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A review by yeahjaclynn
N0S4A2 by Joe Hill
3.0
TLDR; 3.5/5
For a book about a vampiric Santa character stealing children and taking them to Christmasland, this book was surprisingly and pleasantly restrained. It was scary in places, though not as truly terrifying as I might have liked, and the action sequences and body horror was fun to read. That said, Christmas will never be quite the same again.
Likes:
- Hands down the best part of reading this was the audiobook narrator. Whatever the equivalent for audiobooks there is of Emmy for TV or Oscar for film is, Kate Mulgrew has earned it tenfold.
- If there's one thing I've learned Joe Hill can do, it's write a compelling and spine-chilling villain character. Bing Partridge was downright disgusting and yet I still empathized with the poor bastard. The parts from his perspective were often my favorite.
- Character development on point. Victoria was a well-rounded, complex female character whose gender I only notice as I'm writing this because I'm doing a paper about bad female characters. Vic is a great character, AND a great female character/
- I love me some Easter eggs. The mentions of tidbits from Stephen King's books were fun.
- Most children are inherently creepy. This book uses that creepiness well.
Dislikes:
- Roughly half of the book I considered exposition. Generally. the first half is about Vic as a kid and the latter half is about Vic as an adult. The exposition was super interesting, don't get me wrong, but I would have liked more of the "current" stuff
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- It did drag on at times. None of the book was necessarily bad, but I think it could have benefited from some cuts.
For a book about a vampiric Santa character stealing children and taking them to Christmasland, this book was surprisingly and pleasantly restrained. It was scary in places, though not as truly terrifying as I might have liked, and the action sequences and body horror was fun to read. That said, Christmas will never be quite the same again.
Likes:
- Hands down the best part of reading this was the audiobook narrator. Whatever the equivalent for audiobooks there is of Emmy for TV or Oscar for film is, Kate Mulgrew has earned it tenfold.
- If there's one thing I've learned Joe Hill can do, it's write a compelling and spine-chilling villain character. Bing Partridge was downright disgusting and yet I still empathized with the poor bastard. The parts from his perspective were often my favorite.
- Character development on point. Victoria was a well-rounded, complex female character whose gender I only notice as I'm writing this because I'm doing a paper about bad female characters. Vic is a great character, AND a great female character/
- I love me some Easter eggs. The mentions of tidbits from Stephen King's books were fun.
- Most children are inherently creepy. This book uses that creepiness well.
Dislikes:
- Roughly half of the book I considered exposition. Generally. the first half is about Vic as a kid and the latter half is about Vic as an adult. The exposition was super interesting, don't get me wrong, but I would have liked more of the "current" stuff
-
Spoiler
Really wish Vic hadn't died. The ending was still satisfactory but man, she deserved to end up with Lou and her kid. And Tabitha Hutter can fuck right off.- It did drag on at times. None of the book was necessarily bad, but I think it could have benefited from some cuts.