Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

 

“Danny did not think coke and computers were anything alike. But Jude had seen the way people hunched over their screens, clicking the refresh button again and again, waiting for some crucial if meaningless hit of information, and he thought it was almost exactly the same.”

― Joe Hill, Heart-Shaped Box 

I've generously given four stars to this novel because I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, but the critic in me suggests 3 is more correct. I'd definitely give a 2 star rating to the book blurb because I didn't find it very accurate.

Judas Coyne felt more bored than self-obsessed, excited by his macabre collection of creepy serial killer artifacts. His assistant leads him to an auction site where he can bid on a ghost: who wouldn't want a piece of that action? Unfortunately, the ghost turned out to be the angry stepfather of his manic-depressive ex-girlfriend. And his current girlfriend will have to help him save himself.

This is ultimately a ghost story with a lot of action. I did find it nicely paced, moving right along for the most part. I didn't find it all that scary. It's a fun ghost story with some sex, blood, and rock'n'roll... and a bit of humor.

This is the second book I've read by Joe Hill, that's classified as horror but it lacks something. The characters are cool, but not consistent; is Jude a rockstar banging a groupie or his live-in- girlfriend? And even though they're interesting, I'm not sure they're all that relatable. Ghosts are a terrifying subject matter, but sometimes it's the things you can't see that scare you the most. Instead of watching Jude and Georgia sleep, the ghost sits politely outside the door.

Like The Brat in NOS4A2 (yes, I know one book came before the other) Judas Coyne and Georgia are full of fight. The main characters of the horror novel spend more time being angry than being afraid, which makes it easy to be swept up in a haunted blood-soaked joyride on the night road... but didn't leave me worried about shutting out my own lights.

4 stars for entertainment value, 4 stars for cool factor, and he's a fine story-teller... But for me the book just didn't live up to the hype.