Super short review: Heart-Shaped Box (2007), Joe Hill
[I suppose I could use Goodreads for these short reviews, but Goodreads is a site I hardly think about most days. Wouldn't it be better to just have one central homepage/social network?]
It's hard to know how much this seems like a Stephen King book because Hill is King's son--a little bite of trivia that everyone seems contractually obligated to mention--and how much it seems like a Stephen King book because King has become short-hand for modern American horror. Something horrible intrudes on an ordinary American life? How Kafkaesque! No, wait, that's not right. How King-esque!
It's hard to avoid thinking about King and Hill, especially given the fact that this book is mostly about fathers and sons (though really more broadly about responsibility to others--a fact which many reviewers seemed to miss, even though one of the main villains is not a father, but a mother/sister, and one of the main relationships being examined here is boyfriend-girlfriend).
A perfectly fine horror story, not ground-breaking, though I enjoyed the music references throughout.
Recommended or not recommended? Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.
It's hard to know how much this seems like a Stephen King book because Hill is King's son--a little bite of trivia that everyone seems contractually obligated to mention--and how much it seems like a Stephen King book because King has become short-hand for modern American horror. Something horrible intrudes on an ordinary American life? How Kafkaesque! No, wait, that's not right. How King-esque!
It's hard to avoid thinking about King and Hill, especially given the fact that this book is mostly about fathers and sons (though really more broadly about responsibility to others--a fact which many reviewers seemed to miss, even though one of the main villains is not a father, but a mother/sister, and one of the main relationships being examined here is boyfriend-girlfriend).
A perfectly fine horror story, not ground-breaking, though I enjoyed the music references throughout.
Recommended or not recommended? Recommended, if you like this sort of thing.