cassiegracie 's review for:

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

0.25

dark medium-paced

Loveable characters: No

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Ugh, gross. This literally felt like a self insert fanfic written by Joe Hill for Joe Hill. Like, he is literally wearing an AC/DC shirt in his author’s portrait.  A VERY classic example of women written by a man.  The objectification of women in this book was not written to showcase the main character’s creepiness & flaws, but rather seemed a direct reflection of the author’s objectification of these made up, perfect, supple, young women in their twenties. Puke! Also, specifically the line where he’s like “seeing this young stripper know the lyrics to an AC/DC song was the sexiest thing i’ve ever seen…” Omg??? Sexy woman knows rock song from decades before her?!?!? I didn’t know silly women could do that!!!!! I hate men! I hate men die!!!

While I had a hard time getting past my disgust for those aspects, & it most definitely made the story worse, even WITHOUT all of that, it was a weak story anyway. It never fully captivated me. Certain plot lines were brought up too quickly, others were cut too short, some didn’t even make sense. It seems like Joe had many ideas & once he got those ideas out, he just threw them away & moved onto the next one, instead of drawing out & building onto them. That constant cycle made the book drag on. While it was semi-interesting, I found myself reading faster & faster, not out of any anticipation, but rather to finally be done with the book. I’m glad it’s over lol.