Full Throttle

Stories ranked best to least:

- Late Returns (by and far the best)

- Throttle

- The Devil on the Staircase

- Dark Carousel

- By The Silver Water Of Lake Champlain

- Faun

- Wolverton Station

- In The Tall Grass (now I can watch the Netflix adaptation)

- All I Care About is You

- Thumbprint

- Mums

- You Are Released

This was my first time reading anything by Joe Hill. A friend was enthusiastic about one of these stories, Late Returns. When I saw all the well-known narrators, I decided to listen to the audiobook. He's often a very visual writer, but most of these stories aren't action-oriented. He's good at creating memorable characters, which is to my taste as a reader, but I'd say his strength is in exploring intriguing concepts. I will probably read one of his novels soon. I wrote mini-reviews of all the stories:Introduction - I enjoyed this a lot. I'm not a Stephen King fan, but it was interesting. Joe Hill is only a few years older than me, so I have an easy framework for understanding many of the experiences he describes here. Throttle - 2 of 5. This first story, about a motorcycle gang and a really ugly father/son relationship, felt so discordant with the sweet and nostalgic tone of the introduction. Men are being men and their concerns are family and revenge, and how bad meth is compared to the drugs of yesteryear. I disliked this one enough that I almost skipped ahead to the story that had been recommended to me, but I'm very glad I stuck with the book instead. This is the first of two stories here co-written by Joe Hill and Stephen King.Dark Carousel - 3 of 5. I was a teen in 94 also, and my life was not like this, but also, I was well aware that drunk driving and littering were wrong; the main character's assertion to the contrary hurt my suspension of disbelief. The female characters in this story feel three-dimensional, which surprised me after the near-complete absence of female characters in the first story. The action is exciting. To me, though, the story is way too long. The part after the MC's trauma goes on and on.Wolverton Station - 4 of 5. This is a fun romp! Absolutely unrelatable MC (I'm sure he's meant to be), and I'm impressed that the author made me feel his fear anyway. Neil Gaiman narrates this in the audiobook and he's fantastic. The story feels like a little Tales from the Darkside gem, and also a (somewhat heavy-handed) comment on capitalism and so on. I liked it a great deal.By the Silver Water Of Lake Champlain - 3 of 5. It was okay. It reminded me a little of my own childhood, but I think the characters are from the generation before mine. A female main character and I didn't love how that was handled. Faun - 4.5 of 5. I loved this one! I'm taking off half a star because, again, it's heavy-handed, this time in most of its characterizations. It would make a great movie. Creepy with a strong sense of menace and a satisfying ending. Another excellent narration (Zachary Quinto, who I wish did more audiobooks).Late Returns - 5 of 5. This story resonated with me really strongly and it's the highlight of the collection. I can't talk about it objectively. I think it would have a strong effect on any lifelong bookworm, especially if you're mourning someone who was also a bookworm. For me this story alone was worth the time I invested in this book, even though some of them really weren't my kind of thing.All I Care About Is You - 4 of 5. Sci-fi story that reminded me of [b:The Caves of Steel 41811 The Caves of Steel (Robot #1) Isaac Asimov https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1335782224l/41811.SY75.jpg 140376] and [b:Biting the Sun 373009 Biting the Sun (Four-BEE, #1-2) Tanith Lee https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388216522l/373009.SY75.jpg 362927]. It doesn't have the magic I always feel when reading Tanith Lee, but the world here is in that vein. It's the far future and people seem to be living very empty lives. I'm actually upset about this one! There's low-key sexism in all these stories and it's a little more intense here, because the main character is a teenage girl, but that's not what upset me. In fact, the story bothered me in the way it was meant to, which to me means it's a very good horror story. It's another I can easily imagine as a movie.Thumbprints - 3.5 of 5. This one also has a female narrator and her gender was (sort of) irrelevant, which just makes me feel more disappointed about the sexism elsewhere in the book. Also, I suspect this story is about things the author has no firsthand experience of, which is a problem when we're talking about PTSD. One character also reads to me as neurodivergent in other ways. However, as a creepy short story, it works pretty well. The Devil on the Staircase - 3 of 5. This did not really work for me as a story, exactly, but it was an interesting and disturbing character study, about a truly vile person.Mums - 2 of 5. My least favorite so far, with several sexist tropes, ordinary sexism, fatphobia, and poor treatment of mental illness. Glad this wasn't earlier in the collection or I would've bailed. In the Tall Grass - 1 of 5. I really disliked this one. If you pick up this collection, and you're not into seriously messed-up stories, just skip it. Another that's about experiences the authors can't have had (this is the second story here co-written with Stephen King), and it doesn't treat its characters respectfully. Very disturbing and gross, and I don't know what the point of it was.You Are Released - 4 of 5. I like this format of multiple point-of-view characters for this type of story, where everyone's reacting to the same incident. The plot (about a nuclear apocalpyse) hit my emotions pretty hard, but the story itself is fairly calm, which I appreciated. The author narrates this and he's excellent. Story notes - also interesting. I like how much background info the author included in the introduction and conclusion.A Little Sorrow - 5 of 5. This very short story is hidden after the story notes, and I really liked it.Twittering from the Circus of the Dead - 3 of 5. This is pretty good, a little predictable but nicely creepy. It's not in the audio version, due to the format (a series of tweets), but the PDF of it is easily available.

