Dinner is served... fresh.

Supper by Carolyn McCray*
September 2012 // Off Our Meds Multimedia
Kindle Edition, 39 pages
*you can find this title in her Don't Read After Dark box set

About the book:
Supper by Carolyn McCray is a short story reminiscent of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It is filled with gore, family, twists, and turns. This short story focuses on a group of co-eds that just so happen to get lost and stumble upon a home and decide to stay for supper.

My thoughts:
I thoroughly enjoyed this short story! I am a huge horror fan, so of course I have seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and when I saw this was basically the entire description provided for this book, I thought I'd give it a go. I had my suspicions that this would be a knock-off and not very original, and that did hold true. However it was still quite good and filled with it's own original twists. I thought the amount of gore was just right - enough to make me cringe, but not so much to make me toss the book aside. This balance is one that short stories seem to struggle with. Carolyn McCray did a fine job with that element. She also did a good job with the characters - in just a few pages I was interested in the co-eds connection to one another. She did throw in a few details that seemed silly and had no relevance to the story (ahem- calling out a character's sexual preference) but I can overlook that and assume her goal was to reach readers. The story moved fast and the plot had great little twists. A few were predictable, a few were not. Again - a good balance, in my opinion, for a short piece.
Overall, I truly enjoyed this short story. I have had it on my Kindle since it came out and am just now getting around to it... and now I am wondering why. I can no longer find it for purchase individually, so I linked the box set above that it is included in. I am probably going to purchase that box set because I am interested to see how her other short stories compare. I would recommend this to horror buffs and those looking for a quick creepy (and gory) read. Perfect fit for RIPX!

I read and reviewed this short story for RIPX

write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow

Image from Goodreads