Book Review: Twisted Reveries by Meg Hafdahl
Content Warnings: violence, gore, domestic abuse
It’s always a pleasure to read anything by Meg Hafdahl. I was introduced to Hafdahl through her novels, the Willoughby Chronicles (a location that features in her short stories as well).
It’s no easy feat to write both novels and short stories. Writers usually excel at either one or the other. Hafdahl is a welcome exception. She is a compelling female voice in horror, adding a refreshing take on tired tropes.
Hafdahl presents a wide array of subjects for her stories, but returns repeatedly to several major themes. She questions the nature of morality, murder, and self-defense. She writes strong female leads who subvert traditional ideas of justice, taking revenge against those who abuse them. She also addresses mental illness, often giving it physical form and making it real for those who may not be familiar with its horrors.
Twisted Reveries is an excellent introduction to Hafdahl’s style. Each story is a perfectly packaged nugget of terror, just the right size to send a tingle down your spine, with enough punch to stick with you after the lights turn off.
BEYOND THIS POINT THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS
Moira Kettlesburg
Have you ever looked at a spinster and wondered about her past… Was she happy? Had she ever known love? What happened to her?
What if the secret of her solitude is not simple, but sinister?
What begins as a story of love lost and family drama becomes horrifying when we discover Moira’s memories hide the truth from her. The truth that her lover did not leave and that her sister has protected Moira from the darkness of his real nature all these years.
Flatlands
A family road trip takes a macabre turn when the children discover a motionless woman at a rest stop, staring out at the endless prairie. While that is spooky enough, things get even worse. The prairie seems to possess the young girl, filling her mind with violence.
What I like best about “Flatlands” is that Hafdahl does not feel the need to explain the phenomenon. Leaving the cause a mystery, leaving the final fate of the children a mystery, only heightens the tension and left me thinking about this long after I finished reading.
Guts
Guts is probably the most gruesome of the Twisted Reveries collection. Panic grips a hospital when unknown creatures emerge to attack patients, eating the diseased parts of them. Kelly, a woman with Crohn’s Disease, must go to great lengths to survive with her guts intact.
Again, Hafdahl doesn’t weigh down the narrative with explanations. No rationalization is necessary and any attempt would probably have taken away from the fright of the concept. We are better left with the unknown.
Hafdahl also keeps the scope of the story small. She does not explain the implications of this phenomenon for the wider world. It keeps the narrative tight and tense and left me wanting more.
Little Sister
“Little Sister” tells the story of Jessica, a woman lost in the woods and lost in her life. As she wanders through a forest she doesn’t know, she ponders her relationship with her ‘perfect’ sister, who would never find herself in such a situation.
As a story mostly about the character’s inner conflict and memories, “Little Sister” lacks the urgency of the other members of this collection. Hafdahl does keep some tension with the threat of exposure in the elements, but the story lacks action.
HOWEVER, this remains one of my absolute favorite short stories (ever) because of the twist ending. I legitimately did not see it coming. Hafdahl builds to it so beautifully. The clues are all there, sprinkled throughout. It was a satisfying and chilling end.
Underneath
While working in an ice cream shop, Dana has her day upended when a bloodied bride storms in, looking to barricade herself from something horrific that took place at her wedding. Things only become more bizarre when Dana accompanies the bride back to the venue in search of her missing husband.
“Underneath” was a viscerally disturbing story. From the beginning—with the descriptions of Dana’s habit of picking, scratching, and mutilating her skin—Hafdahl establishes a stomach-turning narrative.
I would have liked to see this story be shorter. I felt it meandered a little when the characters arrived at the wedding venue and faced the husband.
However, Hafdahl did successfully build dread throughout with the mystery of what exactly is happening with the bloody bride, right up to the discovery of what the husband had become and the final twist reveal of Dana’s true nature.
Everly
Everly is the grieving mother of dead twin girls. She lost purpose in her life after their death, but finds it again when she discovers that the ghosts of children gather at their old preschool, continuing their lives after death.
While the idea of the dead children continuing on was sweet, and I was glad that Everly did find some peace at the end, I was dissatisfied with this story. Grief is a difficult subject, one that each person faces in their individual way. However, in her characterization of Everly, Hafdahl portrays fatness as a moral failing, a result of laziness and not caring about oneself. I felt it was a poor choice as a vehicle to show the protagonist had given up on life. Additionally, when Everly finds her purpose again, she is magically cured of the ‘slovenly’ habits that had plagued her. Adorable child ghosts aside, “Everly” was a rare let down for me.
A Flash of Orange
A woman travelling to her family home for Thanksgiving is accosted by a series of predators: first a serial killer, then a pack of ravenous wolves.
“A Flash of Orange” was a wild ride from start to finish. At no point could I really predict where things were going. It was a great story of finding surprising strength in yourself, and of really putting personal disaster into perspective.
The Pit
In “The Pit”, a girl forms a supernatural friendship with a ravenous something that lives in the lake, occasionally feeding it her enemies, until it finally consumes someone she loves.
I loved “The Pit”. From the opening line to the very last, it wove love and hate and longing and jealousy and murder together into a symphony of emotion. The pit is such a simple vehicle for all the evil that lurks in the human psyche. It is never explained—like all good horror—leaving the mystery to haunt us.
Hannah Goes Home
Explaining “Hannah Goes Home” would ruin it. There is no good way to summarize a story that grips you from the start and drags you along through sin and redemption, madness and acceptance. You simply have to read it. It is one of the finest stories I’ve ever seen. It holds on to its secrets, rationing them out in little morsels of horror. Nothing is what you expect, nothing is what it seems.
“Hannah Goes Home” deals with the hardships of escaping your past, of never really being free from them. It also addresses mental illness in a poignant way rarely seen. There is despair throughout, and yet “Hannah Goes Home” ends with a note of hope that was undeniably satisfying.
There’s Something About Birds
A woman seeking solitude finds herself plagued by birds. Birds everywhere. If you weren’t ornithophobic before this, you will be.
“There’s Something About Birds” is a trippy, mind-bending look at mental illness and escapism. It addresses the very real fear of not being adequate, of not being enough, and of being trapped in a life you don’t want. It was a harrowing and bleak look at the pressures of ordinary life.
Dust
“Dust” is a fresh take on the Zombie Apocalypse, following a girl and her father as they discover that zombies retain some of their memories and personalities.
I don’t particularly like zombie stories, but I enjoyed dust for its ending. Hafdahl’s exploration into the nature of grief and what it means to let go was moving. The ending was a devastating conclusion for a compelling character.
The Rainbow Inn
Freddie runs the Rainbow Inn, a dilapidated motel she despises. She stays because she must, but the motel and Freddie share a secret, one that the Rainbow Inn is intent on punishing her for.
“The Rainbow Inn” is the rare story where the protagonist isn’t likeable, but she isn’t supposed to be likeable. Yet Hafdahl still manages to make us feel her desperation and pain. She paints a character who forms attachments we care about, even as we don’t care for her.
Willoughby
Something lurks in the dark in Willoughby, something that no one remembers once they’re safe.
“Willoughby” doesn’t have the thematic sophistication of the other stories in Twisted Reveries, but it is an action-packed narrative. It’s fun to read and leaves your heart pounding. It serves as an excellent introduction to the wider world of the Willoughby Chronicles.
If you enjoy “Willoughby”, be sure to pick up Hafdahl’s novel Her Dark Inheritance, the first in the Willoughby Chronicles.