Reviews

Anoka by Shane Hawk

amethyst09's review

dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

akleavitt's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

2.0

tazzbird's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

3.5

eficca33's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

4.0

"Orange" and "Soilborn" were both flash fiction and the ending GOT ME!!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood, Cannibalism, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Addiction, Car accident, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Colonisation, Adult/minor relationship, and Classism

willowfan's review

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

theclosetlibrarian's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

bonafidefaygo's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

4.5

I love a short story collection, and I'm often underwhelmed...but when they're good, they're really good.

This a short horror collection focused on indigenous identities, myths, and trauma all focused around one town (Anoka, Minnesota) where there just seem to be some strange goings on.

Of the six stories, I thought 4 were really successful, 1 I enjoyed but the ending kinda lost me but I think maybe I need time to digest it, and then 1 was a major fail for me and unfortunately that was the first story but thankfully it was only 3 pages (part of why I think it failed for me).

The stories all had a really nice blend of weirdness/surrealism, body horror, and myth/supernatural/occult ideas and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the ideas and most of their executions. And I also deeply appreciated the story notes for each story, why it was written, what he was trying to convey, and what it inspired it.

I wish this collection was longer

gbhatti's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

2.0

nooker's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

Some of this was hard. Kids in danger and such. It was all interesting.

_lilbey_'s review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

3.0