Not quite sure what I think of this collection. It is quite raw and unfiltered, with an element of the speculative in many of the short stories. Almost all of them dealing with women and the ugly sides of women—particularly in the way in which women can often be ugly to one another. That's where it kind of loses me. I feel like there's a lot of unexamined internal misogyny going on in here, particularly in the ways in which she treats the old, the ugly, the fat, etc. as somehow deserving of punishment.

Stylistically it is also not my favorite. There is a lot of narration with regard to the characters' actions but relatively little of their inner lives and thoughts, which are more interesting to me in these kinds of books.

This collection of short stories by Mariana Enriquez is absolutely morbid, and that's why I love it! Every story has this creepy and demented overtone, but the writing is so beautiful and full of imagery. "Meat", "When We Talked to the Dead", "The Well", "The Cart", and the title story were outrageous and enthralling. I really enjoyed every story. This collection won't be for everyone, not for the faint of heart. I don't think the stories are gross, but they definitely push the envelope. With that being said, even with the dark subject matter, I think the stories are tastefully done. Holy hell, this woman can write! Don't let this collection pass you by.

Thank you, Netgalley and Random House for the digital ARC.

If you like macabre stories, abrupt endings, and fantastical stories rooted in real sociopolitical issues, you might really enjoy this! My personal favorites were: Kids Who Come Back, Meat, and The Well. Unfortunately, I was grossed out by all of the stories but I never got scared.

Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for the Reader's Copy!

Now available.

By turns bizarre and horrific, Mariana Enriquez's The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is certainly a one of a kind collection. Featuring perverted sex offenders, ghastly children and tales of wayward lives, Enriquez has a knack for capturing women whose lives are outside of what is expected. What I enjoyed the most about this collection is the deadpan delivery of these stories which made them all the more emotional somehow. Enriquez jumps from perspective to perspective keeping each ghost story lively, even when they rely on age old tropes. A great collection for entertainment, though maybe not in the middle of the night.

This collection of short stories were beyond unsettling, but also artful. i cant even express how deep and indulgent it was, and i am still thinking about it today.

MARIANA DID IT AGAIN!
Do you like villains and their questionable dark motives? Especially female villains?
Do you like to explore the murky depths of the dark side of human nature? Enjoy (very) graphic descriptions of primitive human experiences?
Then you’d probably love this book as much as I did!
omg I love this author so much
Mariana’s books are the definition of gruesomely awesome!
Though provoking, widely imaginative, dark, genre bending literature at its best!
Such a wonderful concoction of everything that's fantastic: folklore, surrealism, magical realism, horror, fantasy SciFi...
You pick and Mariana delivers the darkest, goriest and absolute best!
master storyteller
She’s the best at tapping into those dark hidden deep primal human traits desires fears and emotions we all share (lust, envy, jealousy, greed$

is like watching a movie about all capital sins

<blockquote>Once, I bought a CD in a medical bookstore (where all the employees though I was a student — I'd been sure to slip that in, as a precaution) that was called Cardiac Sounds. Nothing had ever brought me so much joy. I guess that what normal men and women feel when they hear their preferred gender moaning in pleasure, I felt when I heard those ruined hearts beat. Such variety! So may different rhythms, all meaning something different, all of them beautiful! Other illnesses could be heard. Plus, many of them could be smelled, which I found unpleasant. If I took my MP3 player out on a bike ride, I'd have to stop because I was too turned on. So I listened to it at night, at home, and during that time I got worried because I wasn't interested in real sex. The audio tracks of heartbeats took he place of everything. [...]

After a while I decided to get rid of the recorded heartbeats. They were going to drive me crazy. From then on, one of the first things I did with a man was lay my head on his chest, to see if there was any arrhythmia, or a murmur, an irregular beat, a third heart sound, or an atrial flutter, or anything else. I always wondered when I would find someone who was an unbeatable combination of elements. I remember that longing now, and I smile bitterly.</blockquote>

— from "Where Are You, Dear Heart?" in The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enríquez.

It's weirdly beautiful and erotic, a powerful story of perversion, persuading me nothing could be more intimate than massaging my lover's heart, feeling it pulse against the palm of my hand. Truly fleshly, visceral love.

Following in the tradition of Argentinian fabulists, the reviews of this story collection invoke global masters, from Shirley Jackson, Borges, and Cortázar (I see why) and Ocampo (I must read her) to Bioy Casares, Bolaño, and Schweblin (yes).

Most of Enríquez's stories have a paranormal element, either vaguely or outright horrific, where the horrors of life — of the body, of stolen children, of the disappeared — carry over beyond death. These fables are not for the fainthearted; they might inspire nightmares or teenage girls to become witches.

