The first story, "Intertropical Convergence Zone", is very impressive, an intense contemporary fairy tale of political and magical darkness. The next few stories are less convincing to me, with the ghostbusters antics and occasional awkward language.

I had the honor of writing an introduction to this book. It's one of the best collections of this any other year. There is no other writer like Nadia working today and her socio-political horror stories will knock you on your butt. I would not steer you wrong. Well, I might, but not this time, I promise.

4.0 Stars - Video Review: https://youtu.be/sJsx70JZknEShe Said Destroy is like nothing I have ever read before. This collection defies genre. Avoiding the usual conventions of the horror genre, many of the stories read like weird fiction. Bulkin identifies her work as socio-political horror, which is probably the best description for this unique collection. These are certainly not your typical horror stories. This collection is a wonderful example of diverse horror fiction. As a female author, B...

Hands down one of the best collections I have read this year. An incredibly creative and dark set of stories that I think could be classified as weird fiction with monsters, both supernatural and human monsters. There is just a tad of whimsy in Bulkin's writing that makes every story more grotesque and original than others you may have read in the genre. The stories are very accessible but contain a depth surrounding culture, folklore, family, and international politics. I honestly don't have an...

Nadia Bulkin's genius is her ability to create real characters living in worlds that feel novel-length in the span of a short story. The strange and rich worlds of "Intertropical Convergence Zone," "Pugelbone," and "Girl, I Love You" are outstanding examples of this detailed world-building in a few pages. I delighted in the subtle Lovecraft nods in "Violet Is the Color of Your Energy" and "Truth Is Order and Order Is Truth"--each totally orignal despite that well-known territory; with Bulkin be

I read this book mostly on a cross country plane flight, and liked it so much I read the rest in the hotel the first night of my trip. And this is despite the fact that I’d read several of the stories before… the ones in Sword and Mythos and She Walks In Shadows definitely, but the thing is, even the ones I’d read before are so well told that it was a pleasure to read them again.

Generals eating bullets to increase their power. Accidents turning towns into cemeteries. Anonymous dead maids impersonating ghosts of war criminals. All this and more is in She Said Destroy, the remarkable debut collection of Nadia Bulkin brought by Word Horde. Even if Bulkin stays in the weird horror territory, she uses it frequently to deal with social and political issues, as in the striking opener “Intertropical Convergence Zone”, the ironic take on the haunted house narrative in “Endless l...

WOW. I've been reading a ton of horror over the past year, but this debut collection is my new favorite. Dark, hard-hitting, inventive literary horror twined around feminist and postcolonial themes--as literary as Mariana Enriquez and Brian Evenson, and scarier than both combined. All of these stories were riveting, and half of them felt like they were slicing the top of my head clean off. Several border on cosmic horror and one directly hat-tips Lovecraft, but in a way so startlingly original t...

A fine collection of modern horror stories told in a very distinctive voice. There's not much subtlety in any of these tales -- no tiptoeing around the actuality of the extremely supernatural elements -- but they wear their creepy candor well. A few of them are Lovecraftian, but not in that predictable. pedestrian way so many Lovecraft-inspired writers practice. My favorite here is "Red Goat, Black Goat," which is definitely Lovecraftian and really quite good. The book's introduction makes much

This book came with a signed book plate signed by Nadia Bulkin.

SHE SAID DESTROY is a singular and fantastic collection. Nadia Bulkin’s stories are equally at home in Southeast Asia and Midwest America, and all bring a cogent sociopolitical bite of one sort or another. Some are movingly strange, some are deeply sad, all are spellbinding. Go to Amazon and do the Look Inside and see for yourself. You can read the first story and part of the second, and if that doesn’t convince you, nothing I say will either. Highly recommended for enthusiasts of original and w...

Nadia Bulkin has immense talent, which is on full display here. The stories range from Lovecraftian mythologies to entirely more modern offerings, but they all drop you into a world that's just off to some degree. Once there, it's sink or swim - the worldbuilding is impressive, but these are short stories and there's no time for infodumps!The Five Stages of Grief and Girl, I Love You are my standout favourites, but altogether it's a fantastically impressive collection. Buddy read with the fantas...

A mixed collection.

Nadia Bulkin provides a perspective that is underrepresented in horror fiction while comfortably inhabiting occupied spaces. Small towns, isolated spaces, and religious fervor bordering on cultishness populate the pages. A number of these stories are deep in the territory of The Weird and Magical Realism. For those whose tastes run towards those subgenres, there is a lot to feast on here. My favorite of those is “Endless Life” which explores the haunting of colonialism and erasure. But I prefer...

Weird fiction as promised. Maybe I’m dense but I didn’t see the point of a few of the stories. A few of them just... were ok. A handful of the stories were really good. I would read more from this author. The title of this book is awesome, along with the first line.

What I'm about to say may or may not be true but it's truth to me from my perspective, so I'm willing to say this with confidence: Horror is a man's world. I find that most horror books are written by men. Earlier this year, I found Ania Ahlborn and I was just beside myself with enthusiasm for her books. It felt good to get behind the sisterhood in this genre.Now, full on into my own, personal Season of Horror (#seasonofhorror on Twitter & Instagram) I have discovered more female authors!Enter:

Only Unity Saves the Damned ★★★★☆ "Roz was kneeling by then, in deference and fear. When Lark’s screams finally stopped, she knew that it was her turn." Feels like Nadia Bulkin is as big a fan of The Fountain as I. Here she’s domesticated it, added a little Blair Witch Project mockumentary and an urban legend that sounds like the Cut Wife from Penny Dreadful. It would have been better with three to five pages of domestic doldrums and disappointments cut and maybe an additional page of the othe...

Finished re-read today—review stands :DThis collection kicks aaaaasss!!I will definitely be returning to a handful of these stories to learn how Bulkin did it.(FUCK: There's not a lot of reviews for this book yet. Ms Bulkin, if you find this, I LOVED your book. It's excellent. Please don't read my review. I batter them out SOC style mostly for my own records, and potential readers are welcome to read them, but I don't write them for authors. They're rarely even about the books themselves—maybe e...

Close to being 5 stars. Every story in here was great, and a couple are bound to be some of the best I read all year (Intertropical Convergence Zone, The Five Stages of Grief, and the last four all slayed). Who knows. I may come back down the line and up the rating. Her writing is fantastic. The stories cover a wide breadth of voices, all of which were quite entertaining. Sometimes when a lot of authors I enjoy and respect rave about someone unknown to me, I walk away enjoying but not quite shar...

I saw Nadia at the Stoker Con Librarian's Day, talking about She Said Destroy on her first panel. I was intrigued when her writing was described as sociopolitical horror. Her writing is visceral and clear, the characters fleshed out well for short stories and her themes truly creepy. That said, I am not a fan of horror. I also don't like things that don't have clean endings. I like things wrapped up and explained, but of course the world doesn't work that way and horror is one of the genres that...