Beneath a Pale Sky by Philip Fracassi

I received Beneath a Pale Sky in the June 2021 Night Worms package and I was excited to read it. Short story collections are nice because they usually feature a wide variety of stories and you're likely to find at least a few that you enjoy. This book features 6 stories previously published elsewhere, and two new stories Philip Fracassi wrote exclusively for this collection (Harvest and The Wheel).

Beneath a Pale Sky features tales about a raging tornado, a fateful night out, the anxiety that comes with moving to a new town, alien creatures, mental illness (ID reminds me of House of Leaves), and more.

Originally, I was going to rate each story, but I decided not to do that because I can't separate the stories themselves from the way they made me feel while reading them. The fact that they were able to draw a strong reaction from me means that they're well written, but at the same time, it also made me not want to continue reading them. It's a kind of horror I wasn't expecting, something I would typically stay away from because it's almost too realistic. That's not a negative thing, mind you, unless you're like me and your emotions get the best of you and you're already an anxious person by nature. So I guess I'm writing this more as a warning. These stories are terrifying. They include a lot of violence and gore. You should be aware that some stories deal with suicide, depression and sexual abuse. For me, reading The Wheel was extremely upsetting, as someone who lives in New York and remembers everything about 9/11, it played on a fear I've had since that day. It's even mentioned in that story.

 If you enjoy horror that has a touch of realism to it, I think you'd really like this book. It's not all based on reality, but you can find it there. A few of these stories seem like they could be complete fantasy, depending on which angle you look at it from. If you're like me and you can't read something as just a story and you sit there and think about it long after you've finished reading, then maybe skip over this one.