Book Review: "Trigger Warning" by Neil Gaiman

I have read many books by Neil Gaiman over the last decade. These include: "American Gods", "Coraline", "Neverwhere", "Anasi Boys", "Good Omens", "Stardust" and "The Sandman". The story of my reading of "The Sandman" is that I only read it whilst on my Master's Degree because one of my good friends told me to and he'd talk to me about it and where I was in the book - he loved the idea of the sandman legend, yes including the song. That same year, a few months after I finished the book, he hanged himself and I was devastated. The book, the sandman legend and the upcoming adaptation therefore have my full attention - he would have loved to see it.

This book I have read by Neil Gaiman is somewhat different to the others as I'm not familiar with his short stories. The only reason I actually started reading any Neil Gaiman at all was because my childhood was pretty much dominated by Terry Pratchett books. When he died whilst I was at work, I was so upset I ran into the storage room and cried. But enough about people dying, (or maybe not as this book does not allow me to forget about the topic) - "Trigger Warning" is a bunch of strange short stories in which you think Neil Gaiman is going to showcase his usual dark teen fantasy quirks, but instead uses folk stories, the gothic and discomfort to scare the living daylights out of his reader. Thanks Mr. Gaiman, thanks a lot.

I have to say that I was impressed with the writing style because he managed to keep it sounding like it was going to be almost like a walk through his usual stuff, but instead, he twists it completely on its head to create something horrifying. I think that the only thing I would liken this to in his own works is probably "Coraline" - you think it's a childrens' story but in reality, it really isn't.

My favourite story out of the whole collection is called "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" because by the sounds of it, it's an incredible little ghost story for children and everyone will enjoy...I'm joking, it was terrifying and don't read this to your children, please god no.

"Click-Clack the Rattlebag" is about a child who is about to go to bed but demands a story to be told to him. He says he doesn't want something too scary that he can't sleep (keep that in mind), but not something not scary enough so that he loses all interest in it. The narrator says that's alright and starts to tell the story of 'Click-Clack the Rattlebag' which is a monster. Is it like a vampire? no. Does it look really scary like a big monstrous spider? Well, not really. Instead, this particular monster doesn't suck your blood, it sucks the very life out of you. The meat, the brains, the blood and all. When the child asks what the rattlebag is, the narrator replies that at the end, you are a bag of bones that rattles around. There is a horrifying twist at the end of the story that I'm not going to say but I am going to reiterate that please don't read this to your children, your siblings or your cousins etc. this scared the daylights out of me, and I ate dinner whilst watching "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974) in the dark.

My point is that Gaiman's writing style means that he is one of the 21st century's greatest twisted horror/fantasy authors and that this book is a great example of why his short stories should be as respected as his novels.