Paul Tremblay presents a series of short stories, flash fiction and a novella in this new collection of horror themed stories.
I'm a massive fan of Tremblay's longer form writing, particularly his novels A Head Full of Ghosts and Cabin at the End of the World but this collection didn't quite resonate with me the way those books did.
Tremblay experiments with a range of narrative styles including a story purely told by email exchanges, while many of the tales are just two or three pages long.
There's some gold to be found here but too many of these stories were a miss for me.

I think this collection of short stories was totally going to be an overall 4 star read for me, with certain stories being 5 star spooky or twisted reads. And then I got to the last “short” (I say this as it was in no way a short story) story and got completely confused. Poetry, 2 different stories rolled into one and quite hard to grasp at the start. This is also the story that the book is named after. However I did stick with it and really enjoyed it although I did see the ending coming. Over all book went from a 4 star to 3 star.

DNFed at 50%

This is a strange collection of horror/weird fiction that didn't quite click with me. The collection felt a little cobbled together and I didn't quite sense a theme or really 'get' a lot of the stories in the book.

I tend to think of short story collections as very similar to music albums. In some cases it’s one particular type of story again and again and again. On others lots of range and in some the artist surprises us by something you wouldn’t expect them to be able to try. Paul Tremblay is both a horror author and also a fan of the weirder side of fiction and in The Beast You Are: Stories with stories exploring both sides of an author but not perhaps will grab each author’s readers at the same time.

Among the tales I enjoyed were

(Ice Cold Lemonade - 25cents crossed out) Haunted House Tour - 1 per Person - a startling first tale of a successful horror author named Paul being disturbed by a memory of his childhood. The almost autobiographical nature of this tale gives it the feel of a confessional. Tremblay pulls us into this child’s game of a haunted house tour that gradually makes us great what is to come. Tremblay managed to creep us out, make us laugh and then terrify us by looking at the aftermath as the real more vaguer horror makes its presence known. Is that simply getting old or something nastier lurking nearby? The tale leaves it for us to decide.

Mean Time - a much shorter take of a man in town known for tracing paths in chalk around town. Then the narrator messes a path up. It’s a melancholy tale of random children being cruel but we get to feel the shame of what this died to a harmless man all alone in a city. A different kind of horror.

I Know You’re There - May be my favourite tale in the collection. Silas has suddenly lost his husband David. A man he finds dead on the floor after coming home - apparently due to a heart attack. He tells three people three different tales on what he found. Now this can be a tale of horror of the supernatural kind but for me more the horror of grief this royal separation of you from a loved one and how it could affect people. As things get explained to us the ending is one of the most devastating I’ve read.

The Postal Zone - The Possession Edition - has the return of Karen Brisette from A Headful of Ghosts - but this time dealing with the strange mail her articles generated. Funny and as readers of SF magazines can attest quite accurate.

Red Eyes - a strange childhood tale of a family meeting giant monsters. It’s Dahl-like and dark.

The Blog At The End of The World - another favourite and strangely not a pandemic tale! A young woman tells us about her experiences with strange deaths and we get a host of blogger comments some with sympathy, anger and conspiracy theories. The horror here how familiar this will sound.

Them: A Pitch - a tale told in the form of a comic outline. Impressively this tale simply of no dialogue. This post-apocalyptic tale is impressively scary.

House of Windows - a much weirder and powerful tale of a town suddenly finding a mysterious doorless building. The unsettling feeling of things not being right without any actual horror builds and builds and we get the feeling something horrible is coming but not sure exactly what. Very engaging.

The Last Conversation - a SF tale of a man waking up with no idea who he is. His unseen companion aids his recovery but he senses hidden agendas. It’s a tale building tension and yet also has moments of warmth and despair.

Mostly Size - a giant monster attack inspires a poem - managed to be strange and almost tragic.

The Party - a woman and her girlfriend arrive at a strange office party where she is told the end of the world is being celebrated. I loved how this makes us understand the couple and their dynamics and then the tale doesn’t make us get easy answers. Things aren’t right but we have no idea why and that makes things worse.