This review can also be found on my blog.

Joe Hill does it again, folks. From the first story, I was absolutely glued to this book. I actually started it just before game 1 of the World Series and, uh, I really just had to finish that short story, y'all. To the detriment of me missing some incredible plays. I don't know how the man does it – the weakness of short stories is that sometimes it is difficult to develop a connection to the characters or to feel that the story itself isn't quite fully-formed; this collection doesn't suffer from either. I found myself gripping the book tightly, bent over it in anticipation as I waited to see what would happen next. Each story managed to elicit strong emotions: anxiety, grief, horror, or some combination of the three. And each story was completely different; I never felt like I would mix up plot or characters, and always felt like I was being given something fresh and original.

Joel looked at her in surprise. “You're the smartest little girl on this side of the lake. You talk just like you're reading from a book.”“I'm the smartest little girl on either side of the lake.”

One of the things that really impresses me about Joe Hill is that he's able to write such good bad characters. There were characters in this I truly despised, extremely bad people. But the way he writes them makes you truly interested in reading more about them. He humanizes them without justifying the horrible things they've done or asking you to forgive them. Sometimes you even root for them, but not always.

Who is worse, Christian, the sadist who serves his true nature honestly or the ordinary man who does nothing to stop him?

The foreword is not something I've really seen before in a short story collection and was a bit meandering, but since I'm biased and adore Joe's writing, I didn't mind it at all. I think once you've become so loyal to an author, learning about their history and writing process becomes much more interesting than it may have been otherwise. The story notes following were also insightful, although much briefer.

The price of being alive is that someday you aren't.

My ratings for each story are as follows:

Throttle (with Stephen King) 4.5/5
Dark Carousel 4.5/5
Wolverton Station 4/5
By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain 5/5
Faun 4/5
Late Returns 4/5
All I Care About Is You 4/5
Thumbprint 3/5
The Devil on the Staircase 3/5
Twittering from the Circus of the Dead 3.5/5
Mums 4/5
In The Tall Grass (with Stephen King) 3.5/5
You Are Released 4/5

While that only comes to an average of 3.92, I was just so consistently impressed and haunted by this collection that I have to give it five stars. Even the stories that I didn't feel rated highly stuck with me, which I think says a lot about Joe Hill's writing and how he's able to truly understand how good writing impacts the human psyche. This honestly may be my favorite book of the year — although we'll see come December. I was constantly dropping this into my lap just to stare into the distance and contemplate how haunting some of the content was.

Her song — a low-pitched, unearthly dirge, like the forlorn cries of the whales that have long been extinct — has no words. Perhaps there never are for grief.

Overall, Joe Hill is incredibly talented. Please read this.