really enjoyed this!! as i was listening, i kept forgetting i wasn't listening to a novel but to short stories and poems because of how engrossing they were
will def be keeping an eye out for the many authors featured because i need more!!

An anthology of monster fiction stories and poems with commentary on queerness and racism, including rewritings of classic stories.

This was so fun and interesting. The stories/poems are a wide mixture of different genres and lengths. I listened to the Audiobook and I really really loved the narration, I think it was done incredibly well. This consists of 16 poems and 16 short stories. Includes many genres such as Historical Fiction, Contemporary Romance, Sci-Fi, Thriller, Horror, and Retellings.

There weren’t any stories/poems that I hated, but there were some that I didn’t really care for or wasn’t interested in. My favourites were:

1. No. 2 - Woolly Bully by Amber Don. This is a YA Historical Fiction Short Story about Lesbian werewolves.
2. No. 14 - Glamour Us by Andrew WillMott. This is an Adult/New Adult Sci-Fi short story about using body modification AI technology to affirm your gender.
3. No. 17 - And the Moon Spun Round Like a Top by Hiromi Goto. This is an Adult thriller short story about period blood clots coming to life. Very gory, super interesting.
4. No. 24 - Ghosts of Pride Past by Cicilly Belle Blaine. This is an Adult Christmas Carol Retelling where an androgynous being shows a gay police officer his past, present and future and holds him accountable and punishes him for his homophobia and brutality.

This has such a huge variety of stories and poems, there’s something for everyone. Overall, I had a really fun time reading this and I will be checking out more works by some of the authors featured in this anthology. I can’t wait for this to come out so I can own a physical copy, annotate it and reread it.

Representation - Acid Scar (MC); Anorexia (MC); Anxiety Attacks (MC); Aro/Ace (MC); Asian (MC); Gay (MC); Genderfluid (SC); Hindi; Indigenous (MC); Lesbian (MC); Nonbinary (MC); Pansexual (SC); Sapphic; She/They (SC); Sleep Disorder (MC); Transgender FTM (MC); Transgender MTF (MC; SC)

TWs/CWs - Abandonment; Alcohol Consumption; Animal Death; Anti-Asian; Anorexia; Assault; Blood; Catfishing; Child Birth; Corpse; Cussing; Death; Doxxing; Drowning; Drug Use; Electric shock; Excrement; Gore; Guns; Gun Violence; Hate Crime; Homophobia; Illness; Internalised homophobia; Menopause; Murder; Nazis; Nudity; Police Brutality; Pregnancy; Racism; Sexual Assault; Sexual Content; Smoking; Suicide Ideation; Transphobia; Violence; Vomit; War

Queer Little Nightmares is a youthful and fun collection of poetry that closely follows the titular theme: queer and monstrous. It skews quite young, a lot of the language and events were /very modern/ and that’s not personally my favourite kind of horror and affected my enjoyment. I prefer a more timeless feel.

However! While this collection wasn’t entirely for me, I can absolutely see this being a hit with its intended audience, and I really appreciated the individual authors take on the theme. There are clearly many talented writers and editors involved. As with all collections, I liked some more than others. I enjoyed the poems here more than the stories which is unusual for me, and I loved that in this collection we got a combination of both.

The collection is brilliantly narrated by Danielle Verayo. So many different stories from different authors might have benefitted from at least one other narrator but it still worked well, and Verayo did a great job.

Thank you so much to ECW Press Audio for the listening copy 💜💜💜

I thought I was going to enjoy this a lot more than I did - which was really unfortunate.

I’m quite unsure if it’s because it was an audiobook and I didn’t gel with the narrator as much as I hoped, or if it was the content of the stories and poems, however overall it was an interesting, but not entirely memorable piece.

Maybe it wasn’t for me - I would like to try reading the physical version of this book in the future.

Thank you to ECW Press Audio, the various contributors, and NetGalley for providing this ALC in exchange for my honest thoughts.

Queer Little Nightmares lived up to its title in the best way. This book, which features short stories and poems from a variety of queer authors, reimagines classic monsters and myths through a queer lens. The gayer and the scarier the better... isn't that the old saying?

One of the standout features of this collection is the diverse range of characters and perspectives represented. From a Minotaur navigating a crowd of cosplayers to a lagoon creature yearning for connection with the swimmers above, each story offers a fresh take on what it means to be a monster - and how queerness intersects with that definition.

The stories in "Queer Little Nightmares" are not only terrifying at times, but thought-provoking as well. Many of them challenge traditional tropes and offer new insights into the nature of horror and monstrosity. For example, "Glamour-Us" by Andrew Wilmot explores the ramifications of advanced technology for gender identity, while "And the Moon Spun Round Like a Top" by Hiromi Goto delves into the power of menstrual blood as a source of strength and identity. That one, in particular, ended up being one of my favorites.

Overall, "Queer Little Nightmares" is a must-read for horror fans and anyone interested in exploring the intersection of queerness and monstrosity. It is also a great starter if you are wanting to find more queer authors, and I can't wait to explore more work from the contributors to this collection.

While I enjoyed the content of this anthology, I had a hard time with it because I received it as an audiobook. I often found myself getting lost in the narrator's voice, which I found lacking. If you are able to pick this up as a physical book or an ebook, I recommend you do.

4 stars:

A unique book of tales, thriller centred, with a queer twist. Horror is not typically my cup of tea, but this book was softened enough for me to enjoy. Although not all the tales were excessively queer (which I would have preferred), all the authors featured are in fact queer or 2SLGBT+.

I would likely recommend this book for readers and lovers of thrillers and queer literature, 14+.

(I received this audiobook ALC via NetGalley in return for an honest review. Thank you.)

