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Nov. 10th, 2014 05:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
issenlloA couple of books from the library.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. [Insert grumble about the leet.] Also warnings for spoilers, in case you wanted to read this book.
First: this book is long and heavy and I shall undoubtedly regret lugging it home from the library now that I've finished reading it. (I never regret having an unread book. Afterwards, though-) It's got something like 680 pages.
Hill writes horror fiction, and the blurbs on the cover are full of praise for this book and for Hill. (I've not read any Hill before, unless you count the first chapter of the Heart-Shaped Box, which is also an excellent title... or belongs on the inventory of Hello Kitty accessories.)
In a way the blurbs are justified, in that Hill's a pretty good writer and that the book was engaging. And I guess it's also scary. It's a book that contains the typical themes of American heartland horror fiction: child endangerment, the undead, and serial killers. Secondary themes include the magic of Christmas (or Thanksgiving, or Halloween, or 4th of July), the myth of childhood innocence, magic as quid pro quo, sex sex sex, geography of the United States of America, which is not the same as saying everything happens in America, and everything happens in America. This likely explains the size of this book.
Spoilery: The bad guy called Manx drives a magical Rolls Royce and kidnaps children to bring them to a place of his mind, called Christmasland where "every morning is Christmas and happiness is against the law". On the way there, the children are sort of stripped of their humanity so that they are perfectly innocent monsters by the time they get to Christmasland, with zero human warmth and fishhooks for teeth. His henchman is an insane, monstrous man named Bing Partridge. The hero is Vic who as a child had the power of riding on her bike to find things that are lost. She managed to thwart Manx once, and Manx later he kidnaps her child Wayne to take to Christmasland. As expected, Vic (and her boyfriend Lou) manage to find their way to Christmasland, rescue Wayne and then blow up Christmasland, as every action movie demands, to pieces. Vic dies from injuries that day.
I think I'm supposed to say that this is a good book. I don't necessarily disagree, either. The narrative draws one into the story, and can get very engrossing. The gory parts aren't gory for the sake of it, there's some good - chilling - details of how the other kidnapped children disappear, for example, and the bits with violence are mostly unembellished and only occasionally heavy-handed.
Hill seems to have put in a lot more details about Vic's life and how she tried to figure out her talent, as well as personal developmental bits regarding her family life, etc. Those parts are all right, though taken as a whole it feels like Hill spent a lot of time setting up Vic as a human, and as a heroine. I mean, yes, I appreciate the many protraits of her life, the way she thinks she is or is not going crazy, how she is haunted by threatening phone calls from Manx's child victims that only she can hear. But is it necessary to make it so long?
There's a lot of telling rather than showing. The reader is told a lot about what each person feels, how he or she feels, what he or she does about it, and what is going to happen because of it. In some ways it's effective for, well, telling me what to think, but half of the time I'd rather the author get on with it. There is real skill, and which I do appreciate, in his pacing, so that for all the length of the book I don't feel like there is any real lag and yet, this book is still too damn long. I'd like to put it through one of those old-fashioned laundry presses and squeeze out approximately thirty percent. It's not that there's any obviously superfluous parts. But there is a happy equilibrium between "detailed exposition" and "details, details, details", and the book hits the bulkier side a little too often. Such as the FBI investigation. Or Manx's recruitment of Bing Partridge. Or rather, most of Bing Partridge.
And weirdly (considering my complaint above), there's not enough of Christmasland. You'd think there's more about Christmasland since it apparently housed more than a hundred kidnapped children. I would have also liked to see more bits of wavering of the border between Christmasland and real life - was there ever anyone else who came back from Christmasland before Vic blew it to bits? Or a child who appeared out of nowhere (like the boy in Ju-On) smiling at normal people with those awful fishhook teeth?
Ending: I liked it because I'm sentimental, and I like things to be neatly packed up and plot points tied up at the end of the party. Well. It depends on what you think of as a good ending. At the end, all the children are returned to life, even those that were kidnapped seventy years ago, at the same age as they were taken. So the last scene is of dozens, even hundreds of children, somehow emerging from the woods. In some ways that's got to be really satisfying, because it's a sign of the total eradication of the baddie. And the lost children are free. Yet I can't help think how horrifying it must be for the children.
So like I said, too long.
The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen.
Following the current fad for book titles that start "The Girl Who..." which is actively confusing as I'd assumed that they were all written by the same person and then I find out they weren't. (There is/was also a series of mysteries that went "The Cat Who..." which were quite fun.)
This was nice, actually. Some part were touching. After her mother's death, Emily comes to live with her grandfather at her mother's hometown of Mullaby, North Carolina. It's interesting that this book actually gave me a clearer picture of this part of USA than the Hill book gave of other parts of the country, even though as a non-USA person, I have no idea whether any of it is true to life. Ah well. Emily's mother previously left Mullaby after a scandal, and Emily eventually finds out what caused the scandal and her mother's part in it. Intertwined in the narrative is the story of Julia Winterson, who has come home to Mullaby after leaving it under another sort of scandal years ago. She, like Emily, finds her love and life anew. The bits of magic here are whimsical, and very lovely: the wallpaper in Emily's room changes according to what happens in her life; Julia bakes cakes that her boyfriend can smell from far away; Emily's boyfriend glows in the dark.
Cons: Slow moving? The mysteries are unveiled a little too slowly for impatient me. But in fact the events occur within a week or so of Emily's arrival in Mullaby, and they are quite ordinary events: going to the lakeside, a festival, etc. I should look for this author's other books.
Currently on a Heyer kick. Re-read so far: The Civil Contract, The Corinthian. Halfway through The Quiet Gentleman.
