I'm a big Edgar Allan Poe fan, but this book was a bit boring to me. To be fair, I did not finish it, so maybe it got more exciting, but it just never grabbed my attention. I'm not big on anthologies so that may have been part of it. I think anyone who likes retellings or horror stories. Although it wasn't my favorite, I will still be recommending it to library patrons.

A wonderful collection of excellently edited stories that offer something for everyone. If you are a Poe lover, a teen looking to get into Poe, or want some short retellings, this book is for you!

I was raised on Edgar Allan Poe's work (in particular "Annabel Lee" and "The Raven") so it wasn't hard for me to get behind retellings of his stories. These short stories are just as chilling as Poe's works and contain similar themes, but the YA voice and diverse characters and settings make them more accessible for the younger generation. The inclusion of the original stories also allows an opportunity for the reader to deepen their understanding by comparing the retelling to the source material. I have a feeling that middle and high school English teachers will be all over this book.

As a fan of Poe’s original works, I understand that students oftentimes find them a bit inaccessible. This anthology would be good to engage students and spark their interest. It would also be interesting to juxtapose the original work with the anthology story and have students analyze whether it has truly been ‘reimagined.’

I love that Edgar Allan Poe’s original Tales are included at the end of the book. I read a plot summary of each tale before reading the retelling, in order to get reacquainted with each of the original tales. Each retelling captured the cruelty of mankind as much or almost as much as the original tales did. I love the way some of the tales were told in modern times, while others were told in more futuristic times.

I’ve read books by Marieke Nijkamp, Amanda Lovelace, Stephanie Kuehn and Lamar Giles, which I enjoyed. the rest of the authors are on my to the read shelf. Seeing this group come together for an anthology made me extremely excited. I usually feel like anthologies need more story, almost as if they aren’t finished, but I felt like all of these stories had enough to them and had real conclusions.

Overall I loved the mix of past, present, and future time tables in each of the tales. I enjoyed the diversity of the characters in each of the retellings. These are definitely dark and ominous tales, not for the faint of heart. I would recommend this if you are a long time fan of Edgar Allan Poe, or just want to get into his tales.

I expected more from this anthology. Some of them were really great and a few of them just went off the rails and I didn’t really care.

Actual Rating: 4.5 stars

I love this as a project and in general, the execution is really fantastic! His Hideous Heart is a collection of 13 short stories by YA authors, each inspired by a story from Edgar Allen Poe. They take these timeless themes like fear, love, and revenge and reimagine them in interesting, thought-provoking ways. More often than not, writing from the margins and asking questions about how these stories change when they are through the lens of characters who are female, queer, or people of color. The second half of the book includes the original stories from Poe, and I also love this as a way of introducing teens to more classic literature.

A few of these stories were on the weaker side, but I didn't dislike any of them. Among my favorites were the ones by Kendare Blake, Caleb Roerig, Lamar Giles, and Dahlia Adler. (All five stars for me) I also think that the common source of inspiration helps this avoid some of the issues anthologies typically face in terms of pacing and feeling jarring. While you do get a variety of genres (contemporary, urban fantasy, historical, science-fiction etc.) for the most part it flows together pretty well. I would definitely recommend checking this collection out! I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

**Will be posted on my blog http://pastmidnight.home.blog on August 20th, 2019, my blog tour spot date**

When I heard about this anthology, I had to get my hands on it. One, because I love Edgar Allan Poe’s work. Two, because I saw some of my favorite authors contributing to this anthology and others I had never heard of. And third, it has a young adult twist to it which made me very curious to see how each story would play out.

This will definitely appeal to readers who are not familiar with Poe’s work. There is fantasy, sci-fi, horror and mystery genres represented throughout the collection. The stories have so much diversity with LGBT+ characters and people of color representation which I appreciated. This is the book I wish I had in high school when I studying Edgar Allan Poe! I would have related to some of his stories on a whole new level.

The original works are included in this book as well, which is perfect for new and old fans of Edgar Allan Poe. It gave me a chance to compare the classic and reimagined work side by side. Another thing the book allowed me to do is get a glimpse of authors I’ve never heard of. I’ll be adding a few books from these authors to my TBR list for sure. She Rode a Horse of Fire (“Mertzengerstein”) got me spooked, and The Glittering Death (“The Pit and The Pendulum”) scared me as much as Poe’s version did, maybe even more because it was a modern retelling. It’s Carnival! (“The Cask of Amontillado”) had me cackling in wicked delight, it’s such a classic even when it’s reimagined! Whenever I read one of the stories at night, it gave me the creepy feeling that I always look forward to from Poe’s work.

This is a wonderful collection and creative endeavor by thirteen talented authors who took on some of Poe’s most popular works and made it relatable to young adults and adults (like me) today. I am definitely adding this to my book shelf!

