Unnatural Creatures. Stories Selected by Neil Gaiman {Goodreads}
Published by HarperCollins in 2013
Paperback edition; 462 pages {BookDepository}
Unnatural Creatures is an anthology, collected by Neil Gaiman,
which holds 16 short stories about peculiar and fantastical creatures from
werewolves and griffins to mermaids or even snake-speaking girls that only have
place in our imagination.
What made
me pick this up was that it sounded quite interesting but unfortunately, though
I enjoyed some of the stories, the general feeling Unnatural Creatures left me was a tad meh-ish. I had a hard time
going through some of the stories; they were dry and dull and in some cases,
predictable. I even have to DNF one of them because I couldn’t bring myself to
finish it and that isn’t something I tend to do. I finish everything I start
reading but I just couldn’t this time and I didn’t wanna force it. Yet, as a whole it was a very aesthetically appealing; the design is gorgeous and more often than not I found myself admiring the cover and the illustrations before each story.
Denying there
are some fascinating ideas within this collection would be lying and most of
the stories were rather original and the ones I truly enjoyed the most were
brilliant and left me in awe; there is a beautiful story about a griffin and
his relationship with a minor canon; another about a quest and a very witty
main character who decides to help the right person; a story about a laughing
cockatoucan fascinated me and another about a girl, a tree and a “dragon” melted
my heart and there is even one about death, very straightforward that one was,
which closed the anthology greatly I believe.
However, I
don’t think the entire book, all 16 unusual stories, met my expectations. My
disappointment is rather obvious but it doesn’t mean any other reader couldn’t
enjoy this. This simply wasn’t for me.
