The Stray Reader

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Author:	Iain Rob Wright
Genre(s):	➡️ Short Stories ➡️ Contemporary Horror ➡️ Fiction
Series? Series Order: Series Title:	✅ Yes Chapter 6 A-Z of Horror
Goodreads Rating:	⭐4.10 (81 ratings; 12 reviews)
Personal Rating:	⭐ 3.5 / 5 Overall

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🛑 Spoiler Warning 🛑

I might be recounting events, characters, and themes so THIS MIGHT BE FULL OF SPOILERS.

If you’d like to read a review with the spoilers hidden, kindly head to my Goodreads post. You don’t need an account to read it. 🙂

🗒️ BLURB 🗒️

Thirteen-year old Max is interested in one thing only: girls. Which is why his dreams come true when his lame caravanning holiday with his parents is interrupted by the arrival of three pretty girls his own age. They think Max is cute and want to hang out with him. It’s just too good to be true.

They visit the nearby woods. It’s supposed to be haunted, ever since a girl died there. Max doesn’t care about that, though. He’s only interested in one thing: girls.

They’ll be the death of him.

Short Story by bestselling author, Iain Rob Wright,

Source: Goodreads

🌟Review (3/5) 🌟

A hormone-driven teenage male gets lured into the woods by three teenage girls. I thought I saw where the plot was going but I was happily wrong. It would’ve been really disappointing if the plot was that simple.

The good things and the not-so-good things about this chapter ultimately balanced it out to a 3-star. The good things:

• The plot wasn’t fully predictable
• The way Max’s only motivation in the story overlapped with the story’s ‘monster’ actually felt cosmic
• I learned a new creature today

The con:

• The exposition of the history made by one of the girls was a little too on the nose. There could’ve been greater suspense if Max had a suspicion and looked up the previous homicide case on his own. It just made the story more shallow but the writing style mostly made up for that.

So if you’re looking for a 20-minute read about teenagers making stupid decisions provoking bad omen, here’s a sign! You can read this short story in the book called A-Z of Horror. You can check it out on Amazon. It’s free to read through Kindle Unlimited!