Tag: 3 Star Reviews

All 3 Stars Reviews In One Place

“Metzengerstein” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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The story follows the young Frederick, the last of the Metzengerstein family, who carries on a long-standing feud with the Berlifitzing family. Suspected of causing a fire that kills the Berlifitzing family patriarch, Frederick becomes intrigued with a previously unnoticed and untamed horse.

The words in this short story sort of carries sort of a weight that you will find yourself enthralled at their delivery. 

This story has also the ability to grip you and won’t let you until the end of this story.

The writing style was pretty decent but still it wasn’t that good as in some of Edgar Allan Poe’s other work. 

This story might first look as a simple gothic story but you will be surprised because there’s so much more in this story.

The background of this story seems like it was inspirited by the words of an ancient prophecy.

This one is very underrated, it is actually better than much people on internet claim it is. 

This one is packed with the classic elements of Edgar Allan Poe as well as it is packed elements of gothic literature and Victorian ghost stories. Which I personally am a huge fan of. 

I give this poem 3 / 5

“Three Sundays in a Week” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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“Three Sundays in a Week” depicts a grumpy Uncle Rumgudgeon who refuses to grant his nephew Bobby permission to marry his daughter and, therefore, inherit a portion of Rumgudgeon’s estate. The uncle, being sly, says he would only offer his blessing when “three Sundays came together in one week.

Need to say that this one was an amazing mental puzzle and super interesting in thought I had some high expectations for this one which it didn’t live up to.

However as the whole story in general I need to say that it was kind of silly and there were times where the story made me laugh.

This one is far from being one of the greatest works by Edgar Allan Poe nor is it super bad as some of Edgar Allan Poe.

The beginning of this story was amazing but the end was kind of the opposite of the beginning.

The writing style however was amazing in this one, which really blow my mind.

The whole story decently have a gothic, sweet and kind of laughable vibe to it. Which isn’t after all so bad mixed as I always thought.

I give this poem 3 / 5

“The Sphinx” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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This short story is about a man who decides to visit a relative living near the Hudson River north of New York City for two weeks during a cholera epidemic in the city. An outbreak occurred during the summer of 1832. One day during this visit, the man is reading a book near the window overlooking a scenic view of the Hudson River.

This one short of gives you an atmosphere of gloom and a large mysterious creature which of course is hiding and moving around the place.

However this one involves a small part of creepiness which is followed by humour which is always fun.

This whole story gives you creepy and surprising vibe. Which is why many people decide to read Edgar Allan Poe.

The most annoying thing with this short story is that as you read the story you will feel something big going on and which will happen any second. And Edgar Allan Poe just keeps building on that feeling and in the end nothing happens. 

In this one Edgar Allan Pie use a clever method of distraction to trick the reader as the horror unfolds. 

This one is also a fun little read, which can be read in 10 minutes or so.

This one is also very interesting but not as scary as you might expect from the gothic king himself. 

The writing style is pretty decent but Edgar Allan Poe was able to do much better than this one. 

But this story definitely needs to get points for being interesting, amusing, fun to read and clever.

I give this poem 3 / 5

“The Imp of the Perverse” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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The narrator explains at length his theory on “The Imp of the Perverse”, which he believes causes people to commit acts against their self-interest. This essay-like discussion is presented objectively, though the narrator admits that he is “one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse”.

So this one was another brilliant and extraordinary short story written by Edgar Allan Poe.

The writing style in this one is as you can expect from Edgar Allan Poe. Which of course means that the writing style was pretty good to say at least.

This one begins as a essay where Edgar Allan Poe describes the impulse to do wrong precisely because we know it’s wrong.

This short story also gives you an unique perspective on that which leads us astray.

For the most part this whole story goes around the topic of being careful of what you say in public because no one knows what will happen.

The most fun part of this short story is how Edgar Allan Poe portrays horror and madness is amazing.

In this short story Edgar Allan Poe explores why the seemingly rational willpower of man is occasionally disrupted by an impulsive, self-destructive and unique “imp of the perverse”.

