I wasn't really sure what to expect when I started Doll Seed but I was pleasantly surprised. I really enjoyed how subtle the stories were and complex at the same time. I didn't connect with every story but I can appreciate the attempt and unique messages each story had.

The cover is unique and interesting but appears more juvenile than I would normally go for.

I would read more from the author especially a full novel. I'm interested to see more from her.

Thank you to NetGalley, Michele Tracy Berger and Aunt Lute Books for the opportunity to read Doll Seed. I have written this review voluntarily.

The collection of stories in this book was something else and the sci-fi/supernatural mashup was genius. Each story brought its own brand of excitement and intrigue. I kind of am interested in exploring more of this author's creations - they're officially on my radar!

I would like to thanks the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC. This review is posted on november 15th on Goodreads.

This collection of novellas was a delight.

I really really liked most of them, they were all really different but in a sens they were really well assorted together, in the writing and the weird whimsy they bringed.
The first one really set the tone for the rest of the book.

I didn't really know what to expect with this book and I was really please with it. The cover really appealed to me with the dolls and the colors, it absolutely catch my eyes so I was really excited about the novella with the same name as the title. It ended up being one of my favorite!
A story about sentients dolls trying to choose a human but everything went bad. This was a really good story and took my heart.

I really liked Urban Wendy and Grinding Disney. They bringed back the Creepy pasta vibed I loved when I was younger!

I recommand !

Michele Tracy Berger’s Doll Seed: Stories is a powerful and thought-provoking collection that explores themes of resilience, identity, and transformation through an intriguing speculative lens. This collection of stories is both eerie and empowering, seamlessly blending the supernatural with raw, human experiences. Berger’s writing style is vivid and lyrical, pulling readers into richly crafted worlds that are as haunting as they are revealing.

Interesting short story set that has some very varying strengths in each story. 3.5 stars rounded up. tysm for thea rc.

An uneven collection, but definitely worth giving it a try.

I love Michele Tracy Berger's imagination and creativity and I'll honestly come back for seconds. The premises were always fun, unique and intriguing and I was hooked from the very beginning. The way they unfolded in the longer stories worked especially well and showed true narrative and world-building skills. I liked the diversity of settings and plot, and I found the historical atmosphere absolutely charmingly executed. Overall, it felt like Berger really had fun writing these, therefore they were of course fun to read, playing with our expectations, archetypes etc. There was something very communicative about the narration, the tone and the pace of each story. Almost all of them felt lively, as if made to be read aloud, or told around a camp fire. However, I must say I didn’t enjoy the shorter stories as much, they were just too short and ended up almost always being a bit lacklustre. The premise was good, as always, but I needed more to be fully sold on them.

Nussia - 4/5
Urban Wendy - 3/5
Etta, Zora and the First Serpent : 3,75
Family Line - 3,25
Doll Seed - 4,5
The Curl of Emma Jean - 3/5
The Wishing Well off Fordham Road - 4,25+
Grinding Disney/What the Slots Hold/The Lineup/Miss Black Little Hill of 1965 – 3-
The Invisible Son - 3,25
New Employee Orientation Guide for Snatch Day - 4,25
And They Will Rise From the Oceans- 4
Cemetery Sisters - 4

3,25/5

Thank you to the author & NetGalley for an arc!

3.5⭐️ Doll Seed is a collection of highly creative stories told across multiple genres, with a focus on race & gender. The stories were all interesting, but my favorites were Urban Wendy, The Family Line, Miss Black, and Employee Guide. Short stories are difficult to write, and this collection was very well done. I will keep an eye out for future works by this author!

I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy short story collections that lean into fantasy or sci-fi.

Doll Seed by Michele Tracy Berger is an evocative collection of short stories that deftly intertwines elements of horror and psychological insight. Each tale explores themes of identity, motherhood, and the uncanny, leaving readers with a haunting sense of wonder and unease. Berger’s rich prose and vivid imagination make this collection a thought-provoking journey that lingers long after reading.

A fabulous collection of short stories!

I loved how varied the stories and unique the characters were. I wanted my own alien house guest (even with the possible consequences!) and I’d love to invite spirits in to help me in life. I got to live this vicariously through this collection.

I loved this collection and recommend it 100%!

This collection of short stories is spooky enough to make the reader think about their contents for a long time but they also represent a good deal of gender and race issues that can also be spooky.

I like that each story has their own essence while covering similar themes. One of my favorite stories was the title story "Doll Seed", having a background in psychology it amazed me to read about the events in the story from that perspective and it almost made me cry of how emotional it made me feel. Another story I enjoyed was "Cemetery sisters" because I've always liked the idea of hanging out at the cemetery (I'm alone most of the time.)
Both stories made me realize many different aspects of myself that I thought were silly, like the idea of meeting a ghost and talking to them or toys having a soul and purpose just like us humans.

