How many animals are inside us?

The Beast You Are is a collection of previously published short stories and a brand new original anthropomorphic novella. 🐕

This book has something for every horror fan —grief horror, pandemic horror, nostalgic horror, familial horror, sci-fi/apocalyptic horror, self-discovery horror (a personal favorite of mine), monsters and creatures, political unrest, ghosts— it reminded me a lot of The Twilight Zone. Very experimental, fun, sometimes funny and sometimes heartbreaking. There's this interconnected and lingering feeling of uneasiness throughout, fear associated with things we can't fully comprehend. We can be a mystery to ourselves and our feelings as much as a disease can be a mystery to our body and our brain, even if we're being torn apart from the inside out. We're all ghosts. We know there's an end, but we don't know what that end really is or how much we will or won't remember as we approach it. What awakens our lizard brain...🦎

Favorites:
🐺 Ice Cold Lemonade 25¢ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person
🐺 I Know You're There
(Personal note: Scared of the color blue now)
🐺 The Last Conversation
🐺 The Dead Thing
(Whew, the internal monologue in this one!)

Everyone check out The Beast You Are scheduled for release this July! Thank you @netgalley and @williammorrowbooks for the ARC! Thank you for writing @paulgtremblay, (no secret you're one of my favorite writers) and for making me feel like a friend! See you on your book tour as usual. 😈 Already excited for the next read!

As with most short story collections this is truly a mixed bag, and some of these tales were total throwaways, but for the most part I really enjoyed this new installment from Paul Tremblay. The horror here is so creeping and ethereal, yet simultaneously human—deeply unsettling and yet if you look straight at it it disappears. I especially enjoyed the A Head Full of Ghosts callbacks featuring Karen Brissette and Marjorie and Merry Barrett. Some of the concepts felt unfinished, but on multiple stories I found myself succumbing to those nervy pricks of primal fear- the kind that makes you hold your breath for a second; the kind that raises your hackles and urges you to turn around. It would have been sooooooo good and received a higher rating from me if the stories continued on in this fashion, but Tremblay takes a risk getting suuuper experimental with the last tale, and while I appreciate attempting to stretch his literary bounds, it just did NOT pay off or work for me in any way. Disappointing to end a promising collection with such a draaaaaaagging, weird, allegorical mishmash, but the rest were (for the most part) engaging and well-done.

The Beast You Are by Paul Tremblay is at times unsettling, bizarre, mysterious, poignant, sometimes meta and darkly humorous. Love the writers distinct voice and that there is a good variety of stories. My favorites were The Haunted House Tour, The Postal Zone, The Blog at the End of the World, The Last Conversation, Dead Thing and The Beast You Are. Was not so much a fan of Mostly Size but after reading the notes about each story and learning it was written under a time constraint for a charity anthology it was interesting to read the story again knowing it was written in the moment and to see what the author came up with.

Because the stories come from so many different varied sources it was really fun and later reading the notes at the end a new perspective could be gained as well. I kind of wish the notes where included at the end of each story instead of at the end of the book. It’s also great that fans of the author could read these short stories they might not have otherwise gotten the chance to check out or may have missed. There are also references to Head Full of Ghosts which was interesting to come across for people who have also read that book.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

When I reviewed Growing Things and Other Stories, Paul Tremblay’s first collection of short fiction, I had this to say:

“Just as harrowing as his novels, yet far more experimental, the stories here keep you off balance. Unsettling in the best way.”

I stand by that description with his newest collection, The Beast You Are. If anything, this collection is more—more harrowing, more experimental, more unsettling. If you’re a fan of Tremblay (and at this point, anyone with even a passing interest in horror fiction should be), then you know his novels delve deeply into horror, of both the visceral and psychological kind. The amazing thing here is that few if any of these stories are straight-up horror. They occupy a sort of liminal space where the disturbing, the disquieting, the disruptive, and yes, the frightening, coexist with bravura, innovative, and unconventional storytelling. The result is an anthology of short fiction that sucks you in while keeping you off balance. No matter how far off the beaten path Tremblay travels, he never loses his way. This is a high wire act that he nails.

