Haunted: Anthology by Various

Not all of these stories have ghosts.

No Summary was given with this book. Spooky.

I found this random Anthology in the library. Yes, it was in the kids section but as always that is not a excuse for the level of bad in these the stories. Most of these authors are unknown to me and none of the stories have made me motivated to go out to find more about the authors I wasn't already aware of before. As always I have review each stories, though this time I didn't review each one straight after listening.

The Castle Ghosts by Joseph Delaney - Spooky castle I saw the ending coming for miles. 3/5 stars for mysterious contents.

The Caretakers by Susan Cooper - This story was ruined for me straight off the bat by the protagonist describing her brother James as "not being autistic but something that has no name". He's autistic. Unless you actually going to give a diagnosis of something else then don't bring up the fact that the character with clearly autistic traits is not autistic. Maybe because an autistic person will be listening to the audio book adaptation of your story and be done with your shit. I don't really rate much besides the 'not autistic thing'. It's yourstandard creepy haunted house/island story. The title doesn't work, it's just a straight up misdirect and think this would have been more interesting from James POV instead of someone with no character traits at all. 2/5 stars for Lake screaming. 1/5 stars for Ableism.

 Good Boy by Mal Peet -  I liked this one. It's  not obvious in execution and creepy concept that would be terrifying. 4/5 stars for dog paws.

The Blood Line by Jamila Gavin - This story contains two actual creepy things: Mirrors and Work houses. Except has really complicated and convoluted way of getting the main character into the story and distracts from everything else. This story could worked, but didn't for me. 3/5 stars for monkey thief.

The Ghost in the Machine by  Eleanor Updale - This one really works as an audio book (story?), though I was promised pictures. I did actually think something had went wrong with my phone when this came on, like it was really weird virus I was listening to while in Waterstones. I also actually felt for the character in this one as well. 4/5 stars for high-tech ghosts.

Songs the Dead Sing by Derek Landy -This is a lot of darker than the other stories (except maybe the first one) in that involves Cult Murder and appropriately I was listening to it while trying to find the toilet in an old building  4/5 stars for lying leaders.

The Beach Hut by Robin Jarvis - This one was okay, it tried, but felt rather cope outy, probably due to this being aimed at kids and adults like to think  kids can't handle the extreme. I found the main ghost in this to be too annoying to deal with and therefore that end the ghostly experience there for me. 2.5 stars for mouthfuls of sea water. Also the voice actor is really whinny sounding.

The Praying Down of Vaughan Darkness by Sam Llewellyn - The framing of this story is unnecessary and doesn't stick to it well. There's a good idea in here but is not done well. 3/5 stars for cheesy breath. 

The Ghost Walk by Matt Haig - This story takes a lot of clichés and doesn't do much with them. Not at all creepy and an bad attempt to tell the Hitchhiker ghost story. What happens in this story could just be someone messing with them. 2/5 stars for pointless umbrella. 

The Ghost Wood by Philip Reeve - Meh. Another featuring dreaming about dogs. 3/5 stars for wood stones. 

The Little Ship's Boy by Berlie Doherty - Dumb and obvious. 1/5 stars for drowning. 

Overall, I give this 3/5 stars for dog clichés. I don't know if the writers were given prompts for this, but the similarity between these stories actually made the worse ones worst. There were some decent stories in here; the majority were just meh. The voice actors varied from good to terrible. I wouldn't recommend this book as a whole but there are some decent stories buried here. A library pick up sort of book.