🥬👁️Short Story Review👁️🥬

Title: Cabbage
Author: @casey_fritz

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Thoughts: This was weird and I happen to love weird 😅. What I really love about it though is its originality.
This short story hits upon the grief of preparing to loose a partner to an incurable disease, the loss of a child, and creates a poetic tone for life born from death.
I love death talk being integrated into our culture and for a creepy little tale, this did so.
Now I'm rating this 4 ⭐️'s as a short story. For me, short stories have a different jive apart from books that have 200+ pages to allow character development and plot lines.

2.5 stars

this was a creepy and unsettling little novella! i like the concept of the story but i think the execution fell short mostly due to the length. i also liked the ending and the curated playlist! if it were longer and included more background details, i think this could’ve been a 4 star book.

A unique horror short story.

I never thought that I would see a garden from this point of view.

Well crafted and mesmerizing.

Goodness review DarkS

With what would have been an easy read, the choice of words used at times meant the story lost its immersiveness. I thought I’d give a different genre a go compared to normal and I’m gutted the characters were wooden.

Positives - the plot was well paced and writing style despite the vocab choices was nice to read.

Undoubtedly the writer will improve in the future but due to the lack of immersion I cannot rate this higher.

This is a story about a dying wife, her husband, and the garden that he built for her…

This short story by CS Fritz could easily have been a solid 4 star read for me, however it had just a few too many elements that I took issue with. The story was well paced, with a plot that was gripping, which should have made this an easy read, however quirks of word choice drew me out of the story frequently, and made it hard to immerse myself. Furthermore, the characters really let this story down for me. They felt wooden and unrealistic, almost entirely unphased by the supernatural happenings surrounding them. The other issue I had with the story was the lack of foreshadowing for the major plot development about two thirds through. There’s what felt to me a glaringly obvious piece of foreshadowing the page before, but no mention of anything prior to that.

However, with that said, the themes of this book were incredibly strong, and while there was odd prose at moments, Fritz was nonetheless able to create an incredibly disturbing and creepy setting in a short space of time, with a thoroughly entertaining plot and ending. This was a story that could have been fantastic but let down by just a couple of parts of the storytelling.

I absolutely loved this. It’s a super short novella, read it in under an hour

This novella covers grief and sacrifice, and what we’re willing to do for the ones we love. It’s so surreal and creepy, and the Spotify playlist makes this SO much more eerie. I will definitely be rereading this one again.

Really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to pick up other books by the author. Really creepy, but equally wonderful and fast paced.

A beautifully written grief horror with cosmic elements. Rosemary has terminal cancer, and husband Thomas creates the garden of her dreams for her before she returns home to hospice. When he accidentally spills blood in the cabbages, miracles seem to happen. When Rosemary mentions a dinner she would love, it appears. Rosemary begins to wish for more complex things, and as with a genie, be careful what you wish for.

The phrase be careful what you wish for comes to mind

This short story follows 2 characters a man and his wife. They are both retired and one terminally ill. It touches on grief and how it isn't something your recover from but something you learn to live with, to cherish the memories you have, and hopefully those happy ones are never distorted.

If you want a short horror story that won't take too long and leave you with some questions with a little magic on the side I would recommend this.

As a dyslexic short stories that grip are amazing and lead me to wanting to read more, the font was easily adaptable in apps such as kindle which makes it easier to read thank you for taking this into account when publishing.

I read the ARC via net galley.

What a wonderfully, weird short story! I loved the author includes a playlist of music to go with it. It really added the extra sense of dread, while peppering in the happy moments as well. Definitely got my heart rate up, and I don't think I'll be messing with cabbage anytime soon! Haha!

