Book Review: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
Mar. 11th, 2008 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
juushikaTitle: Heart-Shaped Box
Author: Joe Hill
Published: New York: William Morrow, 2007
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 384
Total Page Count: 46,435
Text Number: 134
Read For: personal "enjoyment", checked out from the library
Short review: Jude Coyne, an aging rock star with a penchant for macabre artifacts, purchases a ghost online—but when the dead man's suit and spirit arrives, Jude learns that the ghost is far from harmless, as he was lead to believe. Instead, the ghost intends to lead Jude to his death, terrorizing Jude and his girlfriend Georgia and forcing them to journey back to Jude's roots in the American South. Despite Hill's simple yet ingenious plot and skillful pacing, Heart-Shaped Box is in all ways unremarkable: characters are not memorable (and Jude's girlfriends are even interchangeable), there is no resolution to Jude's backstory, and although the plot is both tense and dense, nothing exists outside of it—the reader is left with nothing meaningful or memorable. I found the horror elements ineffective and was ultimately disappointed in the book; In good conscious I can't recommend it, but readers who find these elements frightening may enjoy the book much more and may want to pick it up.
I found it excruciatingly difficult to write this review—not because the book was too good for words, or because it was too bad to waste my time on, but because I found Heart-Shaped Box is mediocre and unmemorable on all accounts. I appreciate the skill that went into plotting and writing the book, to be sure. The concept is ingenious in its simplicity, and the story has a dense and careful plot. Hill's chapters are short and the tight plot varies ongoing action and backstory at a rate that keeps the reader interested in both. His writing style is far from exceptional, but it is visually-oriented (almost more film than novel) and succinct, putting emphasis on the content of the writing and not the writing itself. All of these aspects are competent and make for a decent story—et for all of them, something about the book is lacking. Jude is styled as an antihero with a dark past—yet he is almost comically "hardcore" and while the reader does receive his backstory, Jude never comes to terms with his own history. He is not the only simplistic character: his girlfriends are so weakly characterized that as the plot progresses, they actually combine into a single entity with interchangeable names—an intentional plot device, granted, it still makes for worrying commentary on characterization.
However, the most disappointing part about the book is that nothing exists outside of it—when the book ends (in a series of too-perfect epilogues) the reader is left with nothing to take away, nothing meaningful outside of the plot. And while I hardly expect a horror book to contain the same depth as I would some other novels, I wish that the book offered something more than its plot. Perhaps I would have found the plot more meaningful in its own right if I had found the horror elements scary, but they were for me ineffective. Whether or not the book is frightening will probably depend on the reader—the horror elements are there, and with Hill's pacing there is adequate buildup and his visual writing style they are rendered in film-like detail. However, they simply didn't appeal to me, and in fact became repetitive—once the horror begins, it continues with almost to break up until the book's climax, all variations on the same theme peppered with moments of gruesome violence. Readers who find the book's horror more effective will no doubt enjoy the book more than I did, and a satisfying scare may tip the otherwise equal balance and make this a successful book.
Hill is a competent writer, and has conceived and plotted a competent book. There are weaknesses: poor characterizations, elements which go unaddressed. But since the horror elements did not interest or scare me, and since there is no greater meaning to the story, Heart-Shaped Box left me empty and disappointed. The book is easy enough to read—with such short chapters and constant movement in the plot, the pages go by swiftly. But once you get to the end, there's nothing there: Jude confronts nothing, all the right characters succeed and/or live, all the right characters fail and/or die (again), the plot wraps up to the expected pat conclusion, and the book ends—without leaving anything behind for the reader, any concepts to mull over, any meaning to take away. And since the book failed to scare or thrill me, and had nothing more meaningful to offer, I came away feeling as though I had wasted my time in reading it. Another reader may find this book scary, they may be able to enjoy it for the thrill ride it intends to be, and that may be enough. But I didn't care for it, and I can't in good conscious recommend it.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
Author: Joe Hill
Published: New York: William Morrow, 2007
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 384
Total Page Count: 46,435
Text Number: 134
Read For: personal "enjoyment", checked out from the library
Short review: Jude Coyne, an aging rock star with a penchant for macabre artifacts, purchases a ghost online—but when the dead man's suit and spirit arrives, Jude learns that the ghost is far from harmless, as he was lead to believe. Instead, the ghost intends to lead Jude to his death, terrorizing Jude and his girlfriend Georgia and forcing them to journey back to Jude's roots in the American South. Despite Hill's simple yet ingenious plot and skillful pacing, Heart-Shaped Box is in all ways unremarkable: characters are not memorable (and Jude's girlfriends are even interchangeable), there is no resolution to Jude's backstory, and although the plot is both tense and dense, nothing exists outside of it—the reader is left with nothing meaningful or memorable. I found the horror elements ineffective and was ultimately disappointed in the book; In good conscious I can't recommend it, but readers who find these elements frightening may enjoy the book much more and may want to pick it up.
I found it excruciatingly difficult to write this review—not because the book was too good for words, or because it was too bad to waste my time on, but because I found Heart-Shaped Box is mediocre and unmemorable on all accounts. I appreciate the skill that went into plotting and writing the book, to be sure. The concept is ingenious in its simplicity, and the story has a dense and careful plot. Hill's chapters are short and the tight plot varies ongoing action and backstory at a rate that keeps the reader interested in both. His writing style is far from exceptional, but it is visually-oriented (almost more film than novel) and succinct, putting emphasis on the content of the writing and not the writing itself. All of these aspects are competent and make for a decent story—et for all of them, something about the book is lacking. Jude is styled as an antihero with a dark past—yet he is almost comically "hardcore" and while the reader does receive his backstory, Jude never comes to terms with his own history. He is not the only simplistic character: his girlfriends are so weakly characterized that as the plot progresses, they actually combine into a single entity with interchangeable names—an intentional plot device, granted, it still makes for worrying commentary on characterization.
However, the most disappointing part about the book is that nothing exists outside of it—when the book ends (in a series of too-perfect epilogues) the reader is left with nothing to take away, nothing meaningful outside of the plot. And while I hardly expect a horror book to contain the same depth as I would some other novels, I wish that the book offered something more than its plot. Perhaps I would have found the plot more meaningful in its own right if I had found the horror elements scary, but they were for me ineffective. Whether or not the book is frightening will probably depend on the reader—the horror elements are there, and with Hill's pacing there is adequate buildup and his visual writing style they are rendered in film-like detail. However, they simply didn't appeal to me, and in fact became repetitive—once the horror begins, it continues with almost to break up until the book's climax, all variations on the same theme peppered with moments of gruesome violence. Readers who find the book's horror more effective will no doubt enjoy the book more than I did, and a satisfying scare may tip the otherwise equal balance and make this a successful book.
Hill is a competent writer, and has conceived and plotted a competent book. There are weaknesses: poor characterizations, elements which go unaddressed. But since the horror elements did not interest or scare me, and since there is no greater meaning to the story, Heart-Shaped Box left me empty and disappointed. The book is easy enough to read—with such short chapters and constant movement in the plot, the pages go by swiftly. But once you get to the end, there's nothing there: Jude confronts nothing, all the right characters succeed and/or live, all the right characters fail and/or die (again), the plot wraps up to the expected pat conclusion, and the book ends—without leaving anything behind for the reader, any concepts to mull over, any meaning to take away. And since the book failed to scare or thrill me, and had nothing more meaningful to offer, I came away feeling as though I had wasted my time in reading it. Another reader may find this book scary, they may be able to enjoy it for the thrill ride it intends to be, and that may be enough. But I didn't care for it, and I can't in good conscious recommend it.
Review posted here at Amazon.com.
