All the stories contain at least one shocking twist, many of them being of a violent or disturbing nature. I am going to review one of the stories from the book (there are 16) to give you a taste of what it's like.
Lamb to the Slaughter is the story of Mary Maloney. She is a pregnant young woman married to a policeman. One night her husband comes home and tells her he is going to leave her. Mary, as if in a trance, tries to act normally and gets a leg of lamb from the freezer to make for her husband's dinner. But he becomes very angry with her. In a fit of rage and terror about her future, Mary strike her husband over the back of his head with the leg of lamb and kills him.
She then goes to great lengths to cover up her crime, including doing away with the evidence in an ingenious but horrible way.
The story is shocking, like all in the book, but the character Mary is very well-developed in the short story format. She displays varying emotions and character facets and Dahl's amazing story telling abilities and his apparent sixth sense for when to end a story leave the reader gasping and flipping eagerly to the next story.
That said, the stories are disturbing and shocking, and it is amazing to think that the same man who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory managed to think of these violent ideas.
Butterflies: 6.5 out of 10
Recommended for: teenagers and adults who are not too easily shocked!
Warnings: where do I begin... violence and very shocking moments. Not for the faint hearted!
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