This book is a collection of twelve short stories which start from magical realism and ends in pure fantasy.
Each story has its own soul and they all have the death theme around, either straight forward or mingled in the background.

I was able to get this as an AudioBook via Netgalley, so I'll start giving my opinions on the narrator.
She is good I enjoyed it, she makes nice voices, that being said its not my favorite, I found it a bit (just a bit) plain, I'd compare it to a chicken soup, its good, its tasty but hardly your favorite.

The book itself, honestly I hated the beginning, I had to use all of my strenght to not DNF this one, until around half of the book, basically the excerpt promised short fantasy stories and along with the cover I had certain expectations, basically I expected the whole book to have the same vibes as the last couple stories, which by the way are my favorite and in my opinion the ones who save this book, two stars are just because of these two stories, sadly I cannot give more since I hardly enjoyed the book overall.
( Gods of mine that story about the puppies was almost unbearable )
With all this being said, this is a book I'd recommend to purple readers, who enjoy the whimsy and the wild turns in a story.

The Sea Gives Up the Dead is a creepy and beautifully written collection of short stories. The writing feels very poetic.
The horror builds slowly, focusing more on atmosphere and tension than on gore. It’s the kind of story that gets under your skin and stays with you.
The reason it’s not five stars is that some parts are a bit slow, and a few characters could have been more developed. But overall, the writing and mood are so strong that it’s a very satisfying read.
If you like poetic horror that’s more about mood and mystery than cheap scares, this is a great choice

I read a lot of short story collections and I'll come back and pick up more by Olguín, though I hope that before her next anthology she works on conclusions. It's a strength of short stories that they can be a tiny thought experiment, but that doesn't excuse the stories here that just stop mid-thought. My favorite story is the title of the collection, “The Sea Gives Up the Dead,” which is consistent from start to end. I also enjoyed the ways that many of the stories wove fairy tale themes into deeply human stories. The emotions generally felt right, even if the pay-off wasn't present. This is Olguín's first collection, so I think things will smooth out over time, or with longer works. Hers is a talent that will keep developing.

ARC provided by NetGalley.

This series of short stories were very diverse and engaging. They were fairly consistent in quality, though of course there are some I liked better. One of my favorites is the eponymous story "The Sea Gives Up the Dead" which tells a powerful story of family love and personal identity. I enjoyed how Molly Olguin uses subtle fantastical elements to add depth to the stories of realistic people. I am very interested in whatever stories Molly Olguin comes out with in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for providing an eALC in return for my honest thoughts.

Many thanks to Highbridge Audio and Molly Olguín for the advanced audio copy of The Sea Gives Up the Dead via NetGalley, in return for my honest and unbiased review. Quick note: I don’t recap plots in my reviews, as it’s easy enough to read the book’s synopsis and blurbs, I purely focus on my feelings & opinions of how the books makes me feel.
The Sea Gives Up the Dead is a collection of short stories focusing on death with a variety of speculative twists. Whether overt (dragons and bombs) or more vague (was that THE devil?), each story has its own dynamic.
I liked some of the tales more than others. Some felt incomplete or rushed, as if the author had thought of another perhaps and wanted to move on – or had his the word limit and couldn’t continue. I loved the dragonslayer nanny, it was one of the stories that has continued to stick with me long after I finished the book.
There is obviously a strong narrative of death, in many forms and approaches, which runs through each of the stories, with many varied subplots. There are also strong themes of family and identity, and what I assume would be South/Middle American/Hispanic/Latinx identities – but as someone in the UK I am not well enough informed on these identities to make an accurate assessment!
Unfortunately I was not a fan of the narrator at all. I had to stop to check that it was actually narrated by a person and not an AI-generated voice. Intonation was wrong on more than several occasions, especially in the first couple of stories, with sentences being emphasised incorrectly. There was no tension building, and no real engagement built with the audience. It was a real shame as it definitely affected my enjoyment and engagement with the material.
Moods: adventurous, dark, emotional, mysterious, sad
Tropes: fairy tale retelling, forbidden love, peril, unrequited love
Pace: medium
Character development: medium
Plot or character driven: 50/50
Diversity: medium
Trigger warnings: Animal death, Blood/Gore, Child abuse, Death, Death of a family member, Physical illness, Violence
Story: 3.5/5
Audio: 2/5
Rating: 5.5/10 = 3/5

