Paul Tremblay can write and has such a creative mind. I struggled with how to rate this book. There were ones that I thought were very good and others were good but didn't knock my socks off. But it is like that with short story collections, some will resonate more than others. But what I do love is his writing and how he inherently knows how to create tension, creepiness, and vivid characters. This book is categorized as horror and yet, it feels more like science fiction with creepy things happening.

There is a novella at the end, which I have mixed feelings about. It is a unique style and not one that blew me away.

I find that I enjoy his novels more than his short stories and/novellas.

Well written, experimental, and creative.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this PDF to me for an honest review. I have not read Paul Tremblay’s penultimate collection, Growing Things. While I greatly enjoyed his breakout novel Headful of Ghosts and its follow-up Disappearance at Devil’s Rock, I found The Cabin at the End of the World’s refusal to provide an actual ending annoying and Survivor Song derivative (pregnant woman in an end of the world scenario…just like Bird Box, but with a rage virus sort of thing seen far too many times already, and the added “bonus” of predictable political commentary). I’d backtracked to an older collection, In the Mean Time, and found most of the stories ambiguous and elliptical, not especially satisfying. Since several were repurposed in Growing Things, I didn’t make it a priority, but Shyamalan’s strong adaptation of Cabin (now with a true ending, albeit one that could have used at least a measure of subtlety) renewed my interest in checking out something new from Tremblay, so I requested The Beast You Are. I may have been better off with Growing Things.

It starts off well with what I found to be the best story, “Ice Cold Lemonade... ” The meta foundation feels counterintuitive, but the concept is intriguing—a writer reflects on the circumstances behind a childhood drawing sent to him by his mother. This story feels complete and has a prevailing eeriness. The drawback to starting with this is it fosters an expectation for a similar experience that the book rarely delivers. It’s not trying to, but I think many readers would prefer it did. While I wouldn’t quite subscribe to other reviews calling the collection “experimental”—that seems a more alienating summation than the reality—it does traffic in that same ambiguous and elliptical trade that rarely satisfied me with In the Mean Time. The stories often feel like the presentation of their concepts is the goal, rather than exploring any conflict or resolution to them.
“Red Eyes” alludes to characters from A Headful of Ghosts, as does “The Postal Zone.” I preferred the latter, although its format as a letter column to Fangoria limits the narrative possibilities. (It does have a funny meta moment with one letter complaining about Tremblay’s endings.) Replace those AHOG characters from “Red Eyes”—which you could, because nothing in the story is especially dependent on their roles from the novel—and there isn’t much of a lasting impression. “The Last Conversation” is one of the high points. By his own admission in the story notes, Tremblay is channeling Brian Evenson here. As one of the best practitioners of the short story in the genre today, Evenson is a tough act to imitate, but Tremblay does well with it. The reveal seems a foregone conclusion pretty early on but it’s an interesting plot with a deeper melancholy, and one of the “complete” stories in the collection. I liked the concept of “House of Windows,” with a mysterious building that seems to appear overnight beside a library. The ending is evocative, but one also gets the sense the author may not actually know what he is implying with it, and it’s just a way to move on to the next story or book.

This same pall hangs over “Howard Sturgis and the Letters and the Van and What He Found When he Went Back to His House,” another one that I found intriguing but doesn’t seem to build to a conclusion so much as manufacture a stopping place. “The Large Man” employs a POV repetition trick that I liked. It’s one of the more successful of the stranger entries. "The Blog at the End of the World" predate the pandemic, though like "Postal Zone," its format keeps the story from developing. The Shirley Jackson-inspired “The Party” is another where the table seems set for something impressive, but it just kind of ends without revealing anything, with its zenith of weirdness something that doesn’t feel like it belongs to this particular story any more than it would if Howard Sturgis had come home to find it. “The Dead Thing” is one of the more traditionally structured and executed stories, but the least fulfilling of them. While some of these works are abandoned prematurely, this one seems to lurch on and on with a young narrator using parentheticals inside parentheticals. The brother/sister dynamic here does offer an interesting parallel to another new collection, “Half the House is Haunted” from Josh Malerman’s Spin a Black Yarn.

