Reading is something I really enjoy doing but rarely get to do. Since taking on my new job I have worked more hours than I expected I would. Add to that taking care of kids, being a wife and working on my own writing, it doesn’t leave a lot of time. If I do have time I typically am trying to spend it working on my own book.
Because of my lack of free time, I try to reserve my reading time for my book club book each month. However, this month I sort of blatantly ignored the selected book in favor of the book Horns by Joe Hill. I saw Daniel Radcliff talk about his role on Jimmy Fallon and was intrigued. I thought the premise of the story sounded promising but I wanted to read the book first. That’s how I roll. I’m doing the same thing with the book/movie Maze Runner. I finished Horns yesterday and am prepared to pass the book along to one lucky reader who wants it. All you have to do is like my Facebook Page and share it, then comment that you “shared” and I’ll pick a winner at random to mail Horns to.
Now on to the review. Er… what to say? Horns lives in the Horror genre, a genre I don’t typically read and now I understand why. Because sad horrific things make me feel sad and horrible lol. But I’m a wuss.
The story begins a year after the the rape and murder of the girlfriend of Ignatius Perrish. He has awoken from a drunken stupor to discover he now has horns growing out of his head. The horns seem to cause the people around him to confess to him all their sins and look to him for permission to commit more. It horrifies him and also twisted him into something a bit ugly and uncomfortable for me to read about. People say the most horrible things to him and he has to just hear them. It’s sad. But he figures out how to use them and tries to find the real killer of his girlfriend. Did I mention that pretty much everyone in his life and town thinks he is the one who killed her? So pretty much everyone hates him, when they see him they tell him horrible things or try to kick his ass. His life is pretty miserable and he sometimes does miserable things after hearing what people really think.
The book flashes backwards to allow us to see Ig as a teen and learn about his relationships. At the time I was impatient to get on with what was happening in present day, however, now I see that those parts were important to humanize Ig and make us care more than we would otherwise. When we first meet Ig, he’s terrible, destructive and broken. But as we get to know the younger Ig we learn he was a really good person. It makes it even more tragic.
I won’t go into everything here, the movie trailer makes the story out to be more comedy that it is. The book is disturbing and depressing but still a good story. It put me in a wonky mood and I decided I just needed to finish the book yesterday so I could cleanse my pallet with something a little less tragic.
That all being said, I think the book was an excellent premise, well written and a quick read. It wasn’t gratuitous, no overly descriptive acts of terror though the violence was pretty descriptive. I guess the descriptive violence was a type of violence I could handle and when it came to violence I would normally shrink from, it stood back and was restrained. Occasionally I cringed at some of the terms used, but more because I doubted the authenticity of someone using certain words like “cherry and pecker.” But then again I’m not a boy, nor am I a teenage boy, so I’m not one to judge words used by teenage boys when they are alone.
If you read this book, or have read it, I would love to discuss your thoughts about some of the things about his friend Lee that I thought weren’t quite explained. Or maybe were but only subtly.
Leave a comment here or in FB to win the copy 🙂
This is not a pipe dream. I was told a story about this painting, one that has always stuck with me. The story told of how Rene Magritte’s father didn’t believe he could ever make it as a painter. René painted this as a response to his father’s insistence that Reneé’s dream was a pipe dream.
Brain Gumbo. Let’s start with the fact that I am stupid? I’m dumb because I try to do too much. Like all the time. My new job requires longer hours AND some nights too. Like three nights last week. But I also thought it was a good idea to take on a few photo shoots, because… well, I like to do it and I like the people so win win, right? I guess I forgot my schedule changed so everything is taking me twice as long to turn in. Good thing for me the clients like me and that them waiting one week versus a few days isn’t so bad. I will keep doing photos periodically through the summer, but maybe next time I won’t schedule them back to back again.
Jacqueverse 
