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4.5 stars
I’ve definitely been on a Matt Wesolowski kick this year, I think it’s safe to say I’m a tiny bit obsessed, a lot freaked out, and HECKING excited for his new book that Goodreads tells me is coming out next year?! @orendabooks hit me up if you need reviewers, I’m devastated I’ve now finished all the Six Stories available! But I think the beauty of these books, with their podcast format, is that the possibilities are endless! If you’ve got the imagination, which Wesolowski definitely does, then there are innumerable stories to tell in this compulsive format.
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This ‘episode’ of Six Stories features the (fictional, to be clear) case of Arla Macleod, a young woman from the north west of England who bludgeoned three members of her family to death at 21. Grim, I know. Arla was sentenced to life in a mental facility, thought to be suffering psychosis. Scott King, host of the Six Stories podcast, speaks to six people close to Arla at some point in her life to try to shed some light on why she did what did - but, and there’s always a but with these books, King finds himself under threat from internet trolls as this set of podcasts airs.
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I think this one was my favourite of the three so far. It incorporated themes of mental health and bullying alongside hair-raisingly creepy Japanese and Korean urban legends and rituals. You know those kind of dangerous games you read about in the deepest darkest corners of the internet and fear starts to blacken the edges of your vision as you discover the supposed consequences these games have had... The trolling part also froze my blood, any mention of the dark web and the trolls that lurk there always has me wanting to delete my social media accounts...
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If I haven’t convinced you yet to give Wesolowski a try, he writes truly engaging modern horror, remaining sensitive to various issues while not holding back on the scares! If I had one complaint here it’s that I wish the ending had been left more open-ended, but that’s just me.
I’ve definitely been on a Matt Wesolowski kick this year, I think it’s safe to say I’m a tiny bit obsessed, a lot freaked out, and HECKING excited for his new book that Goodreads tells me is coming out next year?! @orendabooks hit me up if you need reviewers, I’m devastated I’ve now finished all the Six Stories available! But I think the beauty of these books, with their podcast format, is that the possibilities are endless! If you’ve got the imagination, which Wesolowski definitely does, then there are innumerable stories to tell in this compulsive format.
.
This ‘episode’ of Six Stories features the (fictional, to be clear) case of Arla Macleod, a young woman from the north west of England who bludgeoned three members of her family to death at 21. Grim, I know. Arla was sentenced to life in a mental facility, thought to be suffering psychosis. Scott King, host of the Six Stories podcast, speaks to six people close to Arla at some point in her life to try to shed some light on why she did what did - but, and there’s always a but with these books, King finds himself under threat from internet trolls as this set of podcasts airs.
.
I think this one was my favourite of the three so far. It incorporated themes of mental health and bullying alongside hair-raisingly creepy Japanese and Korean urban legends and rituals. You know those kind of dangerous games you read about in the deepest darkest corners of the internet and fear starts to blacken the edges of your vision as you discover the supposed consequences these games have had... The trolling part also froze my blood, any mention of the dark web and the trolls that lurk there always has me wanting to delete my social media accounts...
.
If I haven’t convinced you yet to give Wesolowski a try, he writes truly engaging modern horror, remaining sensitive to various issues while not holding back on the scares! If I had one complaint here it’s that I wish the ending had been left more open-ended, but that’s just me.