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A review by scottjp
Strange Weather by Joe Hill
Did not finish book.
I've read two of the four stories and I'm done. Is this really the same man who wrote 20th Century Ghosts? Perhaps succumbing to stardom, Hill's work is now a garbage dump of lowbrow language and chronic overwriting (like his bestselling dad.) Joe, everyone knows how a Polaroid works. If some of the kids don't, they can look it up. You also don't need to justify the depiction of politically incorrect bullying of the 1980s. We get it. I don't blame you for being defensive in these times, but be strong. Keep the story moving, Joe.
The second story is Joe's white guilt story, I guess. It is so contrived and agenda-driven it feels like it was written by a committee. A white male security guard makes an egregious error while investigating a shooting and kills an innocent Muslim woman, then tries to cover it up. Now he could have made him a complex character who elicits our sympathy in spite of his actions in the heat of the moment, but instead he's a cartoon. I did sympathize with him, but only because his nemesis, a black female journalist with a grudge against police, was so hateful, whereas he was just a guy caught up in events that quickly spiral out of control. I did not, however, feel that that was the intent of the story.
If the writing was better, I might have continued on through the next two stories for the sake of my book club, but it's not. It's terrible. And I have so many better things on the shelf.
The second story is Joe's white guilt story, I guess. It is so contrived and agenda-driven it feels like it was written by a committee. A white male security guard makes an egregious error while investigating a shooting and kills an innocent Muslim woman, then tries to cover it up. Now he could have made him a complex character who elicits our sympathy in spite of his actions in the heat of the moment, but instead he's a cartoon. I did sympathize with him, but only because his nemesis, a black female journalist with a grudge against police, was so hateful, whereas he was just a guy caught up in events that quickly spiral out of control. I did not, however, feel that that was the intent of the story.
If the writing was better, I might have continued on through the next two stories for the sake of my book club, but it's not. It's terrible. And I have so many better things on the shelf.