Review: Losers and Freaks, by C.E. Hoffman
Losers and Freaks
C.E. Hoffman
272 pages
Release: June 28, 2024
ISBN 97819589118831
Publisher: Querencia Press
C.E. Hoffman is a very young, quite talented writer of speculative fiction, which could be better categorized under the slipstream genre. According to her website, they are a screenwriter, author, poet, performer, publisher and lyrical journalist. They’ve won multiple awards and grants, have seven books in publication, and numerous short works.
First, the marketing blurb:
A pixie and werewolf plan to thwart a prophecy; a medical mannequin attempts to foil a viral attack. A girl befriends a spider; a janitor stalks a ghost; and Cupid makes a deadly mistake. Losers and Freaks is a 45K #OwnVoices short story collection. Exploring the psychology—and humanity—of outcasts, C’s second full-length release is worthy to its predecessor, Sluts and Whores, which helped earn the author a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts.
Welcome back to the Big City, where you find magic—and friends—in the strangest places.
Hoffman’s recent collection, Losers and Freaks, is by they’re own admission, “one big trigger warning.” Indeed, it is. I must admit I found it difficult to read because of that, and have struggled to write an honest, unbiased review since receiving a promotional copy. I kept putting it down, moving on to something else, anything else, because I just didn’t want to face the uncomfortable truths Hoffman laid out, baldly, I grudgingly admit skillfully, in prose which isn’t nuanced, but is compelling, nonetheless. The collection is like being shut into a room full of spiders if you’re an arachnophobe. Or having to privately face your attacker if you’re a victim of abuse.
And yet, despite how Hoffman locks the reader into a place of uncomfortable realities, albeit realities shifted onto another plane, there is somehow an underlying current of hope, periodically a sense of wonder, even innocence.
This is a young collection, written by a young individual, for a young audience. That is not to say any age demographic cannot understand, identify with, or enjoy the stories, but I did find a definite cultural gap because of age and experience differences. My knowledge of being a pariah and weirdo is quite foreign to the underlying culture of Hoffman’s age, and yet they’ve managed somehow to tentatively bridge that rift so that there can be some commonality. That’s a remarkable talent. Timeless, even.
So, is Hoffman’s newest collection worth reading? In my opinion, yes. But do take heed of their trigger warning.