A review by cjblandford
Full Throttle by Joe Hill

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The theme of this short story collection is "literary influences" or "paying homage" to those that inspired you, or even "directly remixing or riffing" off some influential writers' stories. An interesting premise, and I'm glad he's forthright about it in the beginning of the book, but it still seems like a bit of a letdown almost. On the one hand, its an interesting exercise to pay homage to the writers who influenced you, and to acknowledge that you never quite lose that influence, no matter how successful you are, but on the other hand, let me see more of your original ideas, not just riffs on other people's works. That being said, the stories here are still good. They are solid stories that go in interesting directions and run the gamut of emotions, which is what one wants from a good short story collection. My favorite story was probably "Late Returns," or "All I Care About is You" and my least favorite was probably "Thumbprint," which wasn't a bad story, just featured almost unredeemable characters. So, overall, it was a good read, I don't feel like I wasted my time, and I'm glad that Joe was upfront about the inspiration for these stories, but next time I want to see all original works.