This is a short story collection by Argentine author Mariana Enriquez. All of these stories have a bit of the macabre. I am not sure whether I would classify them as magical realism or horror. But I will say is that I have been absolutely captivated by this collection. Each story touches upon some human element that is typically ignored. Her writing is utterly original and I find that I cannot help myself but to read the stories over back-to- back so that I can glean more from them.

I am amazed by Enriquez's talent. Typically, when you read a short story collection you find yourself sorting out the stories as good, better, best. This collection however is consistently the best. Indeed, it is hard to pick a favorite. I am glad that wishes do come true and that Hogarth/Penguin Random House sent it my way.

The Dangers of Smoking In Bed is a tough one to rate. In it I see seeds of really solid, top notch writing but unfortunately much of it is buried under some rather gimmicky stylistic choices.

I really hated the endings on most of these. They’re very abrupt and vague and any thrill or uniqueness there is to the style, quickly grows tiring because she does it which each one. But more than that, I just found they didn’t work for me most of the time. And for the longest piece in this book- one about the mysterious return of missing children- I literally found myself flipping back and forth several times at the end, wondering where the rest of the story had gone. It didn’t feel like as if it had an ending at all. There were a couple where it more or less worked- notably one I disliked strongly for entirely different reasons, but most of the time one was left feeling like something was missing. I like short stories and even super short ones when they’re written well. These largely missed the mark for me.

This will absolutely click and work for some, I’m sure. It’s a difficult book to recommend all around though, because beyond a very specific style that did not generally work for me, some of the author’s subject matter will absolutely not work or be downright off putting for some, perhaps many. Most of it didn’t really bother me one way or the other. There were a few too many random, not necessary to the story, mentions of public defecation early on that I noted and rolled my eyes at. It didn’t bother me but it also failed to have any real purpose.

Then there are two subjects that everyone will have their own feelings on and that I felt very strongly about- First, she writes about sex with explicitness and gritty realness I have never seen from a female writer. I enjoyed this a lot and really, for me personally (perhaps I should confess I write lesbian erotic romance for fun and that the author writes really and without euphemism in a way I respect and relate to), I really loved that. But. Unfortunately, the object of the sexual desire in these stories and the focus of the horror and discomfort too often lied in disability and illness in a very fetishized and to me, uncomfortable in a really bad way. I debate whether I would call it offensive. Body horror has a long and complex history. So does the othering and fetishization of disability and illness. That “otherness” and even the problematic societal views of disability is as much or more to blame perhaps than the author specifically but oof... As a disabled and chronically ill reader I was not a fan of the way this showed up repeatedly in the book and it really took away from any enjoyment. If your idea of horror is someone else’s lives reality or you’re sexualizing and fetishizing disability and illness- ask yourself why. And perhaps, given that disability is the largest minority group and the only minority group you can suddenly find yourself a part of- one should question if they really want to risk alienating that many readers. I’m sure not all disabled or ill readers will agree with me either. But I really needed to lay this out there and I really would encourage readers- especially those who love horror- to prove deeper and question stories like these. I think horror can and should be so much better than that. It’s a cheap and offensive and frankly overdone trope. And body horror doesn’t have to be disability focused. It doesn’t have to be this offensive.

So, this one wasn’t for me. I’m not sure I would recommend it either. Yet I didn’t hate it and could see a lot of promise here, but would really love to see Enriquez stretch herself further- beyond the formulaic and gimmicks. While the lengths of these stories varied they all followed the same formula, with the same type of abrupt ending to such a degree that even if more of those endings had worked, I still think it would’ve been very boring to read. It never quite feels boring because Enriquez writes with a tight and visceral tension,that grips and pulls the reader along. That’s what I did love- a feeling, an unease, exactly what you want from horror. But these rarely came together fully and the endings really fizzled out.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is a collection of haunting short stories written against the backdrop of Argentina. Throughout the collection, there are themes of misfits, lost or forgotten children, poverty, trauma, horror, and the supernatural. While short stories are not typically my favorite, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection largely because each story was unique and unlike anything I had read before. I will say that there were some stories that I wasn’t vibing with, but my top five favorite stories were:
1. Kids Who Come Back,
2. Back When We Talked to the Dead,
3. The Well,
4. No Birthdays or Baptisms, and
5. Meat.

Things I loved:
⭐️- The most disturbing story and my absolute favorite of the collection was Kids Who Come Back. It was the longest story in the collection and it could easily stand alone. I loved it so much that I immediately tried to explain the storyline to my boyfriend but I couldn’t even put into words how good it was. This story could easily be a horror movie.
⭐️- Each story is narrated and centered on women. I love that Mariana Enriquez gives a voice to the women in each of her stories and brings them all to life.
⭐️- I love that you are easily engulfed in the imagery and atmosphere of each story. With the start of each novel, Enriquez does a phenomenal job of setting the stage and bringing you in.
⭐️- I enjoyed the stories that incorporated the supernatural, but I was also equally terrified of the stories of the living.

