Review: ...Doesn't Mean I Have to Like You.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 20, 2012
A character in Throttle recalls saying to his son, "You know, just because I'm your father doesn't mean I got to like you." This line is really at the heart of this story written by a father and son. There is a primal love that we have for members of our family, but this is separate from if we understand them, or if we'd befriend them if we weren't in the same clan. Familial connections means that sometimes we'd kill or die for people we cannot even stand to see over the Thanksgiving turkey.I get the strong impression that Hill and King like one another just fine. King has recently said that if he couldn't finish a book that his son could step in, and I believe it's true. I -- and I know this is treason, to say this of a king, let alone King -- think I prefer Joe Hill's writing, or will eventually. There is still a similarity of phrasing in Hill's work that seems wonderfully familiar.Here, they work together, and I can't begin to tell where one starts and the other one begins, and since I enjoy both of these authors, I enjoyed this decidedly gory tale. And it IS gory, and scary. And a good read. This is a short piece that manages to work on multiple levels. There is the conflict between father and son and their differing values, and there is the fact that a truck is hot on the trail of their motorcycle club, and running them down like bugs on a windshield. And there's the meta level of the relationship between the authors.And it all works.