G. Deyke reviewed Monsters in My Mind by Ada Hoffmann
[Adapted from initial review on Goodreads.]
5 stars
All too often, anthologies are something of a mixed bag, which rather complicates the process of reviewing them. Not so with Ada Hoffmann's Monsters In My Mind, which is consistently excellent. It's worth noting that the poetry is no exception to this, despite the fact that I'm not much of a poetry person: it's rare I find a poem I truly enjoy, but here we are.
The consistency of quality does make it difficult to pick out favourites, but stand-outs include "Centipede Girl" (on losing oneself, and the desperate loneliness of being covered in bugs); "Mama's Sword" (on the psychological consequences of Dungeons-&-Dragons-type adventures); "Moon Laws, Dream Laws" (a really nifty combination of fantasy religion and hard science fiction); and "Turning to Stone" (a poem about autistic shutdown/catatonia).
Selling points include queer and neurodiverse representation. Warnings are harder to assign in an anthology, since what may warn you off of …
All too often, anthologies are something of a mixed bag, which rather complicates the process of reviewing them. Not so with Ada Hoffmann's Monsters In My Mind, which is consistently excellent. It's worth noting that the poetry is no exception to this, despite the fact that I'm not much of a poetry person: it's rare I find a poem I truly enjoy, but here we are.
The consistency of quality does make it difficult to pick out favourites, but stand-outs include "Centipede Girl" (on losing oneself, and the desperate loneliness of being covered in bugs); "Mama's Sword" (on the psychological consequences of Dungeons-&-Dragons-type adventures); "Moon Laws, Dream Laws" (a really nifty combination of fantasy religion and hard science fiction); and "Turning to Stone" (a poem about autistic shutdown/catatonia).
Selling points include queer and neurodiverse representation. Warnings are harder to assign in an anthology, since what may warn you off of one story will not apply to another. One story is sexually explicit, but it is clearly labelled as such and easily skipped if desired.
The edition I read does have an extremely tiny font size, which may make it inaccessible for some readers. However, I believe there's been a second printing with the font size enlarged.
