Disturbing. Definitely disturbing. That is what I think of this collection. It is actually my favorite that I have read from LaRocca. The story with the woman babysitting her niece was definitely one of my favorites and very tense. The story where the couple with a baby meet the strangers in the park was probably my least favorite but still good. This collection was full of great stories.

I received an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

So, initial reaction: WOW. Wow wow wow!

A more clear reaction: The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories is a powerful collection of horror short stories that cover a variety of characters and circumstances. This was my introduction to LaRocca and I felt very satisfied with the impression this author made! These stories were absolutely harrowing and at times devastating, while keeping me as a reader absolutely enthralled. I was also really impressed with the queer representation offered in this collection.

I actually thought that every story had its own draw, which is unusual for a collection in my experience. LaRocca's skill as a storyteller stays consistent, however, throughout the entire book. The first story, "You Follow Wherever They Go," sets the tone for the collection with its building, ominous tone. I thought that was a perfect starting point.

"Bodies Are for Burning" was a shock with its violent and terrible internal monologue of a woman who is obsessed by thoughts of setting others on fire, but is still a relatable story for those dealing with intrusive thoughts. This one could hold up all on its own. I loved it.

"The Strange Thing We Become" and "You're Not Supposed to Be Here" offer unique perspectives on terminal illness and child abduction, respectively. These were gut wrenching and so thought provoking.

"The Trees Grew Because I Bled There" is one of the most satisfying stories in the collection and is tied for my favorite. This one explores what could be interpreted as an abusive relationship in which one partner "collects" body parts from the other. Absolutely chilling, I could have read an entire novel based on this story alone.

"Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass" and "I'll Be Gone by Then" both explore familial relationships. Both left me aching, but they were the additions I would say I was less interested in if I had to. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed them.

The final story, "Please Leave or I'm Going to Hurt You," may be controversial due to its exploration of a relationship between a son pining for his father, but it is a beautifully tragic and compelling piece of art. While I obviously don't condone the subject matter here, I found the writing of it really unique and that was a strong pull. This one, along with "The Trees Grew Because I Bled There" were easily the stars of the collection for me. Overall, Eric LaRocca has absolutely won me over, and this collection is a must-read for horror fans. Now, I'm off to devour anything and everything else by him.

Thanks so so much to Titan Books for the opportunity to read an eGalley of this collection in ahead of its release on 03/07/2023 in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I've read some of the author's past work and always enjoyed the things he writes. He has a way with words that come across so spectacularly in his writing and every detail he shows. This collection showed his prowess with storytelling in ways like never before. Every story sucks you in and shows you a horrifically great world he's built for you. You're Not Suppose To Be Here was probably my favorite of them all and it blew me away with how much it made me squirm in my seat. I can't wait to read more by him!

I have a love/slightly-hate relationship with Eric LaRocca’s books. I never quite feel like I enjoy them entirely but at the same time I love the intensity of his characters.

Some of the short stories were great and others felt like filler, which was disappointing.

This was a great collection of short stories. I've read a couple of things by LaRocca and this is probably one of my favorites, although Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is still high up on the list. These stories are gruesome and horrifying but they are told so well. I'm always interested to see what LaRocca comes up with next.

Let's take a stroll through the mind of the gifted, creative, and twisted writer: Eric LaRocca. I hope I can come out unscathed on the other side. If not, then I hope it only hurts a little. Time will tell....

You Follow Wherever They Go - A tale of love and loss. Melancholic and quiet. A little too short to pack much of a wallop but thought provoking nonetheless.

Bodies Are For Burning - An aunt, with a penchant for burning things, fears what she will do when she is left to care for her toddler niece.

The Strange Thing We Become - This story being the most similar in style to his wildly popular story, Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. Heart wrenching and utterly disturbing.

The Trees Grew Because I Bled Here - That was a wee bit horrifying. I'm kidding. That was A LOT horrifying. Yikes! How much are you willing to give to those you love?

You're Not Suppose To Be Here - A beautiful sunny day. A great day to spend at the park. Vince and Terry along with their 6 month old son are having a lovely picnic enjoying the weather when a man approaches them insisting "You're not suppose to be here" from here it's a full on parental nightmare! (This is my favorite of the bunch!)

Where Flames Burned Emerald As Grass - A father and his teenage daughter are vacationing at a tropical jungle resort. His daughter has an accident and an elderly Frenchman comes to their aid. He has much more to offer than just his medical expertise if only the father had heeded his warning.

I'll Be Gone By Then - This story is the perfect example of that old saying, you don't know what you've got until it's gone. Don't take the ones you love for granted.

Please Leave Or I'm Going To Hurt You - Um. Hmm. Ahh. Huh. LaRocca has rendered me speechless. Let's just say this is a taboo love story and leave it at that.

