First of all thank you to Netgalley and Titan Books for the ARC of this book.

''Eight stories of literary dark fiction from a master storyteller. Exploring the shadow side of love, these are tales of grief, obsession, control. Intricate examinations of trauma and tragedy in raw, poetic prose. A woman imagines horrific scenarios whilst caring for her infant niece; on-line posts chronicle a cancer diagnosis; a couple in the park with their small child encounter a stranger with horrific consequences; a toxic relationship reaches a terrifying resolution…''

This is a difficult one to rate due to it being such a different mix of stories. I really enjoyed a few of them but others just had me bored and not wanting to read on so unfortunately I can't give this book anymore than 3 stars.

This is the second book of Eric LaRocca's I've read and I have to say they are just a master at writing deeply unsettling and dark stories! I absolutely enjoyed this one and can't wait to pick up more from this author!

3 Stars ~

I find it hard to rate short story collections because I usually like some stories and dislike others. And this was precisely that.

Some stories had me pulling disgusted/horrified faces, and gasping, and in others, I was just a bit bored. I feel like LaRocca goes for that shock factor, so if that is your thing, give it a go.

This was a republication, which I didn't realise when first requesting on NetGalley, but thankfully I had not read this collection yet.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC, in return for an honest review.

My experience with horror is very limited. I'm familiar with Grady Hendrix and Paul Tremblay... and that's about it. Eric LaRocca will now be on the list of my go-to authors when I need a chilling story.

This collectoin of stories was beyond haunting. Each tale is horrifying in their own ways, and many feature significant moments of true heartache.

I look forward to reading more from this author!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinions.

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There by Eric LaRocca is a collection that meditates on grief, estranged relationships, and the pain of watching your loved ones slowly age and die. The stories here unflinchingly explore the darkest part of the human psyche during the most difficult trials of a person’s life.

Perhaps due to their length, unfortunately some of the short stories fell flat to me compared to Larocca’s longer works like We Can Never Leave This Place or They Were Here Before Us. The first story especially felt incomplete to me because I lacked enough history between the father and the kid for the ending to pack an emotional punch.

However, these are the standouts of the collection for me.

- Bodies Are for Burning. An aunt struggles with her compulsion to set things on fire as she cares for her young niece. This is an unnerving and poignant look at a lesser-talked about aspect of OCD: dealing with intrusive thoughts.

- The Strange Thing We Become. Told through an internet thread, user mummyqueerest documents their struggle with coming to terms with their partner’s terminal cancer diagnosis.

- The Trees Grew Because I Bled There. An allegory for a toxic relationship where one person gives and the other just takes. Think of it as a messed-up version of The Giving Tree ... only with human body parts.

- Please Leave or I’m Going to Hurt You. A gay man wrestles with his complicated feelings toward his father. This one is an emotionally heartbreaking read that delves into a taboo subject matter with nuance and care.

Overall, this collection offers a compelling character study on how different people react to love and loss and it’s still a worthwhile read for those who love beautifully poetic dark fiction.

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is a collection of 8 stories that are all so unique, beautifully written, and deeply horrifying.

My favorite short stories were:
- Bodies are for Burning: an aunt who has intrusive thoughts about burning things is worried about what might happen when she babysits her baby niece. This one was disturbing but so so good.
- The Strange Thing We Become: I liked the epistolary format of this one the most!
- Please Leave or I Am Going to Hurt You: This was... uhhh interesting. Both a horrific and taboo love story.

LaRocca's approach to horror is very poetic. Their prose is dark and haunting, yet lyrical and deep. I really liked this and would recommend to anyone who enjoys horror/short stories!

Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

"The Trees Grew Because I Bled There" collects 8 stories of literary dark fiction written by Eric LaRocca, Bram Stoker Award-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of the viral novella Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (which I loved and really recommend!).

It's not a secret that I love LaRocca's writing and unique horror taste, so when I saw that this collection was available on NetGalley, I requested it immediately. "The Trees Grew Because I Bled There" is deliciously dark, haunting, disturbing, different, and sooo beautifully written. Most of them made me experience a rollercoaster of emotions: there are some twists I didn't see coming and left me speechless, and these twists literally turn the story into a nightmare, into torture. I admire the author's vision and ability to put into words the darkest thoughts people have in their head and, while I do see that LaRocca's works are not for everybody, they are definitely my cup of tea.

This collection is great. I wish it included more stories or longer ones, because some left me hanging and wanting for more (especially You Follow Wherever They Go). I think the most loved one will be You’re Not Supposed to Be Here (truly excellent, could be made into a short movie too!), but my favorite was I’ll Be Gone by Then, it's dark and heartbreaking and intense, incredible.
Can't wait to read LaRocca's next book, out later this year!

