Seams on the Outside is a horror short story collection. I am probably the last person who should be objectively reviewing this work since I don't care for short stories and have a strong distaste for all horror. However, this is a thoughtful collection that didn't give me too many nightmares. The stories are quick reads, mostly a few pages, so easily digested. The cover art was superb, reminiscent of fiction covers fifty years ago. I would recommend to horror fans and to those needing to branch out in their reading tastes, like me.

Short collection of horror stories. The stories themselves were rather diverse in subject matter, making each one an interesting read. While some of the stories were fleshed out & effective, some felt underdeveloped to me - the biggest example was "The Last One," which seemed more like a thought experiment than an actual short story. However, I felt that even the underdeveloped entries had good potential & compelling ideas.

Most tales left a few questions unanswered, which I think was effective in that this added to their horror & led me to think more about what I had just read. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there were some that were very explicit about what had occurred ("Human Zoo" comes to mind) which (to me) made them less frightening.

Overall, though, I enjoyed this collection. Even though there were some weaker entries, all of the stories were rather short, making them all easy to read. I'd say that "Infested" & the title story "Seams on the Outside" were my favorites. ( )

The short stories in this collection are on the shorter side, which made the book that much more of a fast ride through a series of suspenseful twists and turns. I really like this author’s creative use of plot twists based on changing character perspective, which is a common theme. A few of the stories are pretty gross. Though that’s expected for the genre, I felt like a few of the selections would have been just as effective without. ( )

Seams on the Outside is a nice collection. The first item is only one page making it more of a thought than short story, but I liked it. Besides, whenever a piece didn't grab me it cost me little time. Overall I enjoyed reading them enough to want to show a few to a friend. Which brings me to my only complaint--no table of contents. Makes it harder to share what I liked with others. ( )

Seams on the Outside is a collection of short horror stories. Some of the stories have promise, but the problem is the "short" of the description. With 21 stories spanning 232 pages, an image taking up a full page at the beginning of each story, a couple blank pages here and there so as not to have an image starting a story on the right-hand side and the stories actually starting at page 9, you have less than 10 pages for each story.

There are some stories longer than 10 pages, the last story for example runs 19 pages. This means of course, there are some stories just running a couple pages. Short stories aren't necessarily a deal breaker - even very short stories can be amazing (check out hint fiction).

The problem is that Bernardini has great ideas for her stories, but they just seem like ideas. There's the hook or twist, but almost all the stories could use more development to flesh them out and have them live up to their true potential. A few do go past that idea stage and work out well.

The biggest problem I had with the collection is one story, "The Man Who Couldn't Think," seemed like a blatant ripoff of the movie Memento (which was based on the short story Memento Mori).

One absolute bright note is the dark illustrations (dark as in mood, not for the most part the actual visual). The illustrations reminded me a little of the style of those in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark...which were pretty much the basis for many a child's nightmares at some point. The illustrations matched perfectly with the stories and they are haunting, disturbing and beautiful. I'd keep the book for the illustrations alone.

So as a recap, with the exception of the Memento read-alike which troubled me, the majority of the stories are great ideas, but could have done better with being fleshed out. A few stories felt closer to their true potential. The illustrations were amazing. ( )