If you’re looking for a dark read, do yourself a favor and pick up this collection.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is an incredibly disturbing collection of short stories. I loved it.

Most of these stories f-ed me up, in a good way. A neighborhood begins deteriorating when a stranger leaves his cart of belongings behind; missing children suddenly begin reappearing in local parks years after they have disappeared or been pronounced dead; a woman is followed around by a slightly scary baby ghost that only she can see. All of these stories touch on social issues present in Argentina and beyond. Enriquez pulls you in with ghosts, scaries, and body horror, but leaves you feeling unsettled about your own complicity in a world that is scarier than fiction.

Content warning for basically everything. Some of these stories were a bit too much for me because they contain personal triggers. Some stories contain pedophilia and child abuse, which are an absolute “no thanks” for me, so I did not enjoy those. But overall, if you are a horror fan I recommend this collection. My personal favorite stories are The Cart, Angelita Unearthed, The Lookout, The Well, Kids Who Come Back, and Back When We Talked to the Dead.

A really tightly written collection of stories that are genuinely and consistently fucking scary! I especially loved the way that, through several stories, the Scary Thing would just be the very idea of psychological terror itself - especially in The Well, which was one of my favorites. I loved this!

Thank goodness for translators. I love Mariana Enriquez so much! So much in fact that I'm planning a trip to Argentina once travel is back on the cards. These stories are creepy, spine tingling, bone chilling tales of curses, disappearances and rotting, walking, babies. I loved loved loved them. The political background is woven seamlessly into each story. If you love all things Gothic and horror then you will love this author and you will love these stories.

Argentina. All of these stories are unsettling. Ghosts (often of children) and/or magic/curses are in most of the stories. Enriquez's ghosts are creepy. They want things. Some of the stories go from totally normal to not very quickly. Others have a slow burn.

My two favorite were The Well and The Lookout Tower (though I feel like I have read a very similar one to this before, but it also seems like a classic ghost story). Meat is also good, but a little too nauseating to me. It's a good example of why I am not really a fan of horror. The story the Dangers of Smoking in Bed would give me nightmares if I lived in an apartment or was in a hotel. The longest in this collection, Kids Who Come Back, just sort of went nowhere in the end, despite a promising beginning.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth for providing me with an egalley of this book.
3.5 stars

“The Dangers of Smoking in Bed”, written by Argentinian writer Mariana Enriquez, and translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell is a collection of horror short stories. If I had to choose one word to describe this collection, that word would be “macabre”. The stories vary in length, but almost all have some form of supernatural horror lurking in the shadows. It is not the supernatural horror that is scary though. That element is just there. What is chilling is the hysteria that it manages to elicit from the human characters. Apart from one story that follows an Argentinian tourist in Barcelona, all stories are set in Argentina, mostly in Buenos Aires. It was fascinating to see how Enriquez weaves the human horrors, like extreme poverty, human trafficking, and extreme violence with the supernatural aspect, to create stories that left me with a bitter taste in my mouth and an unshakable sense of dread..

There are twelve short stories in total, and I can honestly say they are all good. Everyone will of course have their favorites, but there isn’t one story that feels weak compared to the rest of the collection. Some felt to me that they ended a bit too abruptly, but that again is a matter of preference when it comes to short stories. My personal highlights were “The Well”, “No Birthdays or Baptisms”, and “Kids Who Come Back”. These three were the ones that unsettled me the most, and I’m sure will stick with me for a long time. There is a scene in “No Birthdays or Baptisms” that is not even relevant to the main story that was one of the most unsettling things I’ve ever read, and the manner in which it was presented so matter of factly made this collection truly horrific for me. “Back When We Talked to the Dead” references some interesting aspects of Argentinian history and politics, that definitely made me want to learn more about the true horrors of the past .

The writing and translation are beautiful. The themes and topics are the kind that make one want to look away, but the writing pulls one back in and makes one look right at it. I had previously heard of Enriquez’s English debut “Things We Lost in the Fire”, but never got around to it, and this was my first encounter with her writing. Now her previous collection has become a priority for me this year, and I hope there will be a novel of hers out sometime soon. Thank you so much NetGalley and Hogarth (Random House Publishing Group) for granting me the wish to read this wonderful collection in exchange for my honest review.

A woman is haunted by an aunt who died as an infant. A period of bad luck plagues a neighborhood community. Teenage girls go to extreme lengths to show their dedication to their favorite pop music icon. A videographer receives an unusual but compelling request. These are just a few of the stories Enriquez tells in this bold, unsettling collection. She masterfully takes ordinary people and quotidian activities and pairs them with the bizarre in a way that evokes absolute horror and disgust. This collection includes the same focus on children and adolescents that The Things We Lost in the Fire did, subjects that make the stories all the more disturbing. Enriquez also carries into these stories the abrupt endings and the themes of violence, deviant sexuality, self-harm, and betrayal that permeated her previous collection. But don’t be mistaken, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is a completely new collection with unimaginable narratives and unexpected turns—not to mention a little influence from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. This collection certainly lingers, haunting you like one of its own supernatural characters. But isn’t that a mark of good storytelling?

