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quantum_crone 's review for:
Heart-Shaped Box
by Joe Hill
Despite the all-encompassing mediocrity of the horror genre of literature, I had high hopes for this book based on the glowing reviews and ringing endorsement from Neil Gaiman himself. But this was more horror show than horror.
Firstly, it displayed the unforgivable cardinal sin of the horror genre - it just wasn't scary. The first few pages had some atmospheric momentum, but nothing ever came of it. I was longing to put it down and grab something by King or Blatty or Matheson after Chapter 5.
Secondly, the leering, paternalistic gender dynamics were almost unbearable. The New York Times Book Review's recent review, 'A Roundup of New Horror,' wrote that "all horror writers are cases of arrested development, stuck forever in the terrors and insecurities of adolescence. (Or is it just the guys?)" Hill is wildly guilty of such a charge. We are supposed to feel sympathetic and romantic towards the egotistical 53 year old hero and his exclusively 26 year-old girlfriends - yes, both of them. There is sexual predation and sordid abuse at every turn. The overlay of sexuality and violence is a fine line much literature (of terror, of dystopia, of fantasy) walks, but Hill doesn't walk it so much as barge right over it. Perhaps the novel would have been scarier if this hadn't distracted so much from the story, but it's impossible to say.
Firstly, it displayed the unforgivable cardinal sin of the horror genre - it just wasn't scary. The first few pages had some atmospheric momentum, but nothing ever came of it. I was longing to put it down and grab something by King or Blatty or Matheson after Chapter 5.
Secondly, the leering, paternalistic gender dynamics were almost unbearable. The New York Times Book Review's recent review, 'A Roundup of New Horror,' wrote that "all horror writers are cases of arrested development, stuck forever in the terrors and insecurities of adolescence. (Or is it just the guys?)" Hill is wildly guilty of such a charge. We are supposed to feel sympathetic and romantic towards the egotistical 53 year old hero and his exclusively 26 year-old girlfriends - yes, both of them. There is sexual predation and sordid abuse at every turn. The overlay of sexuality and violence is a fine line much literature (of terror, of dystopia, of fantasy) walks, but Hill doesn't walk it so much as barge right over it. Perhaps the novel would have been scarier if this hadn't distracted so much from the story, but it's impossible to say.