sections in books and 75% of the time I skip them. I didn’t with this story but I was disappointed. It leaves on an ambiguous ending not knowing if our main character is awake or dreaming. The story felt lazy and unfinished at the ending.
⭐️⭐️2

Green Girl - Girl is kidnapped by a travel insurance agent when he returns after they've already set up a plan. When she wakes up she's in the trunk of his car and Brad is now a clown complete with the nose and wig. He wants Vanessa to perform with him so he paints her green. God this one was weird but weird in a crazy funny way. There was a good amount of gore. Ending was just okay.
⭐⭐⭐3.5

The Pawned Box - I thought this story was pretty good and it drew me in. Kent owns a pawnshop and Pepper is his most valued customer. One day she comes in to show him something that she doesn't know what it is. Things transpire when they realize that Kent owns a machine that understand what she has. Some minor plot problems but definitely liked it. Reminded me of a Twilight Zone episode.
⭐⭐⭐⭐4.5

Jack's Plan - I loved this one about Larry who takes Jack's idea about robbing the bank and then burning the house. It was fun and whimsical.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐5.0

Stressors - An officer is starting to lose his sanity when his wife and newborn leave to be with someone else. This one was so short that it felt like I had no idea what happened. I would have loved some more story to really understand and appreciate the idea behind it.
⭐⭐2.0

Rise of the Vampnure - Unfortunately I couldn't make it through this story because there were just TOO many errors. I understand it's not edited but the author put again instead of against, that was an easy one to understand, but there were ones that I had no idea what the sentence was about. I'm sadden that I couldn't finish the story but I don't know how I could have.

Final Thoughts: Some pretty solid stories & some not great ones. For the most part I'd love to revisit this book when editing is complete and see if I can up my rating.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for this advanced copy of the book. All thoughts and opinions are my own

Jody Smith's The Odd & the Dead was a DNF for me; it was okay. Unfortunately, it lacked an effective plot.

…sigh. I had a super, super hard time with this book. There are some severe editing mistakes that need corrected, and the stories are hard to follow. I wanted to like these, and in theory the stories are good ideas. The execution, however, is very poor.

I find with the Halloween season I tend to read more short stories like I’m getting as much horror as possible into my brain. So after reading the publisher’s blurb about The Odd & The Dead, I snatched it up.

I had high hopes for these stories, but unfortunately, I was disappointed.

One issue, and a major one for me, is that the book was badly edited. I know this is supposed to be an uncorrected proof but did a Beta even look it over? Regardless, it caused stumbles in the sentences which reverberated into the stories themselves.

I tried, I read every one but could not find one that I would recommend wholeheartedly.
There were 7 stories, I’ll just mention a few;

The Boyfriend: in this grim and comedic tale of government overreach, a woman accidentally conjures a man so that she can be properly promoted. 
I almost stopped right after this one. It had the beginnings of a good sci-fi story but seemed to lose itself. And lost me as I tried to make heads or tales out of it.

Green Girl: kidnapped, a young woman’s future appears to lie in the paws of a creature she always assumed to be a myth.
This one had legs. A woman kidnapped by an insane clown,(Yeah you heard me…) and is “saved” by something closer to Sasquatch than a man. No joy though, she is simply out of the frying pan and into the fire. This could be better, even though it is one of the better of the lot. If it was fleshed out a little more and removed the sexual components, I think you could have something here.

The Pawned Box: a pawnbroker and a junker come together in an attempt to save the world from forces unknown. 

I actually liked this one a lot. A nice bit of time/space continuum, a dash of the butterfly effect, and just someone wanting to stop something horrible to save someone they love. I would read this as a complete novel. There are so many things we could attempt to fix in the future with a simple action done today.

So I’m sorry, I can’t even bother with the rest. I didn’t like them enough to waste the reader's time explaining why I didn’t like them.

Of course, this is all my own, humble opinion.

Thanks to @Netgalley, Dancing Flame Books, and Jody Smith for this arc in exchange for my unbiased and honest opinion.

So, I really tried to enjoy the stories in this book. Maybe it was my misconception that it would’ve been more “scary” and “horror” short stories than this book actually intended. Either way, I wasn’t’t a fan. I found myself struggling to even find something to keep me going to read through them but since they’re short it made the effort a bit easier. I will say that the author is great with words and is extremely descriptive and can paint some nice imagery. Overall, it’s not that I think the author didn’t write some great stuff, I think it was just more that I was expecting something different given the title and description of the book.

I had enjoyed Jody Smith's book from Rewind or Die, so I was excited to read stories in one collection. Each story was well done and I appreciated that when a story was published before it told me. Overall this was a great horror collection.