Book review of Horns – By The Resident Weeble and The Girl...well, mainly her

It’s Sunday evening, it’s time to snuggle up with a good book…review.  Today’s book is ‘Horns’ by Joe Hill. If you haven’t heard of Joe Hill you will have heard of his father Stephen King, but please don’t let that sway your decision on this book either way.  Joe Hill is very much a notable author in his own right with his own style and his second novel ‘Horns’ is a wonderful example of this.

Both myself and The Girl in my life, have read this book and I believe her account of it to be far more eloquent than mine, so below is and extract of her review of the book. The full book review plus others can be found at her BlogSpot ‘Books I’ve read’. Be warned a lot of her reviews may give away plot points, so only delve in if you’re not bothered by this.

Horns is the story of the aptly named Ignatius Parrish following the brutal murder of Merrin, the love of his life. A year after her death, he gets wasted and visits the place she was killed, near an old disused foundry. He desecrates the shrine that people have made in her memory, and pees all over a plastic Virgin.  Waking up the next morning, his troubles begin having grown a fine pair of horns and apparently acquired various demonic powers. We follow him as he looks for help amongst his friends and family, and they each in turn tell him their deepest darkest desires. Eventually this leads him to find Merrin’s killer, and he goes about extracting his revenge.

The opening of this book sucks you straight in. You find out that Ig has grown horns at the same time that Ig finds out he has grown horns, and his rational (in the circumstances) reaction is reassuring in letting you know that the horns are the only weird thing going on here. All too often in books, and even more so in films and tv, a situation is set up where there are too many suspensions of disbelief required. As an audience member, I think that one step away from reality is enough for an interesting set-up, any more and it just gets silly. That’s the reason people end up shouting at the screen (or the page); because characters are doing ridiculous things in ridiculous situations. A story is much more convincing and easier to get involved in if people are doing rational things in ridiculous situations, or vice versa. So when Ig does the rational thing and goes to a doctor, it works as an excellent device to unfold the story. Not only does Joe Hill convince you of the legitimacy of the character in an otherwise abnormal situation, he also uses Ig’s journey to the surgery to first show how the horns work, and then explain why they work. This lays down the foundations of the rest of the story in such a way that I really could not stop reading.

Continue reading this review and others at ‘Books I’ve read’

Remember to enjoy my fellow ’28 Day Writers’ blogs today at Sudo One & A Piece of Pandemonium