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this audio ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A short story collection that will move you with each story. A mix of horror and fantasy, all somehow related to the sea literally and metaphorically, there might be some stories that appeal more than others, but it's a solid short story collection. I personally loved Esther and The Voice and will be recommending it to my older English students and some friends that are really into sci-fi. The nonchalant narration was the perfect way to get into some of the darker stories, not too over the top, its modulations quite scary in some of the stories.

The stories have, as once said Poe, the ideal length to gulp at a time and the mood to get you feeling a nice amount of unease. I will be looking into buying this collection soon if I have the chance.

Final Rating: 2/5
I have been trying, for a while, to find a short story collection that will finally push me over to this loved genre. This, however, was not it. The stories themselves had an eerie tone and if I am not mistaken there is a death in almost all of them. I cannot say that they were particularly relatable, I was not able to connect to the characters emotionally which is why there is not really much that I can say about the collection as a whole. It has been a few weeks since I finished the work and hoped that with time, as they say, the heart will grow fonder. But. That was not the case, as quite the opposite occurred (I am not able to recall all of the stories and have only vague details of some). On the positive side, the audio narrator did a great job with expressing emotions and voicing younger characters (the stories of which are most present in my memory). Overall, I do believe some people will find it much more enjoyable, but in the end I was not the target audience for this, no matter how much I wanted to be.
Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this novel.

Well this was a wild and horrifying collection of stories. Like, I wouldn't necessarily call it horror, per se, but a lot of these were kinda screwed up. I loved that about them. They feel like dark fairy tales, the original kind meant to scare children out of going into the woods, or in this case, California. There's a reverse Little Mermaid, a gold-star mother traveling to France while blaming herself for her son's death, a nanny fighting a dragon. A widow accidentally turns her deceased wife into an AI. A woman experiences motherhood, reluctantly, with a dog.
I think Olguin's strongest suit is knowing exactly when to stop. Abruptly and almost randomly, at the most unsettling spot, leaving you feeling like you were a little launched off a cliff and are suddenly hanging in the air with no more road map and then you get shot into the next story.
The narrator's voice was sometimes a little grating, but only when she went too high.

I did not enjoy this collection of short stories very much. I did not like the dull narrator, but maybe that was intentional.

The Sea Gives Up the Dead by Molly Olguin is a mixed bag of a short story collection. While the quality of the writing is consistently strong - thoughtful prose, compelling explorations of complex topics, and genuinely unique concepts - not every story lands with the same impact. A couple of the stories stood out as truly excellent, drawing me in with their atmosphere and emotional resonance. Others felt flat or dragged in places, making them less engaging despite their strong themes.

Overall, it’s clear that Olguin is a talented writer with a gift for nuance and originality. Even when a story wasn’t especially entertaining, it was still intellectually interesting. Readers who enjoy literary fiction with a touch of the unusual may find plenty to admire here, even if the collection as a whole isn’t uniformly gripping.

Thank you to Netgalley, Highbridge Audio, Molly Olguín and Red Hen Press for the advanced listener's copy of the audiobook!

I absolutely adore anthologies of any sort. Molly Olguín's compilation of The Sea Gives Up the Dead is nothing short of amazing. We all know the story of The Little Mermaid, but many of us also know the original, and far more horrific, story as written by Hans Christian Anderson. The exploration of horror stories derived from the contributors all explore elements of historical fiction, fantasy, fairy tales and horror to give us all unique and new stories that all have to do with the sea.

My favorite stories had to be Foam On The Waves, for even it was a new take on an old story, I remained shocked the whole time, and Clara Aguilera’s Holy Lungs, for it being the most realistic outcome within the fantasies. I did cry with the story of the dragon, but I am an empath and can't help who I am.