I give this poem 3 / 5

“Eureka: A Prose Poem” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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Adapted from a lecture he had presented, Eureka describes Edgar Allan Poe’s intuitive conception of the nature of the universe with no antecedent scientific work done to reach his conclusions. He also discusses man’s relationship with God, whom he compares to an author.

This one was probably one of Edgar Allan Poe’s longest work. Because this one has over 90 pages but it all depends on what copy you read. 

This book will make you feel like you are attending a physics lecture in 19th century.

The theme of this book is amazing because it explores scientific speculation on human life which people like me appreciate especially when it was written over 100 years ago when the knowledge and tools was a lots of different than we have today. 

However i need to mention that this story have had a lots of parts which didn’t go well with me. 

But there is a chance that this story / book was a romantic attempt to follow intuition into explaining life and universe and everything. But this story also sort of chose to ignore inconvenient scientific discoveries.

However this story gives us some fun and wild suggestions at a Big Bang and other things which made the world to the place we knew back then.

This story have a nice vibe gothic, science curiosity vibe to it, which I personally liked.

I give this story 3 / 5

“The Events at Poroth Farm” by T.E.D. Klein Review

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Jeremy, a college lecturer, takes a summer vacation in Gilead, New Jersey, to prepare for a course on Gothic literature he’ll be teaching in the upcoming semester. He rents an outbuilding from Mennonite couple Sarr and Deborah Poroth, and at first his holiday is happy and productive, but then odd things begin to happen.

This story or what you want to call it was published back in 1972 but it feels like a modern horror classic. Almost as if it was written not longer than 20 ish years ago. 

There are some gothic parts involved in this book, which we all love don’t we? 

The narrator spends some of his time on a remote farm which is of course the Poroth’s Farm. On this farm he spends his time to read Gothic classics for his classes at college. And that list which he have made for the books he wants to read is interesting and inspiring. 

This story will give you a sense of menace together as the unraveling of natural turns into a pastoral setting and a nightmare for a young man seeking a peaceful place to study. 

There are couple of signs in this story which are towards aberrancy. Which is in this story wrapped in an interesting way. And the narrators strange behavior and unforeseen actions makes this story even more eery.

However this story have the unnecessary misogynistic comments and undertones to it. And these things doesn’t nothing to the story for the most part. 

I give this story 3 / 5

“The Pit And The Pendulum” By Edgar Allan Poe Review

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This is a short tale about the horror surrounding impending death after the narrator is sentenced for heresy by his inquisitors during the Spanish Inquisition. The mental break that follows results in confusion that makes the entire scenario even more frightening.

This is a typical gothic horror story written by Edgar Allan Poe. If you love the work of Edgar Allan Poe I’m pretty sure that you will love this story too. 

The main character in this tale is again the narrator like in any other tale / story written by Edgar Allan Poe. In this story the narrator has been condemned by a panel of black robed, white lipped, stern faced judges. The crime which the narrator have committed is unknown, but then this is the Inquisition so his offense could be that he is not a religious enough or he might have been accused of one of the many offences against God that require such a low level of proof. 

The narrator in my opinion needs to get some extra points for his high level of horror is something that is part of his nature.It is difficult to believe, as dire as a circumstance can be, that this is truly our final extinction. 

The whole plot is remarkably interesting, chilling, spooky and suspenseful. It needs to get points for the unique story which it has together with the unique perspective which Edgar Allan Poe used in this book. The perspective which this story has really brings a lot to the plot and surely it gives a unique and fun vibe and mood to it. 

The atmosphere itself, inspires the fear in readers mind and make us as readers think about what we really fear and what we might have done in some situations.

This whole story have only 56 ish pages, which is very small story in the end. But of course Edgar Allan Poe have the ability to make the shortest stories long enough to be good and incredible. This story is long enough to be very dark, interesting, scary and to have gloomy mood to it and horrifying dungeon to it. 

On the outskirts it’s just a Gothic horror tale about a man who is afraid to die. There are dozens stories about this topic now on days. But what makes this story fun is to see how the narrator deals and react to the two horrific situations which had nearly killed him. And how this is messing with his mental state.