Thomas and Rosemary are an older couple. Rosemary has recently been able to come home after a stay in the hospital due to a disease that's slowly killing her. Upon their arrival home, Thomas has a surprise for her. Her garden - he's replanted it full of flowers and cabbage that bring back memories of their youth and a daughter lost. One day, Thomas accidentally spills a blood sample he had to take from Rosemary into the cabbages. What happens next is short of a small miracle. But sometimes, what we think of as miracles, can actually be a curse in disguise. And for Thomas....it is just going to get worse.

A quirky short read with a unique concept, for a short read I found the pacing to be good. The backstories of the characters was more ambiguous, it would have been great to have had this slightly more fleshed out to give more emotional connection to the characters. I also enjoyed the descriptive nature of the writing, and the illustrations that peppered the novel. An interesting and creepy horror concept overall. I would read further books by this author.

i didn’t absolutely love this but i also didn’t dislike it, i think i would’ve liked this more in a short story collection?

but it was well written, it dealt with topics on grief and death mixed with a little bit of eco horror! it felt pretty unique to me in that sense and i think if you love to grow your own vegetables you’ll love this horrifying tale 🥦

// arc courtesy of netgalley.

Cabbage is a short (56 pages!) horror story about the last melancholy days of love and the danger of wishing with fistfuls of resentment. What grows in us when we don’t let go of the past? C.S. Fritz beautifully describes both love and longing and creatures of dirt and photosynthetic sentience. The mysterious “it” and the question of whether it was a thing or an event was rendered in tantalizing mystery and sorrow. This is such an extraordinary and original idea for a story. The length and pacing are perfection. I felt intrigued and anxious to know the next thing but never dragged along to get there. Suspense without bore can be a difficult thing to achieve.

The images between chapters 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 6 and 7, 7 and 8, 8 and 9 have a white box around them, unlike the others when viewed in dark mode. I’m not sure if this is even worth mentioning, but I figured it was better safe than sorry in case of technical error. Other than that, the art is fantastic. I especially loved the first illustration! The cover is absolutely to die for: the vivid color is what initially caught my eye.

Favorite quote: “There is a world wanting to give you wonder. Receive it, Thomas.”

Thank you for the opportunity to read this! I can't wait to read the entire catalogue of C.S. Fritz!

This story has such a gorgeous, eye catching cover. It immediately intrigued me.

The tale itself felt a bit undeveloped and jarring at times. I think pacing, flow and consistency would improve the short story. If it could be lengthened I would’ve like more of the characters’ history, more developments on the miraculous garden, and a longer ending portion. The pictures within the book were great, but all the quotes could be trimmed down.

Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and Albatross Book Co for a copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Albatross Book Co!

I absolutely loved this book.

This is everything you would want in a short horror novella. The writing is creepy and punchy, the pacing is excellent and I felt entranced by this.

This book covers a lot of topics such as grief, love, and sacrifice, and I really did care about the characters.

Super weird and creepy, but in the best way!

It’s not ideal, but I do have a tendency towards picking my books by how much I like the cover… which is what happened here - those beautiful shades of purple and that creepy looking eyeball.

I loved the premise but overall I just didn’t find it particularly creepy or compelling. It felt like being dropped halfway into a story, where past events (death of a child) played into current events without having the emotional connection to the characters to really feel any kind of way about it.

I really enjoyed the idea of this book, it had everything that I was looking for in a horror element. The characters were everything that I was looking for and enjoyed the overall feel of the world. The characters worked well in this universe and I enjoyed how they worked in this world. It was a great short story and enjoyed reading this.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My favorite kinds of horror are ones where something unsettling is happening that the characters don’t register as such. And the contrast between Thomas’ and Rosemary’s reactions was very entertaining.
Overall, I found the characters endearing and the plot captivating. I will definitely read from this author again!

A great little horror story that had me fully absorbed from the first few pages. It progressed so quickly that I didn't actually guess at the ending, which is why I think the length was perfect to achieve what it wanted to. I think I'll pass on any gardening for the foreseeable future, thanks!

Absolutely loved this was weird and off but was so good. Short horror read and now I will never look at cabbages the same way