Well guys, I've made it safely to the end though I may never be the same again. LaRocca writes the most disturbing stories in the most beautiful and exquisite ways. His writing is a rare gem that is meant to be admired. 4 stars!

Thank you to NetGalley and Titan Books for my complimentary copy.

Just like 'Things Have Gotten Worse...' this collection is deeply psychological, packed with a good chunk of body horror. What makes the stories so suspenseful, is the impending sense of doom. You're constantly expecting a desaster or something really bad to happen. Though my biggest problem was, that things are often left unspoken and I admittedly didnt always get what was happening on page.
The stories are ranging from fine to good, overall I enjoyed this collection and recommend it to fans of weird sh*t.
3,5 stars.

Eric LaRocca's collection of stories in, The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, is horrorific and magnificent. These stories are audacious in an unflinching manner. LaRocca really plays on the innermost fears of many and turns them into a plausable reality. Some stories leave you unsettled and heartbroken while others leave you wanting to crawl out of your skin. Highly enjoyed these and will be recommending to fellow horror fans.

I feel nauseas. I had 3 different existential crisis’ while reading these short stories. Every single one of them were disgusting, revolting and/or depressing. I wish I hadn’t read this at night. I want to erase it from my memory forever- pretend I didn’t read these vile words. Eric LaRocca is a magnificent horror author, and I wish I had never requested this ARC. I highly recommend you read it so you can feel sick too.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I adored this collection. Once again, Eric grabbed me by the heart as they terrified me. This collection showcases a lot of what I love about Eric’s work: beautiful prose, animal facts to convey the beauty and brutality of nature, and honest explorations of relationships. As far as relationships go, this one focuses a lot on families and presents many different looks at them — too much love, not enough and every complexity in between. This is one of the best collections I’ve ever read. Eric simply doesn’t miss.

It's been so exciting to read LaRocca's work and how it continues to grow and mature. I didn't love the big breakout Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, but I loved the attention to it and the fact of its existence. I LOVED these stories though. LaRocca's love for words, sentences, and the beauty in the wretched just leaps off the pages [digital screen].

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a chance to read this collection early in exchange for an honest review.

I have been a fan of Eric LaRocca for a long time now, since before he really sprang to the forefront of horror. Every time I read one of their works I know I am in for my heart to be torn out and left laying on the floor in misery. This is true with this collection. He has a way of writing that leaves your heart broken and in a million pieces. Each story contained within this collection has every aspect of a LaRocca work, and each one hooks you from the start and leaves you wishing there was more to the story at the end. I have found that while reading these stories I can relate to some of his characters and its those characters that crush me when the final line is written. My two favorite of this collection are Bodies are Burning and The Trees Grew Because I Bled There. All in all once again LaRocca has knocked it out of the park with this collection, and once again I will be continuing to shout about his works far and wide to get more and more people to read what he has brought into this world.

Highly recommend

I discovered Eric LaRocca just last year, with the one-two punch of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes, and We Can Never Leave This Place. I had this to say about that second amazing book:

If, through some infernal alchemy, the DNA of Franz Kafka, William Burroughs, and Clive Barker, were combined, and the resultant child was raised in a haunted house, on a steady diet of Hershel Gordon Lewis and David Cronenberg movies, EC and manga comics, Grimms’ fairytales, and powerful hallucinogens; and if that child grew up to be a writer, they might, just might, create something like We Can Never Leave This Place.

After devouring LaRocca’s newest collection of eight short stories, The Trees Grew Because I Bled There, I’d like to add the DNA of two more authors—Poppy Z. Brite and Roald Dahl. Like Brite, LaRocca is both uncompromising and unflinching in his descriptions of the horrors humans are capable of inflicting on each other. In fact, the last time I read a book that gave me this level of—let’s call it exhilarating discomfort—was while reading Exquisite Corpse. And like Dahl, LaRocca’s characters are acid tongued and black hearted.

The stories themselves are, each and every one, disquieting and unnerving. Despite the varied settings, they are weirdly intimate in nature, rooted in despair and trauma. Happiness is in short supply here. Like I said, exhilarating discomfort. They are also clearly and unapologetically queer. There is gut-wrenching body horror, and LaRocca never allows you to look away.

The stories are uniformly strong, but I do want to call out a couple that truly got me. Bodies Are for Burning is near the beginning of the book, and it lets you know just what you’re in for. It will fuck you up. The Strange Thing We Became is a devastating, desperate portrait of disease and loss. And Where Flames Burned Emerald as Grass is a fever dream as horrible as it is inevitable.

The Trees Grew Because I Bled There releases March 7, 2023, and is available now for pre-order. For fans of uncompromising horror, this is a must.