If you are interested in gripping, queer and feminist stories, this anthology series is for you! I would recommend the audiobook because Heather Kay Ling is a captivating voice as the narrator.

I love a well done short story collection especially when it’s from one author. I feel like you get to see a glimpse of their range.
This was excellent.
Some were gross, some were emotional, and some were both. It was a well rounded well done little audiobook.

Thanks to netgalley and high bridge audio for an alc

DNF. I found this book impossible to get into. The blurb had me hooked, and I expected fairy tales with a unique twist, but instead, the stories that I did read were very dark and unexpected, and not in a way that I enjoyed. There were also a few moments of sexism and fat-phobic language that were completely unnecessary.

I was highly intrigued by this collection of short stories which seems to be a mix of fairy tale inspirations, legends, and family drama. Though each story is fairly short, they are each different and rich with their content and way they weave the narrative.

In one story, a girl’s body is found after she is drowned and her body seems to not decompose in the way a body would. Over the course of the story, she is considered a saint and a couple other fantastical things happen as well. Another is about a nanny who falls in love with the woman of the house and a dragon is roaming their neighborhood. The nanny has to face off against the dragon near the end when something unfortunate happens.

I love that each story feels a bit unfinished, in a way. Not in a negative aspect but rather in a creative way which leaves the interpretation up to the reader. None of the stories link together but there the author’s writing still feels consistent throughout. With the integration of magic, a bit of horror, a but of realism, and fairy tales, this collection of stories is well worth the read .

This collection of short stories were in a fairytale type setting with horror elements, fantasy elements, etc which was cool but it wasn't quite for me as it didn't really keep me wanting to read and it wasn't very memorable. I also didn't care for the narrator - at the beginning, more so, I could hear the saliva in her mouth which is a personal problem that I zone in on it.

This was an interesting collection of short stories — it was more realistic fiction than I’d expected from the blurb (maybe half of them were speculative fiction), but I’m not complaining. Some of the more speculative stories were very Black Mirror-esque, and I think they were well done. Sometimes that kind of story can feel way too blunt or heavy-handed. I enjoyed what a lot of the stories had to say about loss, and I liked the audiobook narrator.

I love a good collection of stories, especially the type that make you want the author to turn each of them into a full on novel and this was exactly that. I enjoyed the abstract nature of a lot of the stories and the general vibes.

A collection of short stories taking inspiration from fairy tales. I enjoyed how these stories were told, some with horror elements, some more fantasy, and they were definitely readable. However they unfortunately weren't very memorable for me.
I also had a bit of an issue with the audiobook narrator as they spoke incredibly slowly.

The Sea Gives Up the Dead is a collection of short stories, some historical, some Magical Realist, and all a delight to read.

Osguin’s prose is clean, her stories are to a one complete and full—no plot holes to be found! No stories feeling hollow for a lack of theme, character, plot, or even world!—and though they cover a variety of genres and explore a variety of experiences, I found them all to be connected by a melancholy sensibility that doesn’t diminish in the wake of the fantastical when it shows up. I love her Latina protagonists and the way their experiences shape their points of view, and the way the intersection of ethnicity and gender makes room for such a diversity of voices and tales.

Speaking of, I can’t recommend the audio version of this book enough—these stories made to be told aloud, and the narrator’s cadence and voice do the telling perfectly. I didn’t feel like I was listening to a recording, but rather a person telling me stories sitting in the same room as me.

I recommend The Sea Gives Up the Dead audiobook for readers who only have small pockets of time to dedicate to a story, and so want those moments to be full and fantastical.

I enjoyed the weirdness of all the stories, and while they were weird and creepy, they sometimes make you think harder about the short story told. The narrator, Heather Kay Lings melodic voice makes these stories seems like bedtime stories. I am excited to read more from this author as this debut short story collection deserves a standing ovation. This is definitely a book you want to have for a re-read because its way to hard to choose a favorite story. Thank You NetGalley, Highbridge Audio. and Molly Olguin for the ALC for my honest review.