Creepy Crawlies-Kanika Sharma

Book: Creepy Crawlies
Author: Kanika Sharma
Publisher: Hachette India

What if things were not what they seem?

Something creepy hides in the cracks... It's watching you, waiting to crawl out. In this unsettling anthology of psychological and supernatural horror, the line between the living and the demonic blurs, boundaries between nightmare and reality collapse, and sanity is only a mirage. A boy returns from the asylum after years, and his neighbour's infant goes missing. A reclusive homeowner begins to suspect the spiders in his house aren't intruders, but guardians. In a chilling psychiatric interview, a young girl recounts why her brother had to die. The darkly audacious stories in Creepy Crawlies twist the familiar into the grotesque. Drawing inspiration from ancient folklore, urban legends and the darkest corners of the human mind, this collection dares readers to peek behind the curtain with a fair warning that they may find something sinister watching from the dark.

Creepy Crawlies is written in an interesting concept where Kanika takes 10 paranormal entities across folklores and weaves a story around them in the Indian context. Kanika’s storytelling is interesting and keeps you hooked in the stories one after the other. Another aspect of the book that works is the concept of the book, and how the idea of these paranormal entities has been woven into seemingly normal stories. Kanika’s writing will keep you guessing what is going to happen in the end.  The story about Dybbuk stood out for me for the fact that the author uses the idea of the paranormal entity and a diary in a good manner and while the perpetrator is quite visible, you keep turning the pages to see what happens in the end. Similarly, the story with the Ghoul was another that I liked for the manner in which Kanika treats the concept. What did not work for me in the book, however, was the length of the stories. I think that with the concept that Kanika brought in, and with her storytelling, the characters needed a bit more of space and time for the creep and thrill to blossom. While the stories kept me turning the pages, the spine-chilling fear that I had expected somehow did not materialize completely. That being said, I loved the way each of the stories end.

The book is a recommendation who love reading about paranormal entities and happenings, specially in the Indian context. The book scores a 4/5 for me.

Grab a copy of the book on Amazon India or a bookstore near you.