NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

NOS4A2 is my first Joe Hill book. I have kind have put off reading any of his books because I really love Stephen King. For those who do not know, King is Hill's father. I know that might be a really crappy reason to not read his books, but I was worried it would be a knock off of sorts. While I was not totally right, I was not totally wrong either.

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

Vic McQueen has a talent for finding lost things thanks to her Raleigh bike that takes her across an old bridge to the location of the lost object. Her bike can take her anywhere in the country as long as she knows what she is looking for. Charles Manx has a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith that allows him to take children away to Chrismasland where they can live forever as children. One day when Vic wants to find trouble, she ends up finding Manx and being his downfall. Vic was the only kid that ever escaped and Manx wants revenge. Now that Vic is all grown up and has a kid of her own, what better way to get revenge than to take her son to Chrismasland?

My biggest issue, and really my only issue, with the book is that it feels like a long walk for a short drink of water. There is a lot of plot build up and parts of it seemed unnecessary. There is a lot of focus on Vic's childhood: her relationship with her parents and their relationship together, how Vic got the bike, the effects the bike had on her, the things she found with her bike, how she felt when her dad left, how she hated her mom. While I agree these are all important details, there was too much detail in them. By the time Vic is an adult, I felt that I should have already been mostly done with the book, but I was not even close. And there were details that I felt could have had more discussion, like when Vic met Maggie and got some answers and learned about inscapes. I also would have liked more background history on Manx. You learn that he has been married twice and he took his two daughters to Chrismasland because his first wife drove him crazy, but it felt like so many other details about how he discovered he could do this were missing. The plot seemed to take forever to move forward, and when it did, it was only a short burst.

(Source: Giphy)

That being said, when you could get past all the minutia, the plot was very interesting. I really liked Vic's love story with Lou, Wayne's father, even though it did not work out. You could tell that they had a true friendship that some people spend their whole lives looking for. I was almost jealous of their relationship. Vic new she was not good enough for Lou, and Lou knew that he could not be everything Vic needed, but there was a love and respect between them. And their love for Wayne only made their love for each other stronger. I really rooted for them, although I knew if everyone came out of this alive, I did not see them getting back together-it would have been too cliche.

Charlie Manx and his sidekick, Bing Partridge, are very interesting villains. Maggie explains that using their inscapes takes something from all of them-Maggie stuttered, Vic was a schizophrenic, and Charlie lost his humanity. With as vile as he was, you could see that he honestly believed that he was doing right by the kids he "saved." Bing, however, did not have anything to lose. He did not have an inscape, he was merely a psychopath from the start. He had already killed his parents and felt no remorse for it. And the things he did to the parents they took were beyond vile. They were almost difficult to read. And yet he had a naiveness about him that contradicted those behaviors. He made rhymes and would cry when he upset Manx. Those moods annoyed me. I was okay with him being killed. Manx's death felt a bit jumbled and rushed though, like Hill realized that the book was getting a bit long, so he should just hurry it up.

(Source: Giphy)

In the end, I did not love the book, but I did not hate it either. I would probably try to read another one of Hill's books just to see if this is a continuing theme. The makings of a great book were there, and I know a lot of people really love it, but for me it just fell a little short. Can't love them all, I guess. I have also learned that NOS4A2 has been made in an AMC series, and I would be interested in watching that and seeing how it compares.

Rating: 5/10

Author: Joe Hill

Genres: Horror, Fantasy, Thriller

Dates Read: May 31-June 5, 2019