I give this story 3 / 5

“I Am the Doorway” by Stephen King Review

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The story relates a disabled former astronaut’s account of the terrifying change he undergoes after being exposed to an extraterrestrial mutagen, during a space mission to Venus 

Stephen King does a good job at these short stories but as a die hard Stephen King fan I need to say that he does a much better at the longer novels he writes than the short stories. 

Every time Stephen King writes a sci-fi its either hit or miss and nothing in between these two. I personally don’t am a big fan of Sci-fi genre so maybe thats why this story didn’t work with me. But I still think that it was a good read, and it wont hurt to read it. 

The whole story is told in the first-person narration which definitely sets the tone the story much more. And the fact that this story involves a cosmic space entity and reading it from the first-person narration is very interesting. It isn’t that scary as you might think it is but there definitely something eerie to it.

Descriptions in this story are so good that it makes you see the whole picture in your mind or at least it did that for me. 

The whole story wasn’t the greatest short story I’ve read but it was a good one. It is definitely worth reading, because the plot is good, descriptions are good as well as details and most characters. 

There aren’t a lots of characters in this one, but it is good. As we know quality matters not quantity. So the story needs to get points for doing that.

I give this story 3 /5

“Graveyard Shift” by Stephen King Review

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A young drifter named Hall has been working at a decrepit textile mill in a small town in Maine when his boss, a cruel taskmaster, recruits him and others to assist with a massive cleaning effort. The basement of the old mill has been abandoned for decades, and over the years, a monumental infestation of rats has taken hold.

If you don’t like rates, then maybe don’t pick up this story because it involves a lots of rates in it. 

This short story is pretty much a creepy read which takes place in an old mill. This story isn’t that unique, because in the end it is a basic horror story which isn’t that good as most novels written by Stephen King.

This story is enjoyable to read, but I would recommend to read it off you didn’t read all novels by Stephen King. Because in the end this story is nothing more than modern interpretation of “The Rats in the Walls” but written by Stephen King instead of H. P. Lovecraft.

This story really shows that some authors should stick with the longer novels and don’t write short stories and unfortunately Stephen King is one of them. Because the whole story lacks context to it and more depth into it, the whole story is sort of like a skeleton of a story without organs, meat, muscle, nerves etc. 

This whole story isn’t necessarily creepy and intense, but it still is a horror story in that it’s about things you don’t ever want to experience. Just as mutated rats. It’s more unpleasant than anything else.

The whole story is pretty too basic, all it is for the most part is people cleaning an old, abandoned basement and then something happens and shit foes down hill.

The ending could be much better than it actually was, but too late to change it now. The whole ending is more or less feels like squeamish than terrified. It implies what happens next to the men, which was a great ending but so horrid.

I give this story 3 / 5

“Bon-Bon” by Edgar Allan Poe Review

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The whole story follows Pierre Bon-Bon, who believes himself a profound philosopher, and his encounter with the Devil.

This story is one of the best comic stories written by Edgar Allan Poe. Its important to mention that this story are featuring a verbal interchange between the Devil and a restaurateur who is the main character named Pierre Bon-Bon renowned for his omelets who also believes himself a profound philosopher.

One of the parts of this story is that it satirizes a whole list of classical philosophers including Plato and Aristotle, all of which the Devil has claimed to have eaten their souls.

This story is quite far from the typical and good stories written Edgar Allan Poe, which means that some people might not like it. 

The main character which of course is Pierre Bon-Bon is somehow interesting. Pierre Bon-Bon is equal parts carnal and intellectual. 

The descriptions and details in this story are pretty good. They are so good that they might freak you out because of how good they are. 

This concept of this story is interesting, however Edgar Allan Poe writing style makes it almost interminable to get through. This story really shows that Edgar Allan Poe has a tendency to ramble throughout his writing, needlessly prolonging the dull parts, which in turn leaves hardly any time for the more entertaining aspects within the book.

However this story doesn’t fail to turn the expression “food for thoughts” into “thoughts for food”. However the whole story is another  Edgar Allan Poe story where the Devil makes a grand appearance. 

The narratorial voice was excellent. The plot was comical, which was the intent. But these things are the basic things which makes a story / book good. We need much more to give a story / book 5 stars or even 4. 

I give this story 3 / 5