This was LaRocca’s most harrowing collection yet. I actually had to put the book down between stories so I could process the contents. A lot of them are interlinked, even causing me to form theories between these and his other works too. The prose is beautiful, Building suspense to create the most horrifying stories. This collection didn’t only make my skin crawl, im worried the stories will haunt my nightmares. By far their best work, and the best short story collection I’ve ever read. Lots of these stories left me feeling more than just a little uncomfortable, but deeply disturbed, and I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Please be mindful of trigger warnings, and I recommend starting with other works first as this would’ve come as a shock to me if I hadn’t been familiar with their work beforehand.

Also, the introduction and acknowledgements fit this book perfectly and made my heart hurt a little. I highlighted the first and last sentences of both. This is definitely a book to be read from cover to cover, especially if you’re new to LaRocca’s work. It helps to contextualise, although very slightly. The spooky atmosphere is very much still present throughout.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

So happy I was finally able to read something by this author. I really enjoyed these stories. They are very dark and they got under my skin. Some stories I will never forget. Already told friends and family members to go and buy this one.

After reading and enjoying 'Things Have Only Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke', I was really intrigued as to what new and unsettling tales would creep me out this time and I wasn't disappointed. This new collection of stories is creepy, unsettling and stays with you long after you've turned the last page. A must read for any horror fans.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review

I really wanted to like this collection. This was my first introduction to LaRocca, and while I had heard conflicting opinions in horror circles (you either love his work or really don't), I was pretty sure I'd fall into the camp of enjoying it. I usually like horror authors whose work is controversial and style bizarre. However, while LaRocca's collection voice in this collection was certainly strong, elements of it such as the use of metaphor and line pacing were obtrusive or distracting from the tension, character, and thematics that otherwise were so strong.

The reason why I want to talk about voice in this collection is because the introduction, written by Chuck Wendig, waxes poetic about how strong LaRocca's voice is. Wendig claims that LaRocca's voice is so strong because he has empathy for his characters, because his stories revolve around queerness and sacrifice and transformation and viscera. "The dark magic at the core of this collection," Wendig says as the introduction comes to an end, is from a "sentence found in the titular tale of the collection: Anything that's worth doing always hurts."

I do agree with Wendig on his analysis of LaRocca's work. If not for the strong thematics, his care in portraying his characters, and the visceral imagery LaRocca just knows how to present, I would have probably DNF'd this collection. The sticking point here is the prose.

I don't like LaRocca's prose. I'm sorry, but it really turned me off. Usually I love purple prose and indulgent descriptions, especially in short stories, especially when that prose is more blood red than purple. But I think my thoughts can best be summed up by a note I made while reading the short story "You're Not Supposed to Be Here": My god would it kill you to write a paragraph without a metaphor? Once I noticed how many metaphors LaRocca uses--and never short and sweet ones--I couldn't not notice and be annoyed. I counted over 110 metaphors; the book is 147 pages total, with 115 of those pages being the actual short stories. That's around a metaphor a page; in some sections, there would be multiple metaphors per page.

And, look, again, I love a good metaphor. I wouldn't even say any of the metaphors were necessarily bad. They were all evocative, all clear, but a lot of them were just a little too much.

For example, in "The Strange Thing We Become," the scene with the Morse code machine (page 50 in my review copy) has seven metaphors and similes. Seven! At some point it's fluff. It's distracting. I don't need to know that "the machine chirped like a furious sparrow," just say that it chirped. The word chirped is doing enough lifting there! All those metaphors are exhausting. They're annoying. They're intrusive, and not in a good creepy horror way, in a "please just get to the point dear God" type way.

If the prose was improved, this collection would easily be a four star read. As it is, the metaphors crop up everywhere in the prose like the mycelium of an invasive species of fungus rendering the prose more difficult to read than something black and white and red all over and more unevenly paced than a horse with five legs.

I have another book of his. I dearly hope that either those metaphors have been pruned over the years or his style has changed, because if not I'll be very sad because I very much would like to enjoy his work.

This collection of stories is both heartbreaking and terrifying. The stories are not the type of in-your-face horror you would expect. This author really plays on the fears we all have, the fear of dying and grief, The writing style is almost poetic but still easy to read and very creepy. I will definitely be reading more from this author.

Thank you, Titan Books, for allowing me to read The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories early!

La Rocca deserves everything in this world. The Trees Grew Because I Bled There: Collected Stories is another phenomenal collection of stories that I voraciously devoured.

3.75 stars

This is the second novel i’ve read of the author and i’ve got to say it’s very similar but also very much different.. both novel (things have gotten worse since we last spoke) give off the same odd, unsettling and sickening vibe.. the stories in this one had many plot twists and wtf moments which I really enjoyed! every single time i was like “oh the author is literally insane for coming up with these ideas” if ykyk..