This YA horror anthology is built out of stories that center queer POC characters. Also, they all take place on Halloween during a blue moon. This was supposed to be one of my spooky season reads, except I found the concept of it so cool that I couldn’t wait until fall. After all, any season can be spooky if you look at it right.

Most of the stories here had pretty cool premises and takes on the concept, but alas, only a few really stuck with me, most of them grouped together around the first half of the book. The earliest is Guested by Rebecca Kim Wells is one half weird secret society horror, one half thoughtful exploration of siblings estrangement. I really loved how unexpected the ending was—I really thought it was going in a slightly different direction. 

Rocky Road with Caramel Drizzle by Kosoko Jackson is probably my favorite out of the whole selection, mixing together demons and ouija boards and gay bashing aftermath and a really messy complicated friendship and small town politics. There’s enough here for a full-length novel, and I’d love to read that novel given the chance, but the short story absolutely packs a punch.

Next there’s The Three Phases of Ghost-Hunting by Alex Brown, a great palate cleanser after the heaviness of Rocky Road. It’s a perfect blend of campiness and friends-to-lovers sweetness, set on a mall haunted by a pirate’s  ghost and written with the kind of humor that had me snorting out loud every page or two. Despite being horror, this is really a very sweet story.

Another gem is Leyla Mendoza and the Last House on the Lane. I loved the style here, the second-person narration, the deep delve into the themes of figuring out gender, and trying to belong, and all that teenage awkwardness of feeling too different and not enough of whatever you think you should be. The way the horror tropes are tied to this narrative is beautiful and, I would say, extremely hopeful.

As for the other nine stories in the anthology, I can’t outright complain about any of them; like I’ve said, they all have great concepts and premises. It’s just that, other than maybe a stray line here or there, they didn’t really touch me much. But I do feel that even for just the four stories that did, the book was worth reading.