10 Drink Minimum by Matthew Lutton

2/5 stars

10 Drink Minimum disappointed me because I loved the cover and the summary. It sounded so intriguing and sure to be filled with all kinds of twisted, horrifying things. The actual story, however, was lacking.

The sheer amount of spelling and grammar mistakes were hard to overlook.  I try to overlook these types of things to an extent because it’s hard to catch absolutely everything, but when there’s as many as there were here, it starts to define my reading experience.

The stories told in this anthology don’t mesh well together. They have shared characters, sure, but they didn’t feel cohesive. I really wanted to see more integration and a bigger overarching theme than just sharing a set of characters amongst them. The dentist’s story was probably my favourite because it felt the most fleshed out, but some of the others didn’t feel as complete. The psychiatrist felt like an afterthought, and I didn’t really understand the significance of the Detective or her “special friend.” They felt like an added element just for suspense but I didn’t really get anything from their addition.

This also didn’t read as horror to me. There were a few horrifying things that happened, but everything else felt watered down enough that those elements lost their impact. I didn’t get the punch I was looking for from this, which was really unfortunate.

It seems the author left this open for a sequel based on the way this ended. I’d be willing to give it a chance to see what changes are made because I do see the potential with this author. This just needed a little bit more polishing before release.

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