Joe Hill

The Pram

This was my first Joe Hill read and, given my distaste for his father's writing, I am surprisingly impressed. The Pram centers around the often overlooked topic of the grief men feel dealing with miscarriage. Hill does a great job, in such a short format, of letting the reader wade into the psyche of a grieving husband who has offered up his livelihood to shield his wife during her post-miscarriage depression. Having never made room for his own grief, the husband begins to lose his grip on reality. Hill also seamlessly weaves in elements of our post-pandemic existence (including loss of olfactory senses) to enhance the story, which was a great touch. The tone of the story's ending was quite rushed in comparison with the rest, but overall The Pram is an excellent story for creepy season. 👨‍🍼☠️

Ashlyn

This is story 1 of Amazon’s short story collection Creature Feature. I love that these releases include the kindle and the audible version for each.

As this is the first story, I figured Hill had to have written a pretty stellar jumping off point for the collection, and I wasn’t wrong. This is a strong short story, and although undoubtedly horror, it really focuses much more on grief and loss than anything else for most of it, turning to terrifying horrors only at the end. The main character is grasping at straws in his denial.

It’s interesting that the story mentions COVID, but doesn’t go into it. The character simply had it, losing his sense of smell, and therefore he cannot smell the festering pram.

Very atmospheric and psychological, the ability to take readers through a journey in such a short amount of time is something I’d love to learn. Personally a 4/5*.

C. J. Daley 

This is story 1 of Amazon’s short story collection Creature Feature. I love that these releases include the kindle and the audible version for each.

As this is the first story, I figured Hill had to have written a pretty stellar jumping off point for the collection, and I wasn’t wrong. This is a strong short story, and although undoubtedly horror, it really focuses much more on grief and loss than anything else for most of it, turning to terrifying horrors only at the end. The main character is grasping at straws in his denial.

It’s interesting that the story mentions COVID, but doesn’t go into it. The character simply had it, losing his sense of smell, and therefore he cannot smell the festering pram.

Very atmospheric and psychological, the ability to take readers through a journey in such a short amount of time is something I’d love to learn. Personally a 4/5*.