Review: Uncommon Type

Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is almost good. Almost.

Tom Hanks' collection of short stories never quite feel right. The characters are always a little too stilted, the settings a little too convoluted, the writing always a little bit off in tone and style. Every story just feels ever so slightly misplaced and mistold.

If you persist past that, you realise that the core conflict in each of them, the central ideas, are actually kind of Dahl-esque. There are hints of brilliance here, some fantastic set-ups and build-ins that promise beautiful, shocking, satisfying conclusions.

And without fail, every single of them falls flat and does not deliver. Without fail, every ending is either predictable in a boring way, or unpredictable in how it refuses to go the distance and provide a satisfying end. For example, in a number of these stories, it seemed obvious that the plot, the tone, and the structure of the tale called for a character to die. That's just where the story is headed. However, instead of killing the character *or resolving the tension in another interesting way*, Hanks just lets the tension fade as the story comes to an unsatisfying conclusion.

Frustrating to read. Cannot recommend.

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