Although I enjoyed reading these short stories, I felt a bit dumb reading some of them and not understanding their meaning or main idea behind them, especially the shortest ones. I am aware of the idea of just enjoying what you read but I like to challenge myself into getting to the meaning the author was trying to give to the stories and it was a bit difficult for me this time around.

this was a fun read, each story was interesting and thrilling. i will def be looking into this author more.

Doll Seed by Michele Tracy Berger is a genre bending short story collection that is the perfect mix of spooky and heart-wrenching. Within each of these stories, Berger builds dynamic characters that have clear motivations, from a young girl looking for a best friend, to a doll looking for her perfect home. Berger builds tension in each story, using horror and sci-fi elements to bring the characters’ desires or fears forward. The magic and horror intensified the emotion for me—creating multiple layers to the tension.

This was definitely a very unique collection, each story transported me to a new place and I really enjoyed them overall.

A short story collection with some sci fi and fantasy elements, but mostly horror focused short stories often dealing with topics of race and gender and the intersection thereof. While many of the stories have quite interesting bones, the meat was often lacking due to length and not enough development, which unfortunately is the reason for my low rating. I enjoyed many aspects that were presented in this horror collection, from the criticism of a patriarchal and sexist society and the way this story tackled racism. Many of the stories left me saddened for the characters, knowing that their struggles are still much too prevalent in todays’ society. I also liked the variety of horror presented here, as from folk horror to alien horror to very interesting looks at spiritualist horror as well as the human horrors all is present. However, some of the stories are so short I grew mainly confused at their inclusion and wish they had been removed to allow the other stories more room to breathe. The ideas are certainly often very interesting and even though the way the ideas were put down on paper didn’t always work for me, I still had an interesting time and I do think I want to check out more work by the author, particularly if she ever writes a longer piece in the horror genre as I believe that given some space to breathe and grow her stories could be a lot more interesting.
My favorite stories were Urban Wendy (for its interesting take on Urban Legends), Etta, Zora and the First Serpent (for its intriguing characters and the combination of spiritualism with the human monsters), The Curl of Emma Jean (for its look into a messy family story and the way it presents two deeply unlikeable characters), And They Will Rise From the Oceans (a story about a summoner feeling compelled to open a door to right a historical wrong, but maybe falling for the whispers of something much darker) & Cemetery Sisters (a young woman encounters two ghosts during her work at the graveyard, but soon finds herself in… grave danger… :P) and here underneath you can find the various short stories with some thoughts and the trigger warnings that apply:

Nussia: A little girl is part of the first family chosen to host an Alien on Earth. But will her excited dreams of a best friend become a reality when the Alien arrives? And how will racism and xenophobia influence their newfound status as not just the first family to host an Alien, but the first Black family? Very interesting writing style and my heart breaks for Lindsay, but it was a bit too long to fully keep my attention. tw: racism, drugs, forced institutionalization

*FAV* Urban Wendy: A former Wendy’s employee finds herself haunted by a little redheaded girl who wants her to return to her old job. Interesting and quite scary, which I really enjoyed. tw: attempted sexual assault, physical violence

*FAV* Etta, Zora, and the First Serpent: A fascinating look into Harlem, the life of a dancing girl and seances. I really liked the characters presented here and enjoyed the creeping dread that filled these pages as Etta first encounters human monsters and soon finds herself in even more danger as she turns to inhuman ones for help. tw: sexual assault, underage sex work, racism, past csa

Family Line: A sixteen year old boy visits his cousins in North Carolina and soon gets drawn into a dark ritual, interesting, but a bit too short for me to really enjoy it, tw: slavery, human sacrifice

Doll Seed: A doll in a toy store comes alive and soon faces convoluted social structures that the other dolls have made up, heartbreaking in its exploration of racism both from the other dolls and from humans, but I wish this story had dived a bit deeper into this world of living toys that it created. tw: n slur, anti-black racist language, suicide

*FAV* The Curl of Emma Jean: two sisters await their father’s inheritance when the heritage of one sister’s kid becomes a topic of contention, interesting character study of two siblings and I enjoyed the dread that built even though not a lot happened in the story, tw: past drug addiction, messy supernatural sex of dubious consent involving (dream) animals, torture, anti black racism, ableism

The Wishing Well Off Fordham Road: A small neighborhood suddenly sports its own wishing well, but our protagonist is not sure she can really trust the creature, interesting concept, but I could have done without the ableist language in it, heartbreaking exploration of a lost woman’s thoughts and feelings, but I would have liked a deeper exploration of wishes gone wrong, since the topic was brought up, tw ableist language against little people (unexamined), sexual assault, body horror, death

