Full Throttle

Warning: This Review contains a couple "blue" words. Not real Blue, not George Carlin's "7 words you can't say on television" blue. More like "shock your Grandma you know those type of words" baby blue..... Anyway, you have been warned.

Joe Hill should only write short stories and novellas. There I said it. In my humble, if well-read opinion, this is the genre he thrives in. Full Throttle is a collection of stories about 12 assholes, and 1 redeeming character. Well I'm assuming the characters in "The Devil on the Staircase" and "Twittering from the Circus of the Dead" are assholes because I did not read them. I do not care for stories written in cutesie, precious formats, (I barely made it through "Dracula" because it was written in letter and journal form) and after almost 46 years of being read to or reading stories, I am putting my foot down. But I digress. I'm only going to talk about two of the 13 stories in this book, because frankly, I have several more books to review and I've only got so much time. But again, I digress. The two stories I want to discuss are the two that left the biggest impression on me; "Late Returns" and "All I Care About is You."

Late Returns, you took me down memory lane. I grew up in a VERY rural community. There were 48 people in my high school graduating class. Needless to say we did not have a public library, and I depended on the bi-weekly bookmobile to provide the majority of my reading materials throughout the summer months. I loved that big silver bus and would line up in front of the post office waiting for it all summer long. So my heart strings were already tugged when the story began. I'm not going to give any spoilers away, but lets just say, I hope that someday I am able to bring back a late return. (Yes, this is the one redeeming character in the book)

And, maybe it was because I was still basking in the glow from the above story, that the ending of "All I Care About is You" just left me saying "Damn!!!!!!"

Go ahead and read Full Throttle. I wish you your own tear-filled trip down memory lane and your own "Damn!!!!!!" moment.