Monday, March 15, 2010

Adult Book Review - Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill


Review Contributed by Brent C.

It's hard to avoid comparing the son to the father, but if a comparison must be made, let it be done with the best of intentions.

This book has a voice of it's own, that has the accent of his father's best works. CREEPY, with characters the reader immediately feels a connection to, in a world like ours as seen through a wavy glass window.

One of the most satisfying endings to a suspense/supernatural thriller that I've read in years.

(From Publisher Weekly):
Starred Review. Stoker-winner Hill features a particularly merciless ghost in his powerful first novel. Middle-aged rock star Judas Coyne collects morbid curios for fun, so doesn't think twice about buying a suit advertised at an online auction site as haunted by its dead owner's ghost. Only after it arrives does Judas discover that the suit belonged to Craddock McDermott, the stepfather of one of Coyne's discarded groupies, and that the old man's ghost is a malignant spirit determined to kill Judas in revenge for his stepdaughter's suicide. Judas isn't quite the cad or Craddock the avenging angel this scenario makes them at first, but their true motivations reveal themselves only gradually in a fast-paced plot that crackles with expertly planted surprises and revelations. Hill (20th Century Ghosts) gives his characters believably complex emotional lives that help to anchor the supernatural in psychological reality and prove that (as one character observes) "horror was rooted in sympathy." His subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut. (Feb.)
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