"The Dangers of Smoking in Bed" A Review of Mariana Enriquez's Collection of Short Horrors

Disturbing, disgusting, and somehow... cozy? If you were to ask me what three words I would use to describe, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez, those would be them. Maybe 'cozy' isn't the right word, though. The more appropriate term might be more along the lines of 'sublime,' although not in the traditional sense. That being said, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed are not traditional horror stories.

Mariana Enriquez paints us portals into scenes of psychological horror that feel both intimate in their darkness and larger than life in their implications. Each story is unique, each from a startlingly feminine perspective.

Angelita Unearthed touches on themes of ancestry and the fear of being forgotten, mixed in with a little bit of body horror. Mariana Enriquez reminds us in this story that our family's history never really leaves our side, no matter how far we wander from it - or how disturbing those ghosts may be.

Our Lady of the Quarry dives into the extremes of jealousy, humiliation, the rage of teenage girls, mixed with a little bit of witchcraft. The voices of these girls are direct and shockingly mean, which makes the experience of reading from their points of view all that more jolting.

The Cart places a wanderer into a neighborhood who has mixed reactions to him. When the neighborhood fails the moral dilemma they are brought, they pay the price over weeks, bit by bit.

The Well was one of my favorite stories in Mariana Enriquez's collection, told with anxious detail and knowable characters. I can't say too much about this one without giving away the ending. All I can say is that The Well presents a haunting question: what price would you pay, if any, to have your greatest obstacle in life, removed?

Rambla Triste was another one of my favorite stories in this collection, vibrant, tantalizing, putrid, and terrifying all at once. In this story we are asked to consider, with all our senses, the darker side of what's left behind after tourists leave paradise.

The Lookout explores the extremes of "misery loves company" and reminds us to be careful of not only others' desire to bring people into their sadness, but the potential within us to drag others into our own misery, as well.

Where Are You, Dear Heart? is another story that made it to my top picks in the series. This story is so disturbed, unique, grisly, and yet somehow morbidly romantic... but also not really. This mix of emotions creates a texture to the story that is gripping as it is squeamish. Where Are You, Dear Heart? blends the line masterfully between horror and sex until you are left with glorious, questionable viscera.

Meat takes its readers on a journey of teenage obsession, idol-hood, and internet cults come out of their electronic box. It also tells a story of the extremes of consumption and the relationship between creator and consumer.

No Birthdays or Baptisms was (in my respectful opinion) the most fucked up of the stories Mariana Enriquez lays out for us - it is also another one of my favorites in the collection. Objectification, self-objectification, masochism, and the sadism that can accompany voyeurism, are all themes that haunt this piece.

Kids Who Come Back is the final of my favorites from the collection (only because I had to stop picking favorites, though.) This story is also the longest in the collection, although I secretly wish it was longer. Every detail leaves the reader asking more questions as the story unfolds and the characters become ones that haunt beyond the page. I found myself waking up in the middle of the night with images of Enriquez's characters in my head, thinking over this piece.

The Dangers of Smoking in Bed, the titular story, is short as it is effective. This story is layered with meaning and themes of loneliness, self-sabotage, and addictive masochism. This story is the definition of "when the intrusive thoughts win."

Back When We Talked to the Dead closes out the collection with five teenage girls and their night with a Ouija board gone wrong.

Despite its horror, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed maintains a fun atmosphere to its storytelling even while navigating the darkest corners of the human psyche. Each story is so different from the next, it's hard to put the book down.

Enriquez's characters are both shocking and familiar, as though they could be friends from a parallel universe telling their stories in your living room; their stories sound something like every day life gone too far and curiosity killing the cat. This familiarity in tone juxtaposed with the horror of the stories' subject matter lend to a feeling of being cozy in bed while watching the world burn outside your window: sublime and thankful for the thin safety of your sheet.

My Score: 4/5

This could be preferential, but I do wish the endings of some of the stories were a little more concrete. That being said, the endings being written how they are allow the story to continue off the page; the characters develop a lingering effect due to this craft choice, which I also like. Allowing some stories to have vague endings allows the psychological horror room to play out in my mind long after the story is over. What do you think?

Age Rating: 18+

Dark subject matter, sex, gore, smoking, drugs.