Tuesday 28 October 2014

Scary Review: Horns by Joe Hill.


Book: Horns

Author: Joe Hill

Read On: iPad

Pages: 368

How Long It Took Me To Read: 2 days

Plot Summary: 
Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache . . . and a pair of horns growing from his temples.
At first Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic.

But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside. . . .

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. . . . It's time the devil had his due. 

General Thoughts: I read this book back in January and really enjoyed it, I saved this review up in time for Halloween. 

Things I Liked: 

1. I really enjoyed this book over all, the writing and the premise of this book. 

2. I also enjoyed being inside Ig's head, his thoughts, his confusion and him dealing with his peculiar little problem. I empathized with him and liked his forays into his past and him thinking about his relationship with Merin. I really liked Ig and was rooting for him. 

3. The best part of this book for me was the bit where people just spoke of their deepest, darkest thoughts in front of Ig. People he loved, his family and just normal people saying horrible, horrible things. It was fun...well...really interesting to hear what people really think. 

4. The small-town setting was really good too. The bad parts of being in a small-town, where everyone knows everyone else's business and judges you and has set opinions. This claustrophobia of living in a small town was shown very well. 

5. The book got to be a lot of fun when Ig realizes that he can get people to do what he wants and I laughed through those parts. 

6. The suspense was good too. 

Things I Didn't Like: 

While this book was peculiar, strange and creepy in parts, it wasn't scary. It didn't scare me at all. And considering I went in looking to get scared, I didn't find what I needed. 

Also this book has a whole lot of theology which isn't my favourite thing to read about. 

Rating: 3/5 

I am very curious to check out the film adaptation of this movie and reading other books by Joe Hill. 

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