One of the best things about WE MOSTLY COME OUT AT NIGHT, edited by Rob Costello, is the combination of teens coming into their own trans/queerness mixed with the horror genre. Using this anthology with my high school creative writing students this summer is going to be like giving them their favorite dessert. Every. Single. Day.

"We Mostly Come Out at Night" by Rob Costello is a wonderfully queer collection of stories that focus on traditional horror characteristics (such as vampires, sirens, haunted houses, and angels). I am still new to reading anthologies, and I find that sometimes there are a few really great stories, and then the rest are lackluster. I was worried that this would happen with "We Mostly Come Out at Night," given the volume of monsters the authors could choose from and the variety of queer identities to write about too. However, this wasn't the case at all. All of the stories were fantastic, and I loved the diverse representation (not just within the queer space but also culturally).

My favorite story in the anthology was "The House of Needs and Wants" by Kalynn Bayron. It was a nice story about finally finding a safe and loving space and meeting your needs. The story was quite wholesome, as most of the stories in the collection were, but it was wholesome from the beginning and just kept getting more and more wholesome. This was a nice change of pace from the rest of the stories within "We Mostly Come Out at Night".


Overall rating: 5/5 stars; I would definitely recommend this anthology to my friends.

Thank you to Netgalley, Running Press, and the author Rob Costello for an ARC of "We Mostly Come Out at Night" in exchange for an honest and fair review of the book.

“We Mostly Come Out at Night” is a stunning queer anthology collection about reclaiming power— both in physical body and in language previously weaponised against the queer community. Costello’s introduction was a beautiful and empowering preface to such a collection of exciting, innovative and engaging stories. From folklore to fairytales, romance to horror, Costello and the cohort of queer writers inject their OwnVoices experiences into a variation of genres to bring the reader a fantastical time but also a critical social commentary about the queer community reclaiming language and imagery previously used against them.

It was a truly beautiful and exciting experience, with a range of stories and voices that makes it easy to fall in love with every fresh piece you read.

A fairly solid anthology with far more hits than misses. I took a few brief notes on each story.

Bastian and the Beast (rep: transmasc/mlm): a very sweet story that managed to fit a satisfying romantic arc into a short space. It really hits on what made Beauty and the Beast so alluring to queer people in the first place by focusing on a story about wanting to be wanted despite what you think keeps people apart from you.

Other Fish (wlw): Very interesting take on what it feels like to come to terms with your sexuality even when you're surrounded by people who support you and ostensibly show you it's okay to be different. Loved Yemanja's attitude and sass.

How to Summon Me (trans masc, wlw, what I can only call genderweird) - An EXTREMELY fascinating take on Bloody Mary. This one is probably my favorite of the collection; it's very weird and cosmic horror adjacent

Be Not Afraid (mlm) - Really excellent world building, and I loved making that connection between Mothman and angels.

The Freedom of Feathers and Fur (mlm) - Somehow managed to feel like an entire YA novel in the space of a short story, which is incredible. The pacing was amazing, and the prose and romance vibrant.

The Fatal Song of Attraction (ace) - This one did not do it for me. I found the descriptions and imagery interesting, but I'm not sure how I felt about the asexual allegory being connected to like. you know. eating people. It all seemed to move a bit quick and stilted for me.

The Color of the Sky on Earth (gay) - Very surreal, big fan of this one. Not sure how else to describe it, but it was really fun and weird.

Boys Who Run with the Boars (mlm) - Could have taken or left this one; it felt very one-note.

The House of Needs and Wants (queer, trans fem) - I really liked the setting and concept for this one, but the atmosphere felt off. I think the shortness was to its detriment, because it wanted to be a haunted house story that turned softer, but there wasn't time for that growing sense of unease to change into a sense of comfort, so it ended up feeling a little unnerving even at the end.

A Serpent and a Wish (wlw) - Great concept; I thought it was a little too fast-paced perhaps and some of the revelations about certain characters felt a bit slapdash.

The Girl with Thirteen Shadows (ace) - Oh this one ruled. Really pushed that monsters-queer allegory to the breaking point and had a great message of monster solidarity.

Bonne Nuit (nonbinary) - A fun one; I do like the casual nonbinary rep, but I feel like it was somewhat secondary to the story being told, so the queerness of it wasn't really a main feature. That's fine, it just made it feel a little bit out of place with the other stories where exploring queerness itself seems to be part of the point. I also found the fact that we didn't get names for any of the characters to be slightly confusing, even though every character had a different pronoun set it was still a little hard to parse who was doing what.