As with the best short stories, most of the events are ambiguous in nature, with no clear resolution. I wish some of them could go on forever.

An interesting collection of short stories, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed takes on many themes but mainly death. For me, it seemed a constant thing throughout all of the stories.

From spooky to slightly strange, the author takes readers on a wild ride; you're immediately engrossed. This authors writing style is intense and with the edginess of horror and a bit of macabre, she is able to weave a collection that will stay with readers for a long while.

I really did like all of the stories but my favorites: Angelita Unearthed and The Well.

This is my first time reading any works by Mariana Enriquez and I'm grateful that these stories were translated into english. I'm looking forwards more.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez is wonderfully strange and unsettling collection of short stories. Each story focuses on a macabre element, whether it be ghosts, lost children that mysteriously return, fetish, obsession, etc. I found each story fascinating and compulsively readable. Some were really dark and almost difficult to get through for the unsettling subject matter. The stories are all set in Argentina and the descriptions make each story location come alive. Overall, a fantastic collection of horror stories.

Thank you Random House / Hogarth and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

While this was beautifully written, the stories just didn't quite resonate with me. I did like the atmosphere of some of the stories but others just seemed to end abruptly.

Creepy, creepy, creepy.

Not for the faint of heart. This collection of short stories is a little dark and troubling. Some are even a little scary. A grown-up version of <i>Scarry Stories to Tell in the Dark</i>. My favorite stories were "Out Lady of the Quarry" and "Kids Who Come Back". The latter would make an amazing movie. I've already mentally cast Amy Adams and Pedro Pascal in the leads, tracking down missing children.

I have really been into short story collections lately and though I loved "Things We Lost in the Fire" more I am so haunted by this book!! The first story had me shocked from beginning to end. I wanted to know everything about the lives that are capture in this book. Enriquez knows how to write horror that strikes you to your very essence. I will truly never read horror from any other writer but give me all the connections between social commentary and the horror personified by Enriquez, because I will be there all the time.

I heard so many good things about this book and how it really gave people chills. For me on reflecting on why I just wasn’t into it I realized that all my favorite horror books are longer and really get in depth in setting and character in addition to plot so I think the short story format just doesn’t work for me in this genre. Case in point my favorite story in the collection which still didn’t really get me like I feel,horror should was “Kids Who Come Back” which was the longest in the collection.

This was an interesting set of short stories, with a lot of stories with a touch of horror, ghosts, and trauma. That is not something I enjoy reading in general, but I did like the writing style. I wonder if it'd be even better to read as an original, instead of translated works.

oh dear...Short stories.... 1/2 were 5 stars and the other 1/2 were 2 stars... so lets just go with 3.5 stars? Fans of body horror will have a trip with this one! For the few stories that I enjoyed, they sufficiently shook me to my core. You know a horror is written well when you need to put it down and are scared to turn the page. Unfortunately the few that were not enjoyable suffered from being cut right before the climax. This seemed to be a trend within each of the stories as it ends abruptly right at the plot twist. Not uncommon for short stories. Some tended to feel like it would have benefitted from a few paragraphs more while others ended at a sweet spot. Either that or the climax was very.....anti-climactic *da dum tss*

TRIGGER WARNINGS: I could not possibly list them all so just throw everything here plus the kitchen sink. If it's a trigger, it's here.


Though not every story relied heavily on body horror, the rest has heavy supernatural elements. It reminded me of the omnipresent evil being from many of Stephen king's books. M-o-o-n thats spells moon. Love a good unexplained evil entity <3 Enriquez seemed to come into this with a goal of exploring the darkest crevices of human nature. If you find yourself asking "why is this even a thing?" it may be that there are some places you just shouldn't go. Lucky Enriquez brought that to us so we won't have to ^.^

I found this book eerily fascinating! Most of the short stories were disturbing, but oh so good lol. At times the book reminded me of Fever Dreams (another creepy book). This book is probably not for everyone, but if you’re into spine-chilling stories, I know you’ll appreciate this collection.

Sometimes I like short story collections less when I read them too quickly. When stories are read back-to-back, common themes are soon spotted and ideas that would have been individually brilliant are made to feel repetitive or predictable. Mariana Enriquez’s The Dangers of Smoking in Bed does NOT fall into this trap. The horror in these twelve stories comes from different angles: supernatural sources, jealous people, physical ailments, and so on. They’re ordered such that each story pushes a new boundary and produces ratcheting tension. Several left me queasy or unable to sleep.

A few highlights:

“Angelita Unearthed”
In the opening story, the narrator is followed by the decaying ghost of her great aunt who died as an infant. In trying to determine what the ghost wants, she carries it around in a backpack and hides its face with a mask. There’s something weird—darkly funny?—about a masked ghost in a backpack, but the poor ghost is too pathetic to be funny and too sad to be scary.

