It's always so hard to rate a book of short stories, especially one like this where some are so good and some are so...well, not. It took me about a week to work my way through it, and while I enjoyed the majority of them, there were definitely a few where I just skipped to the end to see how things turned out because I was Bored (ahem, Sticks). There were also a few where I still don't really understand what happened (The Summer People).

By and large, though, I really enjoyed this set of short stories! It was nice to come back to a few old favourites, and see some new-to-me stories by authors I've enjoyed before.

If you like horror in general and the big names in particular, this is a book worth checking out--I definitely think the good stories outweighed the bad. I would have liked to see more names I hadn't seen before; for me, the best part of picking up an anthology like this is the chance to find some new authors I might not have read otherwise. But I see how the editor was weaving through big-name authors, influential authors, and I really enjoyed his analysis of same, so I'm not letting that personal quirk affect my rating.