* I'd like to thank Eric LaRocca, Titan Books and NetGalley for providing this ARC in exchange for my honest review. * The Trees Grew Because I Bled There is out on March 7th, 2023.

I was struggling a lot when it came to reviewing this book.

Inevitably with a short story collection, I found it difficult to have an overall opinion because there were stories I found significantly more interesting than others and vice versa. Here of course there were stories that I connected with and stories I did not.
I felt as though a lot of these stories were very surface-level and did not provide characters that were particularly fleshed out. It made it difficult to care for their well-being and the plots of some of the stories were not enough to hold the story on its own.

Despite that, there were absolutely stories where I connected deeply and was extremely invested. Easily that could have been a full-length novel. That brings me to my second and only other problem, the order. The order of stories in a collection is key in terms of gripping the reader and I felt as though in terms of themes and energy we went up and down and then down and up. It made It hard to have an overall opinion of the book

Overall, I would give it a go both if you have and haven't read his most famous book as I think there will be something in them for everyone.

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for allowing me to read this book.. I am a fan of horror and can stand to read some pretty messed up things but a couple of stories in this book had me thinking to myself "What did I just read?" I enjoy short stories and I liked the uniqueness of these stories, that's a plus for me, but some were just too much. I didn't mind the first couple of stories, but the further along I got in the book the further off board I became. I think my line in the sand was [***spoiler alert***] a story where a lady had dark thoughts of hurting people with fire. She watches her one year old niece and has terrible thoughts of different ways to burn her. She catches herself just before she burns the girl's hand on the gas stove. I won't spoil the ending in case anyone wants to read this. I wasn't a huge fan of some of these stories, but this is the first book of this author's that I have read. I will try reading "Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke" to see if it is any better. I had heard a lot of good things about that book, which is what made me want to give this one a whirl.

I am speechless.
(Which is decidedly a BIG problem when trying to write a review.)

Eric LaRocca is an absolute master at their craft.
Every story was beautiful (I said what I said) and gave me an icky, uncomfortable delicious sort of feeling that I absolutely delighted in.
I don't know if this will make sense to anyone but me, but this collection felt like Aesop's Fables--but make it extreme horror.
I try to choose a favorite story when reviewing collections of stories/anthologies;
However, picking a favorite from this collections is a lot like choosing your most well-behaved and loving child....that also has the most abhorrent hygiene. (I hope that comes across as the joke I meant to it be!)
Each tale is absolutely vile in its own special way, but balanced equally with with their beauty and power.
The two that had the most personal meaning to me (and therefore seared into the coils of my brain forever) are the titular "The Trees Grew Because I Bled There" and "The Strange Things We Become".

Sometimes you read something and it fuels you with inspiration and hope that you, too, can write something so incredible.
And sometimes you read the new Eric LaRocca and think you should throw in the towel because no one can match the beauty of his prose or the depths of their depravity.

Incredible book!
Thank you so much for letting me read an ARC.
Now I need to go buy it to add to my collection!

A decent collection of stories and a fantastic introduction by Chuck Wendig. I believe most stories involved some sort of parent/caregiver-child relationship, which makes for many heart-in-throat moments. More memorable than Things Have Gotten Worse...

I sadly wasn't the biggest fan of The Tree Grew Because I Bled There.
I did like some of the stories but most of them I didn't really enjoy...
I would still recommend giving this book a go if it sounds good to you but sadly I don't think it was for me.
Thank you gorgeous giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Horror is ultimately a reaction and what makes us wince; feel that sense of fear and anxiety will vary with each person. Horror can be loud and bloody; it can be shadowy and there are places in between. In Eric LaRocca’s unsettling short fiction collection The Trees Grew Because I Bled There we get haunting and vivid tales that feel like we are being whispered to someone’s darkest thoughts and days and we can’t switch off the images these words will conjure. A very powerful and disquieting set of visceral psychological horror tales await you to impress and also make you worry about the fate of the characters and those around them.

Amongst the stories in this collection I enjoyed were: -

The opening tale You Follow Wherever They Go is a strong and weirdly unrepresentative start to the collection as a father and child debate the kid joining a group outside. This almost normal scene though feels wrong with a strange atmosphere and then we realise the father is being treated for cancer. I was very impressed by what was unsaid and the ending has annuity as to what the true state of affairs really was.