“The Well”
This story follows Josefina, the fearless child of a fearful parent. After a visit with “The Woman,” Josefina's stress and anxiety increase until she can no longer maintain relationships or leave the house. While the source of her anxiety is supernatural, its triggers are regular, real-world occurrences. It's more affecting this way—it lends a bit of relatability since anyone who's had an anxiety attack can extrapolate to imagine how she feels. When Josefina tries to get into a taxi: "Before she could put one foot on the sidewalk, her knees were trembling and she was already crying. It had been several days since she’d first noticed a stalling and even a reversal in the pills’ effect. She’d gone back to feeling it was impossible to fill up her lungs, or more like she paid obsessive attention to every inhalation, as if she had to oversee the entrance of air for the system to work, as if she were giving herself mouth-to-mouth resuscitation just to stay alive." (Loc 567)

“Kids Who Come Back”
Approaching novella-length, this is the longest story in the collection. Like others, it combines horror from multiple directions: the grim fate of missing and abused children; and the supernatural return of those children. There could have been more closure on the end of this story, but the overall effect of creeping unease and mounting tension is excellent. It gave me a slightly queasy feeling that I’ve only ever gotten from a Shirley Jackson story. As the kids return, there's increased distrust and fear around the cause of their return: "Among the older kids, silence reigned. None of them said much, or seemed to want to talk about where they had been. Nor did they seem to recognize their families, though they left with the people who came to pick them up with a meekness that was somehow even more disturbing." (Loc 1730)

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is an excellent collection of short fiction. The premise of each story is inventive and unique. Generally, I’m wary of supernatural horror because the supernatural premise is often an excuse for strange things to happen with little explanation or emotional heft. I don’t think it’s hard to write scary things, but I do think it’s hard to write them with emotional resonance. As much as “The Well” frightened me, my heart broke for Josefina and the sad, infant ghost in “Angelita Unearthed.”

A few stories are so uncomfortable that I’m not entirely sure I enjoyed them, but I very much enjoyed that the ideas in this collection are carried through to their natural—er, unnatural?—ends. Each is explicit enough to be frightening, with enough left to the reader’s imagination to become more unsettling still.

Overall: 4.7 (out of 5.0) Well done and unique, it’s a collection of horror stories that provokes genuine chills. And disgust. “Where Are You, Dear Heart?” is not for the squeamish—I admit to skimming a few paragraphs of this one.

NB: This book was provided for review by the publisher, Random House Publishing Group (via NetGalley).

Thank you for the opportunity to review The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, by Mariana Enriquez.. I enjoyed an earlier work by this author (Things We Lost in the Fire) and was excited to review this newer work. Enriquez has built on her earlier strengths, and the these stories feel (largely) tighter and more under her control. There's a nice mix of magical realism and horror in these stories, and I've enjoyed them one or two at a time over the past several days. Will definitely recommend to others who enjoy this genre, or who are looking to branch out.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is a short story collection written by Mariana Enriquez. It’s one of the most entertaining, twisted collections I’ve read in a while. It’s the bite that each one packs that kept me reading.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed story is fast and quick. Paula, its main character, hears a story of a woman who died in bed because of a lit cigarette and is worried about suffering the same fate. But it’s really Angelit Unearthed that had me hooked; it’s a story of a woman who is being haunted by her great aunt Angelita who never made it past infancy. The problem is the baby is half-rotted and doesn’t talk and just makes everyone who can see it faint. The story is weird but beautifully written. It has a casual horror movie vibe that kept me reading.

The short stories made it easier to keep reading since they were quick reads; it was easy to get through the book without too much effort.

Wow. Mariana Enriquez will never fail to amaze me. I really enjoyed Things We Lost in the Fire, but The Dangers of Smoking in Bed somehow surpassed her previous collection by far. To me, the most incredible thing about Enriquez's storytelling is how she knows exactly when to end. As a reader, you're left wanting more (you always want more of Enriquez's prose, it's so simple to read, especially in McDowell's neat translation, and that's why it's that much more impactful when those endings detonate, and hit) but you don't need another word. The damage is done, and you have to learn to live with it.

While the prose is deceptively spare, there is a lot of depth to these stories. The effectiveness of the horror arrives via how close these stories come to reality– human trafficking, homeless squatters, and the chokehold of drug addiction are just some of the foundations of Enriquez's work, and she is mindful of how intrinsically terrible those struggles are, and tailors her tales to enhance the innate awfulness, not mask it. But most of all, there is humanity in these stories, stories of people who cast away the unwanted, prefer to live in a designed ignorance of the pain and suffering of others. Watching the vengeance exacted by the wronged makes it more urgent to learn from our mistakes.