4.5/5 stars!

To be honest, I sort of expected to be let down by this book...

But I wasn't. I loved it. I enjoyed practically every story in here.

So this book is split into 2 sections: The Tales Retold and The Original Tales. The order of the retelling and its respective inspiration are both in order, so it's fairy easy to find the story you're looking for. What I did for this was use colored page flags and mark each of the pairs together. I would read the original story (or poem) first, then I'd flip over to the retelling. I found this to be the most productive way to read this book, and it honestly lets you see the differences and similarities between the pair! I didn't feel disappointed in any of the 13 stories, although there were a few times where I questioned a certain characteristic or phrase. Some stories also read a bit slower than I would have liked, but they all had a great pay-off. I believe that all of those involved did the original works justice. As a horror fan, I can definitely appreciate what each of the authors brought to the table. They all did a magnificent job of holding true to the original source material while putting their own spin into it.

ARC provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

This anthology had some amazing retellings in it and some I didn’t really care for but overall I really enjoyed it. I loved the creativity that was put into each of the stories to not only stay true to the original story but be able to hold its own. Some of my absolutely favorites were the stories by Caleb Roehrig, Marieke Nijkamp, Fran Wilde and Rin Chupeco.

Dahlia Adler did an excellent job in putting these stories together and I look forward to reading more from all these authors in the future! I also LOVE that they included Edgar Allen Poe’s original stories in here as well. Such a great touch! I enjoyed reading the new story and then going and reading the original work that inspired it.

What a wonderful collection of Poe adaptations! I love that the original stories are also included with the new ones. Lovers of EAP will thoroughly enjoy these re-tellings!

I remember when I first got introduced to Poe's work, how much I absolutely loved everything I could get my hands on. They were all fantastic and just dark and I loved every single minute of them. When I heard about this book of short stories, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I loved the idea of authors creating their own spins to the classics and then having the classics in this book as well to introduce new readers to Poe's work.

I'm going to have to admit that 'She Rode a Horse of Fire' by Kendare Blake and 'Red' by Hillary Monahan were probably my favorites of this series. I wanted full length novels from these two. Usually when I read a book of short stories, I always find myself wanting more from mostly all of them. This didn't happen as much and I think that authors really knew how to get everything across in such a short amount of words.

This was a great dark read, and the recreations certainly had their own twists to them that I really loved.

had been a really long time since I’ve read Edgar Allan Poe (junior year of high school?) so I almost forgot how creepy his stories could be. Luckily for me I love creepy and horror stories, so I was hyped to see a retelling of many of his works by authors I’ve admired for a while. It was really nice to see retellings of stories I was familiar with and some I had never read before. On that note, the original works of EAP are included in this anthology for people who need a refresher or are encountering some of his stories for the first time.

Okay, to be honest I have a hard time reading older stories, especially from that era. Most of EAP’s work goes over my head or I just skim read the text just to be done with it. However, these retellings were so good that I actually understood what EAP was trying to say as I was reading through his stories. Bless modern authors.

The retellings were different enough from the original and some definitely seemed like it could (and has) happened in real life, but they were familiar enough and I found I was quite invested with the characters in a few of the stories.

A few standouts: She Rode a Horse of Fire, The Glittering Death, Happy Days, Sweetheart, The Oval Filter, and A Drop of Stolen Ink.

Overall, this is definitely worth buying for any EAP fans.

I really really liked His Hideous Heart. I thought it was fun to see other authors take on some of Poe's classic tales. I really think my teens are going to love it. I'm going to buy a couple copies! Thank you so much!

This is a fun compilation of reimagined Edgar Allan Poe stories penned by various contemporary YA authors.

As is standard in short story volumes employing multiple authors, some of the stories are better than others, in some cases likely based on the author who wrote a particular reimagining, in other cases based on how well the original story lends itself to a retelling.

Among the standouts:
She Rode A Horse of Fire (Metzengerstein)
A Drop of Stole Ink (The Purloined Letter)
Happy Days, Sweetheart (The Tell-Tale Heart)
The Oval Filter (The Oval Portrait)

And my personal favorite:
The Glittering Death (The Pit and the Pendulum)

Also helpful: The original Poe tale that corresponds to each of the reimaginings is included in the book for reference or in case there’s an original the reader is not familiar with.

An intriguing, but unfortunately uneven, collection of short stories inspired by Poe by some of today's most celebrated YA voices. amanda lovelace's The Raven and Rin Chupeco's The Murders in the Rue Morgue are particular highlights. Worth a read for those alone, but others are surprisingly lackluster given the source material.

I really liked this. I'm not a huge Edgar Allen Poe fan, but I found a lot of the retelling enjoyable! This a great anthology, especially just in time for Halloween.