This is a collection of eight short stories by Wrath James White. I'm pointing this out because I didn't realize it at first. Sometimes I simply get a book because of the author and because it was a good deal. To be honest, I do not remember getting this book but considering it is an author I like, that was probably reason enough. I am also pointing this out so that you don't do what I did and think it was one novel with titles for each chapter. Looking back, I was kind of lame for thinking that but it is what I did. Anyway, the stories. Usually, I list out my favorites from a collection so that the stories will hopefully grab you enough for you to read them. The remaining stories tend to be either good but not standout or less than good. This time I can't do that. This time the less than good stories didn't exist; the stories that were not favorites or not good-enough were actually good enough, stand out solid stories that left an emotional impact. The problem was that the emotion was uncomfortable and awkward and ill at ease. "Scab", "No Pain", and "Perdition's Flame" were those stories. Emotionally they struck at me in a similar manner to White's YACCUB'S CURSE. I felt what it was like to be African American and to be targeted because of it. But I also knew that I felt only a small amount of what it really was like. That what I felt was nothing compared to these characters. The feeling was powerful, scary, intense, uncomfortable, sad, and more that I don't know how to describe. While I picked the final three stories in the collection as my favorites, those first three left a more emotional impact. I'm probably going to remember those more than the ones listed below.

"Best Friends" - A teen makes friends with a bullied female classmate.

"Pressure" - A woman uses torture to get what she wants from a man: an admission and a statement.

"Talent Does What It Can" - The end of the world comes and fights against a pianist. ( )

Wrath James White is the kind of author who's work you approach carefully. From reviews and blurbs, you know that picking up a novel or short story of his is going to be an uncomfortable, honnest, sometimes grotesque and often heart breaking experience. I'm not always in the mood for that kind of experience but when I am, Wrath James White is right up there with the best of them and "Scabs" is a shinning example of what makes him a great writer. Stories about the extremes one would go through for love and acceptance make up the large majority of the fare here and the creativity and brutality of some of these stories is worth sitting with and really savouring.

I don't write as many reviews as I should. When I do, it's usually for works I think deserve a little more attention. Mr. White's work is often clumped into subgenres of horror with a very particular audience and make no mistake, it's for a reason, these stories are not for everyone but like the other writers who come up in comparison (your Ketchums, Lees and Laymons), there is a level of emotional depth to the violence. Not to mention the attention to characterization. Scabs is by far the most emotional work I've read by this author and it just goes to show what can be done with a pallet that includes globs of equal parts humanity, violence, love and something downright ugly. Probably the most accessible works by this author.