A review by mmccombs
Anoka by Shane Hawk

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

2.0

I’m really sad but this collection did nothing for me. I found the writing to be ineffective and a bit forced, and the stories lacked depth and punch. There were some really unnerving/gross/creepy ideas (yuck, spiders! Ah, creepy copy of your kid!) that I think could have worked with a bit more finesse. I also wished that the idea of place was explored a bit more, the intro made me thing that each story was intrinsically linked with Anoka as a town, but in reading the stories they really could have been happening anywhere had the town name not been mentioned. I didn’t see the “history” the author was talking about really until reading his notes afterwards. I think had the collection been more grounded in place/in history, this would have been more successful.
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