Honestly, that’s all I want to say about The Beast You Are as a whole. It’s one of the best, most satisfying collections I’ve read in a long time. In fact, between this and the last book I read, Eric LaRocca’s brilliant short story collection The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, I feel like I’m on an exemplary short fiction roll. Yay, horror!

What I do want to do is call out a few of my favorite stories. These are the ones that I keep coming back to, that have stayed with me since I finished the book.

Ice Cold Lemonade 25¢ Haunted House Tour: 1 Per Person—Starts the collection off on an extraordinarily high note with a creepy, yet weirdly nostalgic tale in which Tremblay himself is the main character.

The Postal Zone: The Possession Edition and Red Eyes—Two stories that call back to, and include characters from, Head Full of Ghosts, the first novel by Tremblay I ever read, and still one of the most terrifying. The Postal Zone in particular is worth the price of admission all by itself.

House of Windows—A strange, hypnotic story with almost a Twilight Zone feel, if Rod Serling was feeling particularly absurdist.

The Last Conversation—I read this one, then went back to the beginning and read it again. Written in intimate, oppressive second person. Profoundly unsettling.

The Large Man—Feels like a long-lost classic from Kafka.

The Beast You Are—Of the many excellent stories here, I think this is the one people are going to be talking about. A novella written in free verse, The Beast You Are is almost impossible to describe, but I’ll give it a try. It’s as if Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Aesop’s Fables, Animal Farm, and The Lorax were put into a blender, then poured out onto page after page of stunning, transcendent language.

Finally, Tremblay ends the collection with the kind of detailed story notes I’m a total sucker for. Don’t miss them.

The Beast You Are debuts July 11, 2023. Pre-order it now, so you don’t miss it!

Tremblay has already proven himself as a masterful leading name in contemporary horror, and this collection shows that he has just as much to say in the short-form genre as he does in novels. Short stories don’t need to follow the conventional arc that a novel takes, they really are great venues for bringing up a really interesting idea, poking and prodding it, and then forcing the reader to imagine what may come next. They don’t need satisfying conclusions that tie up all loose ends, they need to make you feel something, and you get that in spades throughout this collection. Tremblay does a great job, getting right in to each story, doing enough character work to immediately get you invested but without a lot of words or description, and then pushing you into this space, sometimes creepy, sometimes unnerving, sometimes tragic, sometimes frightening, but always just enough steps away from ordinary to draw you in and invite you to feel something, or, rather, some thing.

Whenever I read a collection of short stories I don’t go in expecting to enjoy each story equally, and even expect there to be a few that don’t land with me. But that is the beauty of short-story collections, even a single gem in a sea of detritus makes a collection worthwhile. I am happy to say that this collection has more than a few gems that were more than worth the price of admission, including but not limited to the wonderful eponymous novella that closes out the second half of the collection. I wouldn’t recommend this only to Paul Tremblay and horror fans, but any fan of short-form storytelling, whether you’re normally attracted to horror or not, can find a lot to love in this collection.

I want to thank the author, the publisher William Morrow, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

A really well put together collection of short stories that further cement the fact the Paul Tremblay is a modern day master of horror. Will definitely be recommending to a friend. Thank you netgalley!

Paul Tremblay is a hit or miss with me. But when its good. Its GOOD. And this one was good. I'm going to to deff put this on my shelf.

honestly I wish I could say I liked this more than I did. While the stories were somewhat entertaining, it was hard to keep up and I personally couldnt understand the meaning behind a few of them until I got to the end of the book and read the section where the author explains them.

overall they were entertaining short stories and i think its worth the read

I love Paul Tremblay's novels and I think the stories in here are a testament to his ability to write short form tales with his signature style. Which is to say that if you, like me, love his novels, you'll definitely love this book as well.

He covers a wide range of narration in here from the more traditional "short story" format to epistolary. Not all the stories are straight up horror but they all fit into the weird, strange, and mind bending category. And they're all written very well!

The novella in this collection is the titular story and it's something I've never read before, animals that act, talk, and live like humans with a monster and a mad butcher leaving a bloody trail. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This is weird/horror/speculative fiction at it's finest. With that being said, if you're not a fan of this particular brand of horror, you probably won't enjoy it as much as I did. But for everyone else, definitely get this book and be prepared to have your brain warped!

