Heart-Shaped Box – Book Review

3 out of 5 stars

Not as good as NOS4A2, but this appears to be Hill’s first full length published novel, so I’ll try to go easy on him as he seems to get better with each new work. (My review of NOS4A2 here.)

Judas Coyne is a rockstar who slays all the half-his-age tail. None of them are all that meaningful, he calls them only by the state they originate from. Georgia, Florida, etc. Only if they truly mean something to him do they earn the right to their human name. *Please insert eye roll here* But when one of his ex-flings ends up dead, her family goes out of their way to get Jude to buy a haunted suit. Haunted by the girl’s stepfather to be specific. The ghost only wants one thing, for Jude to kill himself and to kill anyone who tries to help Jude.

Overall, it’s not a bad story. It’s not particularly grabbing but it’s entertaining enough to get the job done. One thing I worry though, is that Hill used the death of dogs to invoke feeling because there was a lack of it for the two human protagonists. They weren’t bad characters but neither were enjoyable. Killing a loyal dog or two gets my attention though.

I was left feeling rather confused at the ending. I’m not entirely sure why Craddock felt the need to spend his after life haunting a man that had nothing to do with Anna’s death. I get that he viewed Jude as ruining his sweet little Anna that he liked to molest, by making her stand up for herself but that still doesn’t seem like explanation enough as why to go through all the trouble to curse a suit and try to get some grumpy old rockstar to off himself. I mean, Craddock got away with everything he did before he died so why not just stay dead and forget about some far-fetched revenge?
But, mad men aren’t logical and at the end of the day that is what I remind myself of to be mildly okay with the outcome.