NB: I was gifted a copy of this book for review from the publisher, Random House Publishing, via NetGalley. All the thoughts below are my own.

This collection called my name. I love horror writing, and I love short story collections. Enriquez delivered with a collection of dark and mysterious fiction.

It's certainly possible that many North American readers might discount this collection as "not scary enough" due to the ways in which we are desensitized to overt gore and crashing scores in horror films. However, this collection is, in all the best ways, deeply scary. It isn't overt, but rather so subtle. There are stories that end so abruptly that one is left to question what really happened, and it is in that reflection that the stories haunt you.

This was a quick read, and a beautiful piece of translated work. I can't imagine that any of the original artistry was lost in this translation to English, and if it was, what a gift to native speakers to be able to enjoy this book in its original form.

CW for this book include sexual assault, drug addiction, suicide, cannibalism, and transphobia.

A wild ride of anthologies.Written with little humor and a dark view of human nature. I found the stories intriguing and unnerving. A writer with a clearly authentic voice. I was tempted to stop half way through I’m glad I finished. If this is a tiny glimpse into life in Argentina I applaud the many voices of this author.

I purposely only read this short story collection during the day because it is HAUNTING AF! I was equally spooked & strangely mind blown by how descriptive/disturbing these stories are that cover the different ways in which the human spirits/souls can be broken by living. FUCK!

I was invited to review this collection - I probably wouldn't have picked it up on my own frankly, since neither short stories nor intensely weirdly creepy things are really my cup of tea, but I was willing to give it a try. This collection is just not for me. I found it entirely disturbing and not in a thought-provoking way but in a way that felt like the author was making statements via shock value rather than telling stories... It felt weird on my skin and didn't sit well with me. I am just the wrong audience for this one!

This collection of short stories is not for the faint of heart. The stories start in the vein of South American magical realism, but as they progress, the author mixes folklore with horror, sometimes with disturbing scenes that the reader will have a hard time forgetting. Interestingly, in several of the stories the author treats depression, anxiety and other mental conditions as horrors, not merely diseases, but spooky horrors. Lovers of paranormal stories will be delighted, but impressionable readers must be warned.

Once again, I am left feeling a little squeamish and twitchy. I'm not an especially avid horror reader, but I enjoyed her first collection Things We Lost in the Fire so I wanted to give this one a chance. I enjoyed it as well as I can say that I enjoyed a really creepy, spine tingling, collection of short horror stories. Enjoyed sounds a bit weird for these things, so perhaps entranced would be a better descriptor? I couldn't look away no matter how much I really wanted to, and at times I really did want to. I guess that doesn't make me a particularly good horror reader. Anyways, I would definitely recommend this if you liked her first short story collection, like horror, or just all around creepy or uncomfortable things.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an eARC, however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Though a lover of the genre, horror is not a part of my typical reading list. I prefer the horror I can see and hear; however, Enriquez’s stories have a chill to them that no movie could recreate. The themes that the horrors breached, the voice partaking in or witnessing or suffering the horror—they were unique and well-crafted. The tone of every story was dark, even if you didn’t quite realize it until after you had finished the story. The unsettling feeling was waiting there. My favorite part of Enriquez’s stories was that they all had their own voice—not the way in which all the points of views were different, and they truly were—but how they all felt like a different writer was writing each story. Enriquez storytelling was both clever and haunting, and you cannot have good horror without both. I definitely look forward to reading some more of Enriquez’s work.

I was able to review The Dangers of Smoking in Bed Stories by Mariana Enriquez from Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Random House for providing me with an advanced ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This is a collection of twelve short stories. I tried to read all of them but they were too much for me. I do know this book is great for those that love horror.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is a curiously dark and haunting collection of short stories. The author brings her characters and the settings to life quickly and leaves you wanting to read more of these intelligently written stories.

Advanced copy provided courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book of short stories is interesting, strange, and most of all, seriously disturbing.

There is a common thread of dead children and ghosts. The extra creepy ones involve cannibalism and sexual fetishes about dying people.

It's a fast read and I was sucked in, but there were a few times that I almost put the book down for good.

Considering that it's a collection of horror stories, it may be that it's what horror readers love. To me it was a bit extreme!

The ick factor is off the charts on this collection, but fortunately so is Mariana Enriquez’s writing.

Horror that is largely sexual in nature isn’t my favorite, so I struggled with a lot of the stories in this collection. However, every one of the entries is well written and unique.

The stories I wasn’t cringing at, I absolutely loved, and the ones I was cringing at still left me feeling awed at Enriquez’s talent as a writer and storyteller.

The collection is a home run when looking at writerly skill and originality. For those less squeamish or with different tastes than me, you’ll likely find the content to be exceptional as well.

If your sensibilities are more in line with mine, you may struggle with a lot of the stories. It’s a tough hang if sexual horror isn’t your bag, and as for trigger warnings: Pretty much all of them.

My favorites from the collection were:
Our Lady of the Quarry
The Lookout Tower
Kids Who Come Back
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
Back When We Talked to the Dead