We Should Have Left Well Enough Alone by Ronald Malfi

I have read two books by Ronald Malfi so far. Small Town Horror and Senseless. I really enjoyed them both, but Small Town Horrow was my first read and made me an instant fan. When I saw there was a collection of short stories coming out I jumped at the chance to review it. I’m very grateful to Titan Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this for an honest review.

What I didn’t know was this was the original collection of short stories published in 2017. This collection is being re-released with a Kindle edition and I’m excited to get to read this previously out of print collection.

I had no idea what I was getting into. The first story in this collection “The Dinner Party” was like a cold slap on the face. It lured you in with this cryptic opening where our main character is being followed by two men in black coats and by the end of it, the story did a 180 and left me very uncomfortable and my jaw on the floor. I have not stopped thinking about it.

Not every story was amazing but that is to be expected. Authors get to give us their range of stories and we the reader get to pick which ones speak to us. This book didn’t have a bad story in it. Yes there were one or two that I read and didn’t feel connected to, but all of them were enjoyable and I read straight through. i would sit and read until i completed the story and didn’t stop in the middle of them. I may have only read one in a sitting instead of multiple but I was engaged from start to finish of every story.

I will never tell you which stories were not my favorites because I do not want anyone to go into a story with a negative thought so that anyone who reads my reviews can experience it for themselves and make their own judgements. I will however, always talk about my favorites.

I will mention one other story titled “The Housewarming”. The strong introvert in me was terrified by this story. As much as I am a staunch introvert with anti social tendencies (there is a reason I blog and not Vlog) I love to cook and love having people over so I can cook for my friends and family. This story took me out of the little comfort zone I built for myself so we can entertain and threw me into intense anxiety and I loved it.

I mention the Dinner Party and The Housewarming because I enjoyed these so much, I had my son, who is not a reader, read these for school. Recently, my kids were home from school due to snow and the school district has them do AMI days so they can still count the days at home as school days and not the snow days we remember. For my son’s AP English class he needed to read something so each day I had my son read a story and these were the two I chose. He seemed to enjoy it which I found a huge win.

I say my son seemed to enjoy it because he is 16 and in that stage where he doesn’t tell you he likes something unless He loves it. He didn’t complain about it which he has at any mention of reading in the past so to me it would seem he enjoyed it. We talked about them so I know he read them.

I did get an Advanced Reader copy of this but it was close to when the book was to be published. This book was released on January 26 and is available at any local independent book stores. If you would like to support one of my favorites you can order Here and they will ship it.

This was an easy decision when it came to a rating. This will be my first 🥃🥃🥃🥃🥃 review of the year. I hope there will be many more and i do know Ronald Malfi has a new book coming out in April so we will see if I just review all the books I read by him now.