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Do you sleep with the light on? Are you in the habit of checking your doors and windows before you go to bed? Maybe even checking under your bed? If you are about to crack open Joe Hill's chilling thriller Heart-Shaped Box, you might want to rethink your nighttime habits--Hill's story about an aging rock star (with a penchant for macabre artifacts) who buys a haunted suit online will scare you silly. But don't take our word for it. We asked bestselling authors (and masters of dark terror tales themselves) Scott Smith, and Harlan Coben to read Heart-Shaped Box and give us their take. Check out their reviews below, and you might want to pick up a nightlight while you're at it. --Daphne Durham
Guest Reviewer: Scott Smith
In 1993, Scott Smith wowed readers with his stunning debut thriller, A Simple Plan. Thirteen years later, he spooked us again with The Ruins, a horror-thriller about four Americans traveling in Mexico who stumble across a nightmare in the jungle.
The set-up for Joe Hill's novel, Heart-Shaped Box, is appealingly simple. Jude Coyne, an aging rock star, buys himself a dead man's suit. He acquires it online, lured by the promise that the dead man's ghost will be included in his purchase. Jude thinks this is a joke, of course. He also assumes the seller is a stranger. We soon discover that he's wrong on both counts, however, and from this point on the story moves with an exhilarating urgency. Jude wants the ghost gone; the ghost wants Jude dead. We watch, chapter-by-chapter, as they battle for survival. "Watch" is the appropriate word, too, because this is an extremely visual book. Hill's prose is lean and precise, and he renders Jude's world with impressive confidence. It feels solid, every detail both correct and fresh. And this physicality provides a firm platform for the book's otherworldly happenings, which seem all the more frightening for being so securely grounded.
Hill has a flawless sense of pacing. His narrative never flags, nor does it ever move so quickly as to outrun itself. And one can sense his literary ambition pushing at the margins of the genre. There are times when his writing, for all its spare efficiency, seems to jump away from him, stopping one small step short of poetry. An e-mail to Jude from the ghost (trust me, it's not as absurd as it sounds) could even pass for something ee cummings might've written, in an especially morbid mood. And toward the end of the book, when Hill describes a trip down death's "night road" in a '65 Mustang, the passage has a startlingly lyrical beauty.
The story's horror ultimately has as much to do with Jude Coyne's past--his mistakes, abandonments and betrayals--as with anything supernatural. Jude has caused a lot of pain over the years, moving through life with a carelessness that verges on the callous. His battle with the ghost brings this behavior into sharp relief, forcing
Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel: Joe Hill: Amazon.com: Books Do you sleep with the light on? Are you in the habit of checking your doors and windows before you go to bed? Maybe even checking under your bed? If you are about to ... Heart-Shaped Box (Book) Horror Movie, DVD, & Book Reviews, News ... Dread Central is the premier website for breaking news, original content and active community in the world of horror, covering movies, DVDs, games, collectibles, live ... Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel by Joe Hill - Powell's Books Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals...a used hangman's noose...a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the ... Heart-Shaped Box - Joe Hill - Book - Review - New York Times It would be much easier to compare Joe Hills witty horror novel about a haunted suit to the work of Stephen King if Stephen King were not his actual father. BARNES & NOBLE Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill, HarperCollins ... Best of the Month Explore our hand-picked list of new books that stand out as the best of the best in August. Shop Now Heart-Shaped Box (novel) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Heart-Shaped Box (2007) is the debut horror novel of author Joe Hill. Aging rock star Judas Coyne spends his retirement collecting morbid memorabillia such as a witch ... Heart-Shaped Box - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For the 2007 book by Joe Hill, see Heart-Shaped Box (novel). ... Heart-Shaped Box" is a song by the American grunge band Nirvana, written by vocalist and ... Book Review of Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill Readers who enjoy frightening themselves will enjoy Joe Hill's debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box. The plot suffers from some holes, the writing is invisible more than it ... Heart-Shaped Box: A Novel: Joe Hill: 9780061147937: Amazon.com: Books Do you sleep with the light on? Are you in the habit of checking your doors and windows before you go to bed? Maybe even checking under your bed? If you are about to ... Heart-Shaped Box - Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends ... Heart-Shaped Box has 19,555 ratings and 2,364 reviews. La Petite Amricaine said: The cover of this book promises that you will be haunted and startle...
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