Grinding Disney: A very short gorey story about exactly what the title promises, intriguing concept, but I would have liked more exploration of the why, tw murder, gore

What the Slots Hold: A Greek goddess revenge on casinos, okay, but again, very short and so not interesting enough

The Lineup: A very short story about a neighborhood bully who performs a dangerous stunt, feels underexplored due to being so short

Miss Black Little Hill of 1965: A young wife’s dreams are shattered when her husband introduces her to his day job, okay, but again, too short, tw: threats of murder

The Invisible Son: A son and dad drug-selling duo and the night that changes their routine, the story is okay, but not exploring a particularly interesting idea, tw: drugs, murder

New Employee Orientation Guide for Snatch Day: A troll bridge senior home employee guide provides a yearly event for its elderly residents to remind them of the good old days of human snatching, a very intriguing idea and I enjoy the writing style

*FAV* And They Will Rise from the Oceans: A Black spiritualist becomes obsessed with water demons and drags himself, his spouse and his congregation ever further into their depths after a recent trip to Africa, I really enjoyed the way this story interwove Black history with spiritualist ideals as well as the yearning love of a woman for her spouse and the horror of dealing with beings you don’t fully understand, very well written and interesting tw: slavery, mass murder

*FAV* Cemetery Sisters: A young woman stuck in a small town that separated from the rest of the world after an outbreak of disease finds herself hearing voices just like her mother, unsettling and with fascinating worldbuilding this combines post-apocalypse with hauntings and works as a really, really great ending of the anthology. tw: ableism, murder

• Nussia- 3.5
• Urban Wendy- 2
• Etta. Zara, and the First Serpent- 2.5
• Family Line- 2
• Doll Seed- 3.5
• The Curl of Emma Jean- 3
• The Wishing Well off Fordham Road- 3.5
• Grinding Disney- 1
• What the Slots Hold- 2
• The Lineup- 1
• Miss Black Little Hill of 1965- 3
• The Invisible Son- 3
• New Employee Orientation Guide for Snatch Day- 3
• And They Will Rise From the Oceans- 4
• Cemetery Sisters- 4

Thank you NetGalley for providing the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

3.5 stars

Doll Seed was so odd in such a good way. The shorter stories didn't seem to hit as good as the longer ones though. As a big fan of aliens, my favorite has to be "Nussia". Such an interesting collection. There were some odd pacing issues but sometimes it added to the weirdness of the stories. Speculative fiction is weird like that. Doll Seed is a book that I'm going to think about a lot actually.

This is a thematically cohesive collection of creepy, dark, and, at times, sad stories. Many of the nightmarish scenarios the stories depict are grounded in the legacies of slavery (“Family Line”), colourism, and systemic racism (“Nussia,” and “Doll Seed”). The collection starts off quite strong, but many of the stories at the 60-70% mark are merely a few pages long (sometimes just 1-2 paragraphs) and seem more like sketches rather than fully-fledged stories.

One of the stories that I felt had a lot of potential was “Urban Wendy,” which depicts a woman who is haunted by Wendy from the fast-food chain Wendy’s when she decides to quit her job and work at Dunkin’ Donuts instead. The combination of humour and horror made for an entertaining read, but the story ended too abruptly. I would’ve loved for the story to have been longer!

Overall, my favourites of the collection were “Nussia,” “Doll Seed,” “Urban Wendy,” “Family Line” and “Cemetery Sisters.” My rating reflects the collection as a whole, which wasn’t as strong as its individual parts.

It was a bit boring and I didn’t enjoy the writing style. The formatting on ebook was also not good, may work bette physically. Overall not enjoyable although I really wanted to love it.

While the themes of race were prominent, they sometimes felt forced or overly emphasized as the horror element. It would have been more impactful if the stories explored the deeper struggles of Black people/people of color in a more nuanced way, rather than focusing on disgust for the characters’ race.

The collection could benefit from delving deeper into the experiences of its characters beyond their racial identity, allowing the horror elements to shine independently.

*Doll Seed* by Michele Tracy Berger is a powerful debut collection that blends speculative fiction, horror, and magical realism. The stories, often centered around the lives of women of color, explore themes of vulnerability, otherness, and personal agency. From a self-aware doll playing a role in the Civil Rights Movement to an aspiring jewelry artist haunted by a fast-food icon, Berger’s characters inhabit deeply imaginative worlds grounded in emotional truths. The collection’s speculative nature touches on real societal issues, including race, gender, and belonging, making it both thought-provoking and unsettling. Each tale is distinct but carries a common thread of exploring freedom, trust, and identity. Fans of Octavia Butler or Kelly Link will appreciate the mix of dark wonder and atmospheric depth that *Doll Seed* deliver.