What an absolutely chilling, horrifying collection of poems and stories. This had some truly brutal tales, and I hate how much any queer/femme person could relate to so much of this. From wanting to see ourselves differently to the trauma that is a part of us and our bodies - it all hit so hard.

I listened to the audio version of this galley, but I'll definitely be picking up a physical copy to add to my collection!

Queer Little Nightmares is an anthology of poems and short stories about monsters through a queer lens.

This book has everything: blood hamster babies, giant monster girlfriends, tentacle wet dreams, Mark Ruffalo (or at least I think it is)

It’s always hard rating a collection of short stories, I don’t really believe in rating poetry, because it’s very personal and subjective, so I’m going to focus mainly on the stories and audiobook aspect when I rate this.

There were stories I will probably tell people about (Gruesome My Love & The Moon Spun for sure), but some of the shorter ones fell flat for me. This is a book I definitely wish I had a visual copy of and would have appreciated multiple narrators voicing the stories. The singular narrator made the anthology seem like the POV was coming from the same person.

It’s always cool to have new queer literature out, especially something as diverse and fun as this one. I hope to be able to read more stuff like this in the future.
Check TW’s for this if you're squeamish around blood and guts.

Genre: Queer Monster Campy Horror
Rating: 3.5/5
Release date: Out now

Thank you NetGalley and ECW Press Audio for the ALC. All opinions are my own.

I was unfortunately not able to listen to this due to it being approved one day before it was archived, but the context is enough to know we would likely order it for the library. It seems to be a good anthology especially for less acknowledged areas of study.

Simply fabulous! This short story/poem anthology is a great hybrid of the horror and Sci-Fi genres, all with a connecting thread of queer identities. Whilst some stories/poems were more enjoyable (?) than others, there were no misses in my opinion!
I will be picking up a physical copy for my shelves without question and can foresee myself recommending this in the future.

I consumed this as an audio, and the narrator was a perfect choice!

These really were stories right out of nightmares! I enjoyed some more than others but each, with their peculiarity, made me not want to stop the audio until I listened to them all. Was I scared? I think more than scared, I went through a lot of other emotions like disgusted and angry and curious and very intrigued.
Definitely a must read for fans of anthologies, queer stories, and horror stories.

this book drops you into different perspectives, identities, and stages of understanding queerness: something dangerous, something liberating that maybe makes you a monster, then something safe, good, a source of strength and communal protection against the monsters who want to destroy you. it's not linear or clean, there's not an attempt to justify anything -- it just is. and it's powerful.

I tend to struggle with short stories, but the poems helped it flow and made it worth it.

Arc review

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I am usually a big fan of audiobooks but I think I need to do this one in another format. I had a hard time getting into the stories for some reason and am generally not a huge fan of poetry. So maybe it’s me or maybe the format but give it a try!

Wow. Normally anthologies have stories that are ok and others that are not so much. I loved every single story/poem in this book. It was so much fun, and by fun I mean creepy, spooky, and queer. I loved it so much.

5 stars

As with all anthologies or collections of stories, some are better than others.

Some standouts in this collection:

And the Moon Spun
and
In Our Own Image

full of genuinely sinew-chilling horror tales that gave me continual full body shudders and left me terrified. the creepy dread is next level and so well-actualized. at the same time this collection is so fun and experimental! i absolutely loved getting to live in so many incredible well-fleshed out worlds in one collection! i absolutely loved the audiobook, it felt like having ghost stories told to me in the dark and absolutely unlocked an addititonal layer of terror during the reading experience. I find it hard to believe a time will come when I will no longer get goosebumps from Danielle Verayo's voice. They really nailed the perfect tone for each story and poem. I also LOVED how the collection featured both poetry and prose. It was such a delightful surprise and added a dreamlike quality to the pacing and rhythm of the collection that i really feel complemented the greater journey we readers go through as we move through the collection from start to finish. if you enjoy films like ginger snaps, jennifer's body, bones and all, she dies tomorrow, dual, and enjoy ethel cain's album, preacher's daughter. this collection may be for you. very much looking forward to reading more from all of the contributing authors of this collection.

Great thanks to NetGalley, ECW Press Audio, Arsenal Pulp Press for an early review audiobook in exchange for my honest review; to David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli for editing the collection; and Amber Dawn, David Demchuk, Hiromi Goto, Jaye Simpson, Eddy Boudel Tan, Matthew J. Trafford, and Kai Cheng Thom for contributing stories.

This book contains many short stories and poems that highlight queer experiences with themes of horror running through. Now I will say that I am a bit of a horror wimp so this was a stray from my comfort zone! 🤣

I found them to be mostly fascinating, thought provoking, sometimes gory and completely addictive. As always with short story collections, I preferred some to others and I was definitely left wanting more from a few of my favourites!! Overall though, I enjoyed this tiptoe out of my comfort zone. 👏

I really enjoyed a bunch of the stories and poems within this anthology. The connection between Queer and Monster was a fabulous analogy. Being different than “normal people” doesn’t make us monsters, but owning that label was a great piece in this collection. Some of the stories will absolutely end up giving me nightmares, but others were so bizarre they were almost funny. “We tried on their kneecaps as hats”, that line had me cackling. Some of the pieces were a bit hard for me to grasp, but not all people can appreciate every story. All in all, a great collection of short stories and poetry. Definitely recommend.

This audiobook was deeply interesting. There were mostly dark stories, some original, some retellings of non-queer fairytales. Some of my favorites included the period one, (I'm forgetting the name of it right now). There was a vast range of queer experiences throughout the novel, getting all letters of LGBT, if I'm not mistaken.