Animals - 4/5 Beautiful and weird
Jacob - 3/5
Plum Pie, Zombie Green, Yellow Bee, Purple Monster - 2/5
In the Dark - 3/5
Margaret and Mary and the End of the World - 4/5
Little Deaths - 4/5
The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night - 5/5 The best story
Pebbles - 5/5
Aunt Libby's Coffin Hotel - 4/5
Sea Devils - 2/5
Human Satellites - 5/5
Bright White Hearts - 5/5 probably the most personal story ( )

I loved these short storie so much. Some were a bit iffy for my tastes, but they were good none the less. I recommend this book for the lovers of weird. ( )

I knew from the moment I read the blurb of this in a bookstore months ago I would love everything about this book and I wasn’t wrong. Jen Campbell Did That! ( )

"There isn’t anything quite like holding love in your bare hands."

I don't know....I don't know how to describe the feelings I've experienced while reading each page of this book. I am not easily carried away by anything but when such a creation comes your way you cannot help but ending up staring in awe. And for now, I will let the stories speak for themselves....

"Animals": A story that left me speechless with each passing paragraph. A dark, cruel, violently haunting world where hearts can be bought and stolen. Where a man experiments on his wife, performing transplantation with animal hearts. This is one of the weirdest texts I've ever read and it almost makes me uncomfortable to say how much I was mesmerized by it.
"Jacob" :A sensitive young boy sends a letter to a journalist narrating his troubled life. Very sad, very powerful.
"Plum Pie.Zombie Green.Yellow Bee.Purple Monster." :Jasmine, Lily, Ivy, Roses....and Jack (of the Giant Bean tale) somewhere in the middle. An absurd, crazy, beautiful story about colours, loss, power, remembrance.
"In the Dark"::A strange, inexplicable encounter between a woman and a soldier in a kitchen, in the middle of the night.
"Margaret and Mary and the End of the World" : :A remarkably beautiful and sad story centered around Rossetti's masterpiece Ecce Ancilla Domini. A young woman, named Margaret, tries to find some comfort through Art and Religion, through fairy tales and attempts to imagine how the Virgin Mary must have felt in the moment of the Annunciation. She needs to escape harassment and cruelty caused by her own heartless mother. This story is constructed like a patchwork quilt except it doesn't provide warmth. It makes you shiver. Possibly the best story in this perfect collection.
"Little Deaths" :This a world where ghosts are hunted, caught, put into jars to be bought. A world where you can steal a ghost, collect a ghost, name it, use it as a remedy for all maladies. This is a world where school homework such as this exists :"English:
How would you like to die? Please number your preferences 1–10, with 1 being the most preferable. You have a 1000 word limit. You will be marked on your ability to persuade.
Maths:How much should your family and friends cry at your funeral? You have a limit of 1000 tears. Please share these out among those you expect to attend. Show your working."I know I'd definitely enjoy answering these questions...

"Somewhere, underground, there should be a massive row of filing cabinets, winding and branching out across the country. And each of them should contain everyone’s – and everything’s – beginnings.

"The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night" : The title story in the collection. A tree becomes the symbol of a marriage and the search for a common beginning through misconduct and disorder. In the middle of the night, a woman tries to come to terms with everything that has been pressing her soul for quite a long time but the answers are practically unattainable. A story that reads like a wonderful one-act play.
"Pebbles" :Can we even dare to look on war in a romantic light? The Northern Ireland conflict, the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, the troubles of youth become a metaphor for a deep, innocent love.
"Aunt Libby’s Coffin Hotel" : :A family tosses coins with Death and the desire of the ones who are left behind. A story that has references to the Isla de las Muñecas, the haunting island whose only residents are creepy dolls hanging from the trees. We also learn about Keres, the spirits of revenge in Greek Mythology, the Moroaica from Romania, the Asian Krasue and, of course, the greatest myth of despair in the form of Pandora's Box.

"And did you know that, in China, shades of blue are called shallow or deep, not light or dark?"

"Sea Devils":What do we get when we mix witches, crabs and Hollywood? Mayhem. I promise you, this is much better than it sounds.
"Human Satellites": What could be more dividing than the discovery of a planet suitable to accommodate us all...
"Bright White Hearts" :A narrator who was born with the Sirenomelia syndrome takes us on a journey in the colours, the creatures of the water and the origin of life through a modern aquarium. A brilliant epilogue to the collection.

If you are still with me after this longer than long section, you'll certainly realise the beauty and uniqueness of Campbell's writing. I don't need to say anything more. The stories will make you sad, uncomfortable, nervous. You will possibly smile at certain parts but not for long. There is a well-covered darkness than never becomes suffocating. It just lingers in the sidewalk to remind us of all those things that make our lives what they are, occupying our thoughts, forming our past, present and future. A series of twisted fairy tales that speak to the heart, comprising a book that I cannot praise enough....

"Once upon a time, there were four horsemen of the apocalypse.
God breathed them into the world with his fisted right hand.
‘I have a bow,’ said the white horse. ‘I represent Evil.’
‘I am War,’ said the red horse. ‘Mark my sword.’
‘I am Famine,’ said the black horse. ‘And all that comes with it.’
‘I am Death,’ said the pale horse, who was carrying Hades. ‘And this is the end of the whole wide world.’"

My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com ( )

I don’t read many short story collections as I generally find novels more rewarding. However, occasionally I do see one that looks worth taking a chance on. The first thing I liked about The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night was honestly the cover. It was colourful and gorgeous, and a little shocking. I also loved the title, I thought it sounded lyrical and intriguing. Neither the cover nor the title are things to really judge a book on but they are honestly what first attracted me to the collection. After reading the stories I am pretty tempted to buy myself a copy of this gorgeous book.
I was immediately drawn in by the first story ‘Animals’. It was shocking at times but it retained a certain beauty to it throughout. I loved how the author played around and twisted established fairytales. Fairytales themselves almost always have an intrinsic and surprising darkness to them which provides scope for really investigating what they mean and telling them in new and original ways. These short stories were not always immediately recognisable as fairytale retellings but they all had elements and twists to them that led straight back to these tales. My other favourite of the collection was ‘Margaret and Mary and the End of the World’. I liked the authors take on several of the issues that were brought up in the tale ranging from religion to eating disorders. It was dark and intense but also beautiful and heartbreaking. I actually liked most of the stories, there were no real duds in my opinion. The titular story was a great blend of sadness and unexpected comic moments. The author’s writing has a great mystical feeling to it which enhances every single one of the stories and there is some really effective imagery created. This collection’s main focus seems to be the fragility and meaning of human life, our mortality and the worlds obsession with defying death. It also proves how fairytales that have been around for hundreds of years are also filled with these themes. I am certainly no expert on short stories and I’m sure I have not grasped all of the subtext and meaning in these tales but I very much enjoyed reading this fantastical and strange book. ( )

Some of you might already be familiar with Jen Campbell, the compiler of Weird Things Customers Say In Bookshops. Although I haven’t yet read these compendiums of the odd, I’ve seen snippets here and there and they’ve made me laugh out loud. So I was curious to see how Campbell’s talents would translate to the short story medium. The answer is: extremely well; although these unsettling stories aren’t at all what one would expect from this tongue-in-cheek observer of human nature. Or… on the other hand… perhaps they are, for they reach deep inside us to the darker corners of the psyche, and their unifying feature is that these miniature worlds seem so straightforward, so simple, until you look between the lines and realise that something, subtly, is out of kilter...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2018/01/21/the-beginning-of-the-world-in-the-middle-of-... ( )