This is an experimental, rich, and adventurous collection of flash fiction pieces, short stories, and a striking novella that shares its name with the book. It takes readers on a journey that tiptoes around different genres, including horror, thriller, drama, and shockingly, romance! Exorcism, grief, pandemic, monsters, and childhood fears are among the different topics the author has worked on to craft the stories in this book.

I loved the epic opening with "Haunted House Tour," a quietly genuine story about an adult facing his childhood memories by rummaging through a box belonging to his teenage years. He finds a picture that forces him to trip down memory lane, recalling the first girl he had a crush on who gave him a special tour of a haunted house, turning into one of his most terrifying and embarrassing experiences he wishes he could take back!

My favorite story was "I Know You Were There," a heart-wrenching and poignant love story that realistically tells the intense pain of grief that never properly heals.

"Red Eyes" is also a great bone-chilling monster story that I truly enjoyed.

I advise reading Tremblay's "A Head Full of Ghosts" before diving into this anthology because there are references to the book that help readers understand the sarcastic hints and the entire execution so much better.

Overall, this is an absolutely interesting and captivating bunch of well-written works that I highly recommend to thriller, horror, and drama lovers!

Many thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for sharing this digital review copy with me in exchange for my honest opinions.

Thank you for the opportunity to preview The Beast You Are.
Paul Tremblay is an author I never know what to expect from.
Horror, drama, suspense but this book is a departure and he brings some interesting short stories to us to ponder and wonder
All novellas are different and some better than others but all in all really good.
I liked this book. Gives you a chance to dip your toes in the Tremblay pool.
4 stars

Grief, stories of the pandemic, monsters and childhood fears are among the themes in this collection of short stories from author Paul Tremblay. Tremblay is one of my favorite authors and I jumped at the chance to read this ARC. I really enjoyed the author's previous collection "Growing Things" and didn't enjoy this quite as much, but there are still some gems here worth reading. There are several short stories, some very short flash fiction pieces and a novella titled "The Beast You Are" which finishes the collection. A few notes on my favorites from the collection:
"The Last Conversation"-I previously read this in a collection of science fiction stories and it is a five star read about a man who wakes up in a mysterious room and a mysterious woman controls his life ;.this story is fantastic. I also enjoyed :"I Know You're There:" a story about grief and our fears during the pandemic, and "Howard Sturgis and the End of the World" and "The Party" both of which are about strange happenings or the perception of them and our world as we know it ending,

A couple of the stories relate back to the author's previous work "A Head Full of Ghosts" and while they are stand alone, they will more sense if you have read the previous work. I didn't like the long poem like ode, "The Beast You Are" which is a fantasy piece about human-like animals and a epic battle. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

3.5 stars

Tremblay has written a wonderful assortment of multi-genre short stories. These stories play on all of your emotions, and are mostly satisfying. As usual you’ll find those you love and those you dont. I really do wish for a few of these to be fully explored in a whole novel one day. I really enjoyed this collection.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

The Beast You Are is a literary horror collection from the author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Cabin at the End of the World, which was recently adapted into the movie Knock at the Cabin. His work has won the Bram Stoker, British Fantasy, and Massachusetts Book awards, and he has been published in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. The bulk of his new collection is filled with the titular story, while the rest is filled with 14 much shorter pieces.

Tremblay’s collection exists at a baffling crossroads between genres and forms, making it both accessible to all types of fiction readers but not targeted to any single group in particular. One of the standout stories, “I Know You’re There,” may be the most restrained piece of genre fiction I’ve ever read. The story articulates the horror of death through sadness, confusion, and the imagination of the main character. This piece, like much of the collection, implements the speculative elements with a certain suspicion and uncertainty, as if it’s up to the reader to decide if the supernatural elements of the story are real.

“Haunted House Tour” is an excellent slow-burn piece, and “Red Eyes” shines for its immediately bizarre and very short story of monsters and mayhem. "The Beast You Are" is the most unusual piece in the collection, opting for a free verse structure like an ancient epic. Tremblay’s strange does work and create a sort of monstrous addition to a monstrous story, but it does inevitably become distracting as the line breaks often broke the flow of the story for me.