The title story of the book is the bigger offender of far exceeding its sell-by date, though. Given that collections famously do not sell well, one marvels that a publisher wanted to release this one with a centerpiece of a free-verse poem/novella involving anthropomorphic animals. It stretches over the course of 60 years, and despite jumping years here and decades there, you begin to feel like you’ve endured all 60. The core concept about a town offering a sacrifice every 30 years to a giant monster is initially entertaining enough, but of course what it’s all “really” about is a political allegory, and the stuff with the monster is mostly background noise. As with most other politically minded writing of this era, nuance is in negative supply. You can recast human characters as animals and break up the lines into verse with some potent turns of phrase, but all it ever feels like is thinly veiled social media posts. There is no great revelation from this. It’s a long drive with a lot of miles, but only around the block, only around the same cul-de-sac…one that he’s already driven to some extent in Cabin at the End of the World and similarly in Survivor Song (as well as in some of the other stories in this book), but here it is in free verse with animals, so totally not the same thing. But of course it is. My political affiliation is the good one, yours is evil. As Bender mocks in The Breakfast Club, “It’s such fun to read.” I envy those who will decide life is too short, mark it DNF, and move on to the next book. I’m too stubborn, determined at a certain point to see it through to the end. I made it, but the feeling was less the sense of accomplishment than gratitude to move on to something hopefully less didactic.

The first half of the collection is uneven but compelling enough. The last half is a test of endurance. Three out of five is the highest I can go. Those who appreciate Tremblay’s style of short stories will probably find much to enjoy here, if less so than Growing Things or In the Mean Time. For myself, I’ll hope The Pallbearers Club is more what I am looking for.

The Beast You Are by Paul Tremblay is the first short story collection from this author that I have ever read and it was everything I had dreamed of! I love Tremblay and have only *hated* one of his books before but this was exceptional!

An anthology with a lot of good ideas and okay endings. Except for 'The Last Conversation' which is one of the best short stories that I have ever read. Absolutely phenomenal story that captures a very special kind of dread. I would lovefor that story to have its own novel.

Thank you to netgalley for the review copy!

While I think that Paul Tremblay is an incredibly gifted writer, these stories left me feeling unsatisfied. The author does a great job of weaving together the elements of the a story and creating suspense, but the endings just fell flat for me. I was left just not getting what the endings even meant for the majority of these stories which is not a terrific feeling. I do recommend this title for fans of Tremblay's work and maybe other readers will get more out of it than I did. For my part, I have to say it was not my favorite.

I'm such a fan of Tremblay's, and I really enjoyed this. He's got such an impressive way of just getting under your skin, and so much of this had me on the edge of my seat. Some stories are stronger than others, and the weaker ones are... choppy and feel unfinished. But the ones that are good are really, really good.

[Blurb goes here]

Paul Tremblay has a unique way of getting under your skin, his horror tales will have you looking over your shoulder. The characters are well written, fleshed out, something (I imagine) hard to accomplish when writing short fiction.

While a few of the stories felt incomplete, chopped even. Others make it a worthy journey for the reader. As far as collections go, this one is unique...let me clarify: the author toys with the readers emotions at will. He will make you feel safe and then, in the next couple of paragraphs, he'll give you goose bumps. His imagined threats, all too real.

Needless to say that I'm now looking forward to read more books by Mr. Tremblay.

Thank you for the advanced copy.

The Beast You Are by Paul Tremblay is an anthology of short stories. I usually enjoy Tremblay 's books but this was not one of his better ones. This anthology contains 15 stories and not one of them is memorable. House of Windows and The Last Conversation were the only two stories that I enjoyed but I thought they would have worked better if they were longer. I wish I would have liked this anthology more but I couldn't.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advanced copy of the book. The opinions are my own.

Paul Tremblay returns with another horror collection, this time focusing on the more monstrous facets of humanity. Packed with fifteen stories, there's sure to be something for everyone in here, even if it's sometimes not the most even collection. (To be fair, it's hard to find a short story collection that is.)

Pros:
- These are human stories, even if strange things may happen. It makes it easier to connect with the characters and care in the short space of time afforded a "short" story.
- There's some meta in here about Tremblay's endings and the criticisms around them, which is pretty funny. I've always been a fan of the "use your imagination and fill in the blanks" way that he writes.

Cons:
- As previously stated, a few of the stories didn't grab my attention and ended up being skims. Hate to do it, but it happens.

Four stars. I've always been a big fan of Tremblay's writing style, and he doesn't disappoint here.

FFO: short stories, beastly humans, wonky endings (sorry Paul).

