Book Review: Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

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“The dead pull the living down.”

📚

Aging former death metal rock star Judas Coyne loves to collect macabre keepsakes — a snuff film, a 16th-century peasant’s skull, and a 300-year-old witch’s confession, to name a few — so when he discovers someone on the internet selling a ghost to the highest bidder, he can’t help himself. He’s no stranger to ghosts and hauntings: the specter of a childhood spent at the mercy of an abusive father, the spirits of his departed bandmates, and the echoes of a mentally ill ex-girlfriend he jilted have loomed large for years, leaving him confident he can handle a poltergeist.

But after his purchase arrives in a black, heart-shaped box, things change, and not for the better. His dogs continually bark, the house feels cold, his girlfriend gets sick, and strange and disturbing incidents begin happening, making Judas realize that not only has he gotten much more than he bargained for, but his new resident means to chase him from his home and, ultimately, end his life.

Through its flawed and vulnerable characters, mysterious storyline, brutal violence, and heart-pounding scenes of terror, Heart-Shaped Box delivers a wallop of a tale surrounding redemption, cyclical abuse, extraordinary love, and the occult. Joe Hill’s writing is wonderfully immersive, weaving a thoroughly compelling narrative and an unpredictable, uniquely layered ghost story. It’s a gritty, unputdownable account of humble origins and past traumas, failed relationships and mortal perils, black marks and evil deeds, dark secrets and horrific truths, and haunting reverberations and indelible regrets where no one is safe, vengeance is villainous, canines are vital, and both people and doorways are more than they appear.

Favorite Quotes:

“The dead win when you quit singing and let them take you on down the road with them.”

“You couldn’t change, but you could bear witness.”

“All the world is made of music. We are all strings on a lyre. We resonate. We sing together.”

“Horror was rooted in sympathy, after all, in understanding what it would be like to suffer the worst.”

“The dead claim their own.”

🖤Amanda

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