A truly dark confessional is Bodies Are For Burning - our narrator shocks us with their visceral thoughts of burning their psychiatrist alive. This tale is about mental health and suicidal thoughts placing us into how someone suffering this will feel. LaRocca then adds a child to the tale and we bounce between fear for both parties; revulsion at their thoughts; horror at their intentions and subtly understanding at least why this maybe happening. Powerful storytelling.

Similarity we get a message board posting framework for the story The Strange Thing We Become. A woman talks about her girlfriend and then tells us she is differing from cancer. These small anecdotes make us alongside our narrator watch someone’s decline and the way you can start to resent someone you love. It’s visceral and in the final scenes incredibly full of despair which again leaves a memorable impression of loneliness and grief.

The horror of You’re Not Supposed to Be Here mixes the idea of a horror set up like saw and the dark secrets about ourselves we don’t need to share with anyone. Our narrator and his husband are approached by a couple in the park thinking they are someone else. The couple loves our narrators six month old baby. Then things get dark fast. It’s about what lengths you go to protect the ones we love but dialled to the max and filled with body torture and a horrible sense more people are to be trapped in this web of pain.

This is a collection that casts an eye on the thoughts most of us never get to hear it ever want to share. LaRocca gets to peel these barriers down often bloodily and make us feel and undertand the character’s point of view. We don’t always take their side but just possibly we can say ok I get why you’ve done that. It is often on dark subjects plus filled with body horror so I do warn readers to be prepared to go to very old dark places. But if that is something you enjoy in your horror then prepare for a ride into the dark. I am very interested in how this author develops over the coming years to come and a name to watch!

Eric LaRocca has the ability to make my skin crawl, keep me up at night, and leave me completely creeped out.

This is another great collection of stories that although they are horror also touch on so many different themes. There wasn't a single story in this book that I wasn't thoroughly invested in.

If you are a horror fan and you haven't read LaRocca yet then you are missing out. He is a brilliant new voice in horror.

Received an arc from NetGalley, thanks!

Collections of short stories are always a hard nut to crack; they're like a wildflowers on a field – so beautiful, but so different from one another. One may look outsanding in a color pallette, but poorly on its own.

Eric LaRocca's meadow is a peculiar one – ordinary, but full of secrets. Bloody, unethical, awful secrets. They're off-putting. Creepy. Their words make your skin crawl. LaRocca doesn't hesitate from going off road, taking a dark, unexpected turn that many will despise, that will make many disgusted. And yet I am intrigued, with this unusual ideas splitted between bad people. Certainly made me to check other their works.

3.5 / 5

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories is my first introduction to Eric LaRocca, and I don't think it'll be the last.

This is a collection of horror novellas (a motif for LaRocca, it seems) where each story has queer elements and feelings of familial malaise. There are other themes sprinkled throughout: cancer, body horror, grief, parenting/guardianship, toxic relationships, and mental illness. I felt thoroughly disturbed by each one, LaRocca certainly shows his skills in how he crafts haunting imagery and stomach turning scenes.

I rated all of the stories just on gut feeling, I 'enjoyed' some more than others. I then averaged those ratings and came out to about a 3.5. I'm not entirely sure if short form horror is for me yet, but I'm intrigued to pick more up in the near future. I have Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes on my TBR and look forward to getting to it sometime this year.

➤ Story Ratings:
➢ You Follow Wherever They Go ― 3 ★
➢ Bodies Are for Burning ― 4 ★
➢ The Strange Thing We Become ― 3 ★
➢ The Trees Grew Because I Bled There ― 2 ★
➢ You're Not Supposed to Be Here ― 5 ★
➢ Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass ― 3 ★
➢ I'll Be Gone by Then ― 4 ★
➢ Please Leave or I'm Going to Hurt You ― 5 ★
➤ Average Rating ― 3.625 ★

I really enjoyed this one. Short story collections are always hit or miss for me and this one was definitely a hit. I felt engaged the whole time and flew through this in one night. The characters all made me feel something, the prose was lovely, and each storyline felt unique and interesting.
4.25-4.5 stars

What a wonderfully morbid collection of stories. They're simultaneously sad and entertaining. I find it so interesting how the loose through line/themes continue from tale to tale. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will read ANYTHING Eric LaRocca puts out. Brilliant writing and excellent short stories.

Well, this is just more icing on the cake that is Eric LaRocca! Short but powerful, packed a punch right to my gut!

I always have blast with Eric LaRocca books! I enjoyed these dark and sometimes disturbing short stories! My favorite story was The Strange Thing We Become! The found footage structure was really effective and my mind filled in the worst possible situation at the end lol.I recommend this collection for fans of LaRocca or if your just getting in!

Thank you, netgalley!