**I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. My thanks to William Morrow and Netgalley*

I am a Paul Tremblay fan and I loved Head Full of Ghosts. This one was not my favorite but did have a few shinning points. Ice Cold Lemonade really shook me and was fantastic. I also really enjoyed Blog at the end of the world. My biggest struggle was with the Title Story, the Beast you are. I understand it is in a different style but it really dragged on and was much longer than a short story in my opinion. I struggled to finish it but then I was glad I did. I look forward to more short stories in the future. Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the free copy.

Pretty good. This author can be a hit or miss for me, but this worked. The stories had a distinct voice and were overall very interesting. I liked the writing style a lot. I can especially recommend this to people already familiar with Tremblay's work.

"The Beast You Are" by Paul Tremblay is a solid, gorgeously written collection of dark fiction. His stories range from heart breaking and tender to far out and bizarre. There are two stories that revisit characters from his novel "A Head Full of Ghosts", however one doesn't need to have read that to enjoy these stories. This is a wickedly delightful collection!

I like a collection of short stories and like most books composed of them, there are some I really like and others not as much. In this collection, I really enjoyed Ice Cold Lemonade, House of Windows, The Dead Thing and The Blog at the end of the World. The rest are fine stories but not what I usually like but there are still well written and a great read. If you're a Paul Tremblay fan, I'm sure you will love this book.

I'm a fan of Paul Tremblay's writing and enjoyed these short stories, each being little snippets into his mind. It didn't feel like a cohesive collection of stories, it felt like we got to see all of the post-it notes of ideas the author has sitting around in his brain. Like teasers for books that would all probably be unnerving and wonderful. It left me wanting more and on the edge of creepiness, rather than actively in the creepiness, but that's the fun part of short stories.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy with me in exchange for my honest thoughts. I am so grateful!

His writing always seems to leave the decisions up to you. Should you be scared? Should this make you feel a certain way? It's really up to you. The horror you expect is more cut and dry skepticism and uncensored reality. You could blink and easily miss the high point of each short story. Strangely enough all these things can equally draw you in. The simplicity is probably what Tremblay does best with his horror. It's not unnecessarily deep or attempting to be something it's not. I think this is definitely something to read if you're trying this genre out and don't know quite what you like yet. Like with all short story collections, some just don't hit but others will land beautifully.

I am a fan of short story collections, but this one seemed a bit disjointed. It's almost like this should have been two separate anthologies instead of one. A few of the stories seemed like they were added to simply bulk up the page count. None of the stories excited me enough to send me racing to the next. A bit disappointed.

I did not find any of these stories particularly compelling. The first story about the potentially haunted house was probably my favorite and "The Last Conversation" was fairly entertaining, but felt way too long.

The titular story took up the majority of the second half and was not anything I was interested in.

This is a short story collection by Paul Tremblay. I enjoyed many of the short stories, they definitely have the feel of a Paul Tremblay book where the ending is not so cut and dry. At times though, sometimes these stories felt like just a stream of left over thoughts.

The stories I really enjoyed were

Mean Time 4 Stars - This one was really sad to me but also just absolutely beautiful
Red Eyes 4 Stars - This one was so spooky and I loved it.
The Blog At the End of the World 5 Stars - I really want more of this one specifically. I would love to see this one as a novella. I really enjoyed it and blog media style of it.
House of Windows 4 Stars - This one as well has so much potential to be a novella or full novel. The premise of a large mansion just appearing and then getting bigger randomly was super interesting.
Last Conversation 4 Stars - This one was such a trip and felt so much like a black mirror episode. I would love to see this one as a black mirror episode.

I would recommend this book specifically to fans of Paul Tremblay. I think fans would enjoy this book and already be prepared of the non answer endings.

Thank you NetGalley and William Morrow for this advance reader copy. My review is voluntarily my own.

I will be posting my review to my instagram page the.floofs.booknook and retail sites close or on publication date.

Wasn't what I was expecting. "The Beast You Are" was a decent read, but it felt to me like these were just leftovers from his last collection "Growing Things". I would only advise reading if you are a die hard Tremblay fan or a horror genre aficionado. One cool thing was the references to Head Full of Ghosts, which was interesting for people who have also read that book.

I really enjoyed the Beast You Are, Tremblay's newest collection of short stories. The writing was creepy and tense. I wouldn't read these at night!