Sons of God and Daughters of Humans (trans, nonbinary) - An extremely interesting take on Biblical mythology, which is something I that doesn't get played with enough. This is another one that managed to feel like a whole YA novel packed into one story, and something I'd definitely read more of.

World-Weariness (trans allegory) - This one was way more allegory for trans experience than text, and it was interesting, but also confused me a bit. I'm not sure it really fully interrogated the concept of "transitioning to become an elf" making the main character noticeably paler. It was kinda funny to see the "rapid onset dysphoria" fearmongering be played around with in this one in a different light, though.

How We Founded Club Feathers at the Discard Depot (wlw) - A simple fun one to sign off the anthology. Not the strongest by any means, but it was a nice tasty after dinner mint of a tale.

A simply fantastic anthology, a care package full of joyous, unsettling, dark and gleaming, always fabulous short stories. Monster tales with new twists, spun from new threads, or reimagined in glorious new ways. A wonderful read from start to finish.

Hats off to the creativity of each of the short stories in this anthology. Honestly, I was definitely looking most to read Bayron's story because we'll have her visiting shortly (and I was NOT DISAPPOINTED) because it was AMAZING, but there were quite a few others that were creativity and beautifully written to share the monstrous truth.

I was a fan of the monster fact at the end of each of the short stories as well.

Favorites were "The House of Needs and Wants" by Bayron, "Bastian and the Beast" by Kastin, "How to Summon Me" by Howlett, "The Fatal Song of Attraction" by Johnson, and "A Serpent and A Wish" by Carys.

We Mostly Come Out at Night is a YA anthology aimed at celebrating and empowering young adults who are exploring their queerness and likewise, it is a fantastic read for anybody seeking to understand the experience and emathise.

The stories are well written and as diverse as our human community. Reflective as well as speculative, the book is about accepting our true selves and that it is more than ok to do so. While entertaining, with beautiful illustrations and stories inspired by a litany of myths, folklore, and fairytales, there are also themes of inspiration, of pride, hope and bravery, but all of which are written to comfort and inspire

A fantastic book for young adults and their families and friends, a great book for everybody to enjoy

Thenk you to Netgalley, Running Press and the author Rob Costello for this Insightful ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

Thank you to #NetGalley for providing me with this ARC.

This anthology of queer monster stories is absolutely delightful. There is something for everyone, with several different genres and queerness being explored in oh so many different ways!

As far as the horror element goes, I wouldn't say that it is very dark och very scary. All the stories contain monsters in different ways, some more the idea of monsters or "monsters" as being just anyone who is outside of the norm, so don't be afraid of giving this collection a try even if you are a scaredy cat.

A few times I had to remind myself that this is supposed to be a collection for readers younger than myself, specifically when I got a bit annoyed at having things so explicitly explained to me that were already obvious. I accept that things can be more explicitly stated in YA/teen books. There were a couple of stories that stood out to me, The House of Needs and Wants by Kalynn Bayron and The Color of Sky on Earth by Rob Costello. They were just the right amount of "obvious" in what they were trying to say to me as a reader, but at the same time were very original and trusted that I would understand their message without them having to spell it out.

Other honorable mentions:
How to Summon Me, by Val Howlett
A Serpent and a Wish, by Shae Carys
Bonne Nuit, by Claire Kann
The Girl with 13 Shadows, by Merc Fenn Woolfmoor

I didn't like all of the stories, but since I loved a few of them I would definitely recommend this collection!

This was such a fun and heart-palpating read! The stories run the gambit from fairytale retellings with a horror twist, to true horror, to speculative fiction that leaves you with an eerie feeling. With such a wide range of content, it's easy for a ready to find a few favorites throughout the anthology. Anyone who has grown up with queer questioning feelings in themself can find solace in these pages and know that monsters are not always evil, and often should be embraced!

This was a fine short story collection! I did think it would be a lot more horror-y based on the title and cover, but it felt more like fantasy to me generally. The two stories that really stuck out to me and being good and being worth potentially expanding into full books were the Bloody Mary story and Kalynn Bayron's story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!!

I loved this sooo much. Anytime I can read a queer horror anthology I will jump on it 100%. This was definitely one of my favorites. While the stories were all amazing, I’ll highlight my top 5.

How To Summon Me- Val Howlett
Be Not Afraid- Michael Thomas Ford
Boys Who Run With the Boars- Sam J Miller
The House of Needs and Wants- Kaylnn Bayron
The Girl With Thirteen Shadows- Merc Finn Wolfmoor

I will never pass up any books like this, and you shouldn’t either. I highly recommend this for anyone who loves monsters and metaphors and things that go bump in the night.