At its best, Tremblay’s book is a razor sharp collection of literary horror written with startling lucidity. The clarity and precision of the story is reminiscent of Ishiguro’s Nocturnes with the inventiveness of Salinger’s Nine Stories. The stories slowly catch fire and build into impressive, cinematic sequences. At times, Tremblay pulled me out of the story with strange story formats and intrusive lines like “I pass through the lower level of the house as quietly as I can, like an omniscient, emotionally distant narrator, which I am not.” But for the vast majority of the collection, Tremblay’s prose shines and tells the stories clearly and vividly, making for an impressive and unique collection worth reading.

Paul Tremblay does it again. A wonderful collection of stories with different writing styles comprised this book, and it was just magical. Personal favorite stories were The Last Conversation and The Beast You Are. A must read for Tremblay fans as he makes nods to previous works.

I feel like I just read a brainstorm of ideas that weren't fully formed and lacked conclusion. I for one, am always open and applaud ambiguous endings but this? I just can't. Each story I was never invested in and was left feeling so unsatisfied that I struggled to keep going onto the next story. I hate to do this for such a brilliant author but I give this Two Stars.

Thank you Netgalley and William Morrow for this ARC.

This collection of short stories hit on so many levels. Some really just creeped me out, some made me do a double take, and some made me a little cringy. I would like to see some of these short stories turn into full length books but I really enjoyed this selection for what they were :)

Dubbed as “horror”, I went in hopeful that this would frighten me enough to send me hiding like a bridge troll…🫣🥴
But unfortunately, it did not.
These stories induced no fear or excitement or any real emotion for me, if I’m honest.
And as a fan of A Head Full of Ghosts, it pains me to say it, but I was definitely underwhelmed for the duration of this book.
Big thanks to NetGalley for a copy of this arc in exchange for an honest review!

this was such a great short story collection from Paul Tremblay, I had enjoyed the previous book that I read which was The Pallbearers Club. This had what I was looking for from this type of book and the characters in each story were what I was hoping for. It was a great horror novel and I'm glad I got to read this. Paul Tremblay does a great job in being a horror writer and I can't wait to read more in from him.

"You’re afraid to turn your head or to move at all. You’re afraid of the darkness, the utter lack. You’re afraid of receding, shrinking away to nothingness, to wherever you were before. You’re afraid you are caught in a loop: you’ ll go away only to later wake again in blind agony, and then return to unconsciousness, and then wake to agony, again and again."

There's something about Tremblay that I'm always excited to read his works, even though I've mostly been disappointed. He's got style and can create characters, but the execution can be rough.

This is coming three years after his previous stories collection and the fact that this is getting a wide release is kind of a shocker. Because this is more what you'd expect from a small press. It's more of a "here's some things I don't have anywhere else to put these" release. In fact a few of these are pretty old, so the fact they got skipped in "Growing Things," is probably an indicator of how much even the author views their quality.

The novella that takes up half the page count and is the namesake is positioned at the end of the collection. It's an interesting read and the only reason I gave the entire collection two stars. While I appreciated the try, it was a pretty big miss for me. It's both too long and too vague. The characters are various animals living like humans, taking part in a Battle Royale style tradition, and the writing style is free form. Again, interesting, but it feels like a writing exercise more than a finished work. (It sucks to always compare genre authors to Stephen King, but this coming out so close to "Fairytale" just weakens the impact even more).

While Tremblay is labeled "horror," there is little horror here. The large portion of it is closer to fantasy and sci-fi. Think Ray Bradbury or Shirley Jackson (one of the shorts is from a tribute to the latter). Tremblay often gets criticized for not landing the endings and I've never had that problem as much as others; but here it's a big problem. In fact, a few of these don't even manage a takeoff.

Rarely do I say skip a book, but this maybe is one to avoid. There wasn't a single story I would want to read again. And while I'll happily read the next thing he puts out, I think Tremblay has enough stuff out there you should check out first. If you really like everything else, give this a shot, but it's more of an author experimenting than something to make fans happy. As an artist more power to him, but it wasn't for me.