Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.49 You Save: $4.50 (56%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Heart-Shaped Box
Book Review: A Smart First Effort
Summary: 3 Stars
"Heart-Shaped Box" will not set any literary circles on fire, but I found the debut novel smart, imaginative and a scary ride from start to finish.
Joe Hill's first novel is a ghost story; plain and simple. He delivers a decent story that does not take the ghost story into uncharted territory, but he does make the ghost story fun and scary again. Hill creates a sustained atmosphere of tension with haunting vignettes and encounters with a ghost who has the best ghost name I have come across in a while: Craddock. The horror scenes seem to be staged at strategic intervals throughout the book, as if it was a television show and each segment between commercials was required to have a chilling moment. However, every time the story could have become repetitious, Hill surprises the reader with a smart twist to makes everything fresh again.
There is also a strong emotional pull within the story that affected me. There is an underlying theme about the loneliness of death and the horrors of suffering alone. Time and again characters experience horrors alone with no one to comfort them and help them with their physical and emotional pain or their passing from life to death. This is never truer than with the story of Ruth. Although a very minor plot line, Ruth's story was told simply and powerfully.
Hill's writing was a little bland and some of the imagery seemed to be taken straight from a Japanese horror film, but the story alone is worth the price of admission. It is not earth shattering in its uniqueness, but it is so well told with imaginative frights that it had me hooked and loving every mile traveled with these characters.
Book Review: A Treat for those identifying with Goth I guess
Summary: 2 Stars
This may be a treat for those who can identify with, depression, self-mutilation, suicide, and other low forms of human behavior exclusive of there being anything better in life. An interesting start, it's as if the reader (or audiobook listener in my case) jumps onto a literary sinking ship and goes down, down, blub, blub, blub. Aging rock star musician Judas Coyne and his victim-of-life girlfriend "Georgia," have to figure a way to end being chased by a murderous ghost who was the father of one of Judas' many former slutty girlfriends, "Florida." She committed suicide after Judas tossed her aside in his pursuit to screw his way through all 50 states.
Although not scary as was stated in the review that got me to pick this one up, I could have really appreciated this story as a short story leaving out the numerous acts of horrendous injustices the main characters experienced as naive youth at the hands of close family members. Each incident is related during periods of ghostly inaction, and each character is able to whip out an incident that tops that of the last told. By disc six I was calling to have them put out of their misery...
Joe Hill can write, the audio narration was fine, I just didn't care for the story as entertainment. In this genre what pops to mind at this moment that I have liked was Apt Pupil by Stephen King, the audio version of The Mist also by Stephen King, the Odd Thomas books by Dean Koontz, A Watcher by the Dead an old short story by Ambrose Bierce, it's worth finding.
Book Review: A Truly Remarkable Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't usually write book reviews. As a writer myself, I try solely to learn something from a book when I read it, and this in my opinion takes away from the possibility of a non prejudicial review. But I'm breaking my promise to myself with HSB. This is BY FAR one of the most well-written, beautifully-written pieces of literary art I've had the pleasure of feasting upon. I cannot say enough good things about this book. A magnificent, read-all-night tale, Joe Hill is a compelling, masterful storyteller, taking you to a place where Stephen King dares not go.
Book Review: A chip of the old Block....
Summary: 5 Stars
Great Story, nothing has scared me in a long time-this did...cannot wait for his next novel!Book Review: A flawed, but thoroughly enjoyable, horror ride
Summary: 3 Stars
Judas Coyne made music about the dead--his fans thought he was evil, and perhaps part of him was. Because, apparently, a former groupie has committed suicide. And her dear old stepdad, who has just died, is coming after Coyne, with the hopes of reuniting the former lovers...in Hell.
Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and get one thing out of the way. I'm sure a lot of people have compared this novel to those of Stephen King, or have stated "Move over Stephen King," or words to that effect. While I don't think he's quite there yet, Joe Hill (full name Joe Hillstrom King) is indeed the perfect individual for the job, being the son of the afore-mentioned Mr. King. "Heart-Shaped Box" shows a lot of promise (there are scenes where Hill doesn't flinch, where other authors--perhaps even dear old dad--would have). And the premise is excellent.
So why only 3 stars? Because I don't think Hill has decided who he wants to be yet. Does he want to be a commerical author, or a die-hard horror author? The novel goes soft near the end (despite a superb climactic scene), and many characters get off the hook when they shouldn't, or are punished for past deeds when there is really no need for it in the context of the novel. It's as if Coyne is wanting to make a seemless horror novel--which, as true horror fans should know, isn't a smart idea. Part of what makes horror so damn frightening is that it is NEVER over, that the horrors always continue, in one form or another.
Still, Hill is off to a damn good start. I haven't read "20th Century Ghosts," but I plan to. "Heart-Shaped Box" didn't rock my socks off, as all the critical reviews suggested it would, but it did get me intrigued. And perhaps, for a first novel, that's enough. So, if you are a fan of the genre, feel free to pick up this book and give it a try. It's worth the effort, because I think we have a new (ahem) king of horror emerging from underneath Daddy's shadow (the fact that he doesn't use his father's name suggests a cry for independence, and we must commend him for that).