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. [Insert grumble about the leet.] Also warnings for spoilers, in case you wanted to read this book.
First: this book is long and heavy and I shall undoubtedly regret lugging it home from the library now that I've finished reading it. (I never regret having an unread book. Afterwards, though-) It's got something like 680 pages.
Hill writes horror fiction, and the blurbs on the cover are full of praise for this book and for Hill. (I've not read any Hill before, unless you count the first chapter of the Heart-Shaped Box, which is also an excellent title... or belongs on the inventory of Hello Kitty accessories.)
In a way the blurbs are justified, in that Hill's a pretty good writer and that the book was engaging. And I guess it's also scary. It's a book that contains the typical themes of American heartland horror fiction: child endangerment, the undead, and serial killers. Secondary themes include the magic of Christmas (or Thanksgiving, or Halloween, or 4th of July), the myth of childhood innocence, magic as quid pro quo, sex sex sex, geography of the United States of America, which is not the same as saying everything happens in America, and everything happens in America. This likely explains the size of this book.
Spoilery: The bad guy called Manx drives a magical Rolls Royce and kidnaps children to bring them to a place of his mind, called Christmasland where "every morning is Christmas and happiness is against the law". On the way there, the children are sort of stripped of their humanity so that they are perfectly innocent monsters by the time they get to Christmasland, with zero human warmth and fishhooks for teeth. His henchman is an insane, monstrous man named Bing Partridge. The hero is Vic who as a child had the power of riding on her bike to find things that are lost. She managed to thwart Manx once, and Manx later he kidnaps her child Wayne to take to Christmasland. As expected, Vic (and her boyfriend Lou) manage to find their way to Christmasland, rescue Wayne and then blow up Christmasland, as every action movie demands, to pieces. Vic dies from injuries that day.
I think I'm supposed to say that this is a good book. I don't necessarily disagree, either. The narrative draws one into the story, and can get very engrossing. The gory parts aren't gory for the sake of it, there's some good - chilling - details of how the other kidnapped children disappear, for example, and the bits with violence are mostly unembellished and only occasionally heavy-handed.
Hill seems to have put in a lot more details about Vic's life and how she tried to figure out her talent, as well as personal developmental bits regarding her family life, etc. Those parts are all right, though taken as a whole it feels like Hill spent a lot of time setting up Vic as a human, and as a heroine. I mean, yes, I appreciate the many protraits of her life, the way she thinks she is or is not going crazy, how she is haunted by threatening phone calls from Manx's child victims that only she can hear. But is it necessary to make it so long?
There's a lot of telling rather than showing. The reader is told a lot about what each person feels, how he or she feels, what he or she does about it, and what is going to happen because of it. In some ways it's effective for, well, telling me what to think, but half of the time I'd rather the author get on with it. There is real skill, and which I do appreciate, in his pacing, so that for all the length of the book I don't feel like there is any real lag and yet, this book is still too damn long. I'd like to put it through one of those old-fashioned laundry presses and squeeze out approximately thirty percent. It's not that there's any obviously superfluous parts. But there is a happy equilibrium between "detailed exposition" and "details, details, details", and the book hits the bulkier side a little too often. Such as the FBI investigation. Or Manx's recruitment of Bing Partridge. Or rather, most of Bing Partridge.
And weirdly (considering my complaint above), there's not enough of Christmasland. You'd think there's more about Christmasland since it apparently housed more than a hundred kidnapped children. I would have also liked to see more bits of wavering of the border between Christmasland and real life - was there ever anyone else who came back from Christmasland before Vic blew it to bits? Or a child who appeared out of nowhere (like the boy in Ju-On) smiling at normal people with those awful fishhook teeth?
Ending: I liked it because I'm sentimental, and I like things to be neatly packed up and plot points tied up at the end of the party. Well. It depends on what you think of as a good ending. At the end, all the children are returned to life, even those that were kidnapped seventy years ago, at the same age as they were taken. So the last scene is of dozens, even hundreds of children, somehow emerging from the woods. In some ways that's got to be really satisfying, because it's a sign of the total eradication of the baddie. And the lost children are free. Yet I can't help think how horrifying it must be for the children.
So like I said, too long.
The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen.
Following the current fad for book titles that start "The Girl Who..." which is actively confusing as I'd assumed that they were all written by the same person and then I find out they weren't. (There is/was also a series of mysteries that went "The Cat Who..." which were quite fun.)
This was nice, actually. Some part were touching. After her mother's death, Emily comes to live with her grandfather at her mother's hometown of Mullaby, North Carolina. It's interesting that this book actually gave me a clearer picture of this part of USA than the Hill book gave of other parts of the country, even though as a non-USA person, I have no idea whether any of it is true to life. Ah well. Emily's mother previously left Mullaby after a scandal, and Emily eventually finds out what caused the scandal and her mother's part in it. Intertwined in the narrative is the story of Julia Winterson, who has come home to Mullaby after leaving it under another sort of scandal years ago. She, like Emily, finds her love and life anew. The bits of magic here are whimsical, and very lovely: the wallpaper in Emily's room changes according to what happens in her life; Julia bakes cakes that her boyfriend can smell from far away; Emily's boyfriend glows in the dark.
Cons: Slow moving? The mysteries are unveiled a little too slowly for impatient me. But in fact the events occur within a week or so of Emily's arrival in Mullaby, and they are quite ordinary events: going to the lakeside, a festival, etc. I should look for this author's other books.
Currently on a Heyer kick. Re-read so far: The Civil Contract, The Corinthian. Halfway through The Quiet Gentleman.