I’m going to highlight half the book is The Beast You Are which is a strange verse novella of talking animals and young children selected to meet a monster. It wasn’t really working for me but others may enjoy it.

Overall a very interesting collection showing us all the facets of an author who knows how to scare, surprise and puzzle you. Worth a look.

I'm a big fan of Paul Tremblay's work and I was excited to read his latest collection of short stories, The Beast You Are. I was impressed by the variety and creativity of his horror stories, which range from psychological to supernatural to cosmic. He also brings back some familiar characters from his previous books, like Karen Brissette, Merry, and Marjorie, but in different contexts and perspectives. My favourite story in the collection was "I Know You Were There", which was a haunting and emotional tale of grief and guilt. It gave me chills and made me look over my shoulder.

Of course, not every story in the collection was a hit for me. Some of them felt too short or too vague to have a lasting impact. I also felt that the collection lacked a clear theme or connection between the stories. It seemed more like a random assortment of Tremblay's works than a curated selection. However, if you're a fan of Paul Tremblay's novels or if you enjoy horror stories in general, I'd recommend giving The Beast You Are a chance. You'll probably find something to appreciate and enjoy in this collection.

I've been wanting to read Paul Tremblay for a bit but this didn't live up to expectations. I don't know if it's because it's short stories but this feels really exploratory in a way that doesn't always work out. There are definitely some gems in there but also far too much that just didn't feel like it worked.

I’ve read a lot of Paul’s works and have loved them all equally. I was a little disappointed in the last half of this book, I much preferred the first half with all its creepiness and scariness. The last half, just didn’t hit the nail on the head for me. It didn’t feel like Paul’s work but that of someone else.

I never thought I would say this because I am a big fan of Paul Tremblay books but I hated this book so much. I didn't understand almost any of the stories and most of them were so boring.
I think the one I liked best was pandemic one but the rest just fell flat for me.

I had to DNF this about halfway through. This is really my bad for requesting another Paul Tremblay short story collection after not enjoying previous ones, but I was hoping for more.

None of these stories feel like complete ones on their own. Either they tie into previous Tremblay works (also a problem with his other collection) or they just aren't really full stories. Most resemble a stream of consciousness with little resolution or strong sense of anything. I'm not asking for a ton of detail or stuff to happen, but the stories should be about something. I shouldn't read something for four pages and then go 'wait, that was it?'.

I really wanted to enjoy this but it isn't for me

I'm not sure why I didn't like these, but for sure, I didn't find them scary. I DNF-ed halfway. I've read other books by the author and loved those.

This was a mixed bag. The stories I really enjoyed (House of Windows, The Last Conversation, and The Large Man) were the most fleshed out. Unfortunately they're peppered between stories that read more like brief outlines or germs of a good idea that never progressed. There's a sprinkling of what I consider outtakes or alternative scenes from Paul Tremblay's stand alone novels (most notably A Head Full of Ghosts.)

I went into this knowing the novella, The Beast You Are, was formatted as a epic poem. I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did! Poetry, high fantasy, politics and animal-people are not things I look for in books but it managed to hold my interest the most out of all the work in this collection. Probably because it was the one with the most cohesive storyline.

I would recommend this to fans of Paul Tremblay's writing, but I think it would be a difficult entry point for someone who has never read any of his novels before.

I received this arc for free on netgalley in exchange for a review.

The Beast You Are: Stories is a collection of short works by best-selling author, Paul Tremblay. I’ve not read this author before but after hearing the hype about his novels, I was excited to pick up this one up. The first thing I’d note about this one is that there are fifteen stories of varying lengths and styles. Some are very short, and one is written in free verse. I liked how the author at the end of the book gave a description of what inspired each story. Some of the pieces in this I enjoyed and some I didn’t. This collection was interesting but I think I’ll read one of his full-length novels next. I’ve got a copy of Head Full of Ghosts to Read next and am looking forward to diving into that.

I just couldn't get into this. I had to DNF after rereading the same page about 9 times. I've rated 3 stars as I think this is a personal clash with the author's style more than a fault of the writing
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