Maika reviewed Rag: Stories by Maryse Meijer
Review of 'Rag' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
After reading Rag, Meijer’s second collection of short fiction, I’ve decided that she’s created her own genre of horror fiction. It’s an insidiously sneaky sort of horror. It’s SO incredibly unsettling and in so many different ways, all while people are just…being human. I think it’s the way these stories are dressed in abject mundaneness (to say nothing of the quality with which they’re written) that makes them so disturbing. Perhaps it’s like the difference between reading or watching horror and actually experiencing it as one of the characters therein. While there are, of course, exceptions, those characters generally don’t realize they’re walking into a haunted house or that there is a monstrous killer on the loose in their neighborhood or summer camp. You pick up a Stephen King novel and you know that, one way or another, something freaky is headed your way. With Meijer’s stories you are absolutely …
After reading Rag, Meijer’s second collection of short fiction, I’ve decided that she’s created her own genre of horror fiction. It’s an insidiously sneaky sort of horror. It’s SO incredibly unsettling and in so many different ways, all while people are just…being human. I think it’s the way these stories are dressed in abject mundaneness (to say nothing of the quality with which they’re written) that makes them so disturbing. Perhaps it’s like the difference between reading or watching horror and actually experiencing it as one of the characters therein. While there are, of course, exceptions, those characters generally don’t realize they’re walking into a haunted house or that there is a monstrous killer on the loose in their neighborhood or summer camp. You pick up a Stephen King novel and you know that, one way or another, something freaky is headed your way. With Meijer’s stories you are absolutely in for it, but there’s also absolutely no telling what is going to be amiss. It’s all just so dark, jagged, and raw, which is exactly how I described the contents of Heartbreaker, Meijer’s first short story collection. It disturbs me to my core and I love it.