Jen Campbell's writing is always a delight. Her short stories are at times melancholic and romantic, brutal in its treatment of characters but also wonderfully rendered. Every story is individual, unique, and highly readable. This is a collection I would recommend to fans of Kirsty Logan, and those who are desperate for more grim fairy tale magic in their life.

This is a short story collection full of magical, fairytale inspired stories – some of which I loved, some of which I didn't care for. Some read more like individual scenes or vignettes rather than fully fleshed out stories. Others read a little "info dumpy", where I felt like author was just trying to mention as many facts about a certain topic without building an actual story around it.

I am a huge fan of Jen Campbell and a huge fan of fairytale's so this short story collection was a no brainer for me.

I have attempted this book about a dozen times now and for some reason I just can't get through it. I found the writing style to keep me at a distance from the stories themselves and though some of the concepts were well done, I just didn't have any motivation to continue so this was a DNF for me unfortunately.

A dark collection of short stories. Some were better than others, some seemed unfinished, some were disjointed. I liked the stories within stories. Not bad overall.

I'm not sure this type of book is for me, I wanted to try something different but I often find myself not engaging in short stories because they are just that, I need something to bite my teeth into that I know will continue on for a long time not something that could be over. I also felt like they tried to include every single type of character which became a bit tiresome.

I don’t tend to read short story collections but all the stories in this book were so different that I found myself hoping they would be full blown novels!

I can’t say too much but there is also a diverse range, from LGBTQ to characters with disabilities which makes me love this book much more.

Jen has put her compassion for those topics into her stories.

I’d recommend:)

If you like short, weird, whimsical fairy tales but with a contemporary twist then this book is for you. I can't pretend to understand all the stories in this collection but Jen's writing is beautiful and her love of the dark, twisty side to fairy tales comes through.

A fun and creative mix of short stories from a favourite booktuber and writer of mine. I do prefer her poems but I would happily read anything else she had to write.

A wonderful eclectic collection of short stories from an author more known for her poetry. This background in poetry allowed an almost lyrical feel to some of her prose. I found myself picking up the book to read one story and falling headfirst into the book and being unable to stop devouring them.

I was really looking forward to this collection of short stories, and they didn't disappoint. I enjoyed the richness of this collection, and its ability to disturb.

Fantastic selection of short stories - I loved the variety and the sheer bizarreness of the whole lot! Very different to Jens's other comic books, this is full of hidden meanings, symbolism and really interesting concepts. Great fun. I'm not a short story lover, but this was great. Definitely recommend!

These strange, eerie tales are full of the dark magic of myth and fairy tale and the unsettling strangeness of the everyday. Campbell’s writing is lovely and she has impressive command of the short story, not a format that I often enjoy. Unlike many other writers Campbell each story Campbell creates is a perfectly judged entity, no word wasted and perfectly encapsulated within the space granted to it.

There are dark waters here, from animal hearts to coffin hotels and apocalypses (personal and literal) and Campbell is clearly fascinated by liminal areas, where the normal bleeds into the strange and macabre. The stories are haunting and beautiful and linger long after they have finished, no small feat for such brief pieces of enchantment.

I do really enjoy a good short story collection however, I generally find myself leaning more towards YA collections rather than adult collections. This is usually because the stories in YA collections often seem more cohesive and final as opposed to adult collections where the stories can often seem unfinished or a bit abstract. That being said I was really keen to check out Jen Campbell's collection as I watch her on YouTube and I love how passionate she is about folklore and fairy-tales and I knew this would run throughout her collection and I was right. These stories were magical and full of many different aspects of folklore and fairy-tale as I had hoped.

I enjoyed most of these stories, most of them felt fully formed and I was able to pick out the meaning behind most of them. The inspiration behind some of the stories was quite clear too, especially my favourite, Aunt Libby's Coffin Hotel, which very clearly took it's inspiration from Ancient Greek mythology.

I also really enjoyed the story Plum Pie. Zombie Green. Yellow Bee. Purple Monster about children who had sprouted plants, who then go to a special camp. This one was a fantastically original idea, steeped in magic and fairy-tale.

Another of my favourites was Bright White Hearts which gave a quite raw account of what its like to live with a deformity which, if you watch Jen's channel, you will know is something close to her heart. She had obviously done a lot of research for this story as it included some interesting historical facts that linked well with the story.

Overall I really enjoyed this collection. I loved the elements of fairy-tale and folklore that are weaved throughout each story and, although she took her inspiration from this all of the stories were completely unique. I'd love for Jen to come out with a full length novel as that is something I would definitely want to pick up.

My favourite story was Little Deaths, about colourful ghosts that come from inside us.
This book is full of many fantastical stories.

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is the first short story collection by Jen Campbell. I don't read a lot of story story collections but I like Jen's YouTube channel and it sounded interesting. If you're a fan of Jen Campbell, be it her other written work or her BookTube channel, then you'll know straight away that the themes are very Jen. There's a nice mixture of influences from fairytales, folklore, magic realism, gothic fiction to all these stories. I found there some I liked and some I wasn't overly keen on, but I think that comes with most short story collections. I liked that the use of all the themes made a book that feels whimsical at times but also very dark and mysterious. My favourites were 'Plum Pie. Zombie Green. Yellow Bee. Purple Monster' and 'Aunt Libby's Coffin Hotel'. How gorgeous are the covers too?! So beautiful

This book was a case of it's not you, it's me. There's no doubt that Jen Campbell's writing is absolutely beautiful and she is definitely worthy of the hype, I just prefer my short stories to be a little less abstract. There were some that I feel lost their way a little and became a little too convoluted for my taste. Religion is also a theme in a few of these stories, which is also not my preference.

As you can see, however, this is all down to my preferences rather than objective criticism, of which I couldn't find any.

A collection of modern fairy tales. Interesting perspective, some I wanted to be longer and know more about, others I found myself skipping through

Short stories are really hit and miss with me. There are so few really great ones. I enjoyed these more than average, but none of them blew me away. The writing style was perfectly appropriate but not particularly original. The story content, however, was highly original. A strong first collection.

While I did not love every story in this collection, my enjoyment of the ones I did like outweighed the ones I didn't. I am a huge fan of magical realism, folklore and fairy tale retelling's so I love this aspect of the collection. Some stories felt too long and dragged towards the end; others felt too short as if you had barely gotten into the feel of it before you were abruptly cut off. Highlights for me were 'Little Deaths', "Margaret and Mary and the End of the World" and "Bright White Hearts". The imagery was consistently beautiful and I loved the way the author added subtle dark twists to traditional fairytales giving them whole new meaning. Would recommend to someone who enjoys short stories, folklore and magical realism.