This was an interesting, strange, and at times gross collection. If you have a weak stomach and strong imagination, then I suggest skipping this one. (You can practically smell the first story pouring off the page, in a very gross way). I do love the imagination that went into this - the stories are unique, and different. Unfortunately, some of them were a bit clunky, and at times I had to re-read things because I was a little lost. Overall, a great collection of speculative fiction.

A highly enjoyable collection of stories, some disturbing, all entertaining. It's rare to find a collection where every story is a jem, but I don't think there's a bad one in the bunch.

Such a great connected compilation of short stories mixed with horror, magic, and fantasy.

I feel like writing some of these stories in first person and some in third was a great choice. It either lets the reader fully immerse themselves into the shoes of the character but leaving some bigger outside influencing details to the imagination or lets the reader observe the horror from a wider lens. I found each of these stories intriguing and fantastical because of that.

Admittedly, I found myself trudging through the first third of this book. There is nothing seemingly connected with, and this makes everything feel illogical. The second third is slightly more enjoyable with more fantasy elements in "Sporo and Amanita", The last third is really where things start to make a bit more sense with "My Mother and Other Monsters" bringing it all together. If you can stick it out until the end, it’s worth the read.

I love how each of these stories are all connected by the people and the place where they live. I will admit I was a tad confused with the timeline of when each of these took place, but if you give into the magic and the weirdness of it all then it doesn’t really matter. Just like the neighborhood in "Hunger" each of the stories and the lives within them they seem to belong to their own dimension and time.

The difference between this and other works of short stories is that you do need to read the whole book to really get what is going on. I have read other compilation or anthology books where skipping a story you can’t connect with doesn’t affect the rest of the book, but with "In The Woods, Dark & Deep" because they are connected some of the stories are left without a conclusion, but any questions you might have had are answered as you keep going.

Normally I can complete 252 pages fairly quickly, but in my opinion if you are looking for a short read this one might take a little longer to absorb due to the time jumps and its sometimes-nonsensical nature.

Still worth the read if you are into dark speculative horror fantasies.

*This ebook was provided through NetGalley. This honest review is submitted voluntarily.*

I will be completely transparent and say that I nearly marked this as a DNF at only 3% in. The first story was just written weirdly, hard to follow just from a technical standpoint, and with some very confusing grammatical and format errors. I wanted to give it a fairer shot and I actually ended up finishing all of the stories.

The writing certainly improved with each short story, but I found myself having to continuously push through and hope the next story would be better.

On the positive side, the concepts and ideas themselves in these stories are quite interesting — I love bizarre, nasty stuff like this. I even had several moments of, "Wait a minute— Is that—? YOOOOOO IT IS—" while reading, especially near the end. The intrigue and web of the later stories really did save the read, because I was just so curious to see how this would all tie back together.

In summary: The technical structure of the writing is a bit of a strain to get through and has ample room for improvement, but the strangeness of the stories and the unique concepts were intriguing enough to motivate me to finish the collection. If weird, confusing, disturbing, gnarly, and near-nonsensical are adjectives that appeal to you as well, it could be worth a shot!

A good collection of magical realism, weird, creepy stories. Good authors. A book I will definitely buy a copy when it's out.