Review: The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried

The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried by Shaun David Hutchinson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I hate to say it but sometimes Shaun David Hutchinson's books lose a bit of their luster with each one I read. I really loved my first book of his - At the Edge of the Universe - as well as We Are the Ants, and I enjoyed The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley and The Apocalypse of Elena Mendoza too. But I guess The Past and Other Things That Should Stay Buried is...kind of a dud, I'm gonna be honest. I mean, there's some things going for it for sure - the usual hyper-inclusivity of Hutchinson's narratives, centering queerness (though this book also includes a straight girl's POV and she is, shall we say, not hip to LGBTQ+ issues) and doing its damnedest to keep marginalized identities from being characters' entire personalities. And it's got a pretty brilliantly on-the-nose metaphor for friendship decay in the form of a dead friend coming back to a sort of zombie form, though without the hunger for living flesh or contagion. Unfortunately, Hutchinson writes all too short a book, and it shows - there's simply not enough time to completely build the world, a lot of stuff goes unexplained, and frankly, July's POV is almost too annoying to read because she's simply a terrible person, self-centered and insensitive (though I get the feeling that Hutchinson had a little fun writing her, at times, as the stereotype of a white person unwilling to check their privilege.) Even Dino, as sweet and anxious and relatable as he is, I wish he could've shown a little more personality - I think Hutchinson might've sacrificed too much of Dino's backbone in the effort to prop up July, and perhaps also to avoid too many comparisons to previous protags of his. It's a shame, I was going to rate this one a little higher, but after letting my thoughts percolate a little more, I'm taking this one down to two stars.

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