Ankle Snatcher

I remember my grandmother reading me James Howe's “There's a Monster Under My Bed” as a youngster, and for whatever reason, the blurb on of this book immediately made me think that it was going to be a more “adult” version of that short.

This is a short, short, story about a young man who grew up believing his mother was murdered by a boogeyman that lives beneath the bed because his father told him so.

I was on board for the first page or two, but soon fell out with the quick relationship banter, gross-out attempts, and the boogeyman-under-the-bed bit. There might be something to the story if it was fleshed out a bit more, but there was just not enough inherent backstory to really play up that fear of a monster under the bed.