NOS4R2 - Joe Hill

[goodreads]

Title: NOS4R2
Author: Joe Hill
Genre: Horror
Rating: 2/5
# pages: Audiobook ~20hrs
Date read: January, 2015

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, answers to unanswerable questions. On her Raleigh Tuff Burner bike, she makes her way to a rickety covered bridge that, within moments, takes her wherever she needs to go, whether it's across Massachusetts or across the country.

Charles Talent Manx has a way with children. He likes to take them for rides in his 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith with the NOS4A2 vanity plate. With his old car, he can slip right out of the everyday world, and onto the hidden roads that transport them to an astonishing - and terrifying - playground of amusements he calls "Christmasland".

Then, one day, Vic goes looking for trouble... and finds Manx. That was a lifetime ago. Now Vic, the only kid to ever escape Manx's unmitigated evil, is all grown up and desperate to forget. But Charlie Manx never stopped thinking about Victoria McQueen. He's on the road again and he's picked up a new passenger: Vic's own son.


Not a bad book, but it took me forever to read because I just couldn't get caught up in the story. It may have been a mistake to "read" this as an audiobook (despite it having an excellent narrator! Kate Mulgrew - no complaints there). So a rating of 2 stars, because I didn't dislike it, it was just only okay. I think I might have liked it more if it had been slightly shorter, which again may show that I should have read it as a physical book instead.

I liked Vic well enough, but never really came to care about any of the other characters (except perhaps Maggie). They seemed too 2-dimensional to serve any real purpose other than being supporting characters.

And really - for a horror book, this novel was really awfully tame.

... I know this review is very critical, and doesn't really make it seem like it should even have two stars, but despite everything it did keep me nicely entertained most of the time, and while I'd procrastinate occasionally and prioritize podcasts higher, I never actually considered giving up on it. So it did have that going for it :)