Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

Let me start with an apology. Even though, there is no way Joe Hill will actually see this or even care that I was harsh to him, it will make me feel better and clear my conscious . So here I go…

This is my second read of this book. My first time reading this was in 2012 and it was the 2nd of Hill’s books I had read. I think I read Horns first but that was a long time ago. When I read this, I was deep in my peak fandom of Stephen King and was reading every book I could. I read 15 Stephen King books that year and some of them were giant reads. I was excited to have King’s son to read in between as a change of pace and I wrongly expected him to be just like his Dad. That was unfair of me. When I read this, it wasn’t like any of the King books I read and I was disappointed. I gave this 2 stars and never expected to revisit this one again.

Jump forward to October 2021. My wife’s bookclub was looking for a spooky Halloween read and they all picked Heart-Shaped Box. I didn’t want to ruin it for my wife by giving my less than favorable thoughts, but when she asked if I had read it I said yes and nothing more, she knew I didn’t like it. It is unlike me to not ramble on about a book forever. This blog is case in point. Her bookclub seemed to really enjoy it and my wife even rated this 4/5. My wife couldn’t believe a rabid metal, and horror fan, such as myself, didn’t enjoy this heavy metal ghost mashup.

One more time jump to this month. My Mutant Family book club decided this was going to be our June pick. I have matured, branched out and learned to not set expectations for authors or books and allow myself to enjoy a read for what it is. So I decided I would review this with fresh eyes and a lot less tunnel vision.

This is the sensitive story of an older Rock and Roll legend who decides to buy a man’s suite with a ghost attached. The suite arrives in a lovely heart-shaped box and changes Jude’s life when the spirt came with a vengeance and a grudge.

I definitely enjoyed this more the second time. I still hold to the fact that the reviews I read before reading this the last time said this was such a scary book and it wasn’t scary at all. It does have a good story, it’s a fun and at times intense ghost story, but not one I would consider scary. The story is engaging and I really enjoyed the characters this time. I really liked the journey of personal growth through this book. With this 2nd read and fresh outlook, this time I am giving it 🥃🥃🥃🥃 out of 5.

As a bonus, since this book involved a rockstar and mentions several classic rock icons I was curious if anyone had made note of the songs mentioned in a playlist. The songs mentioned are all fictional because they are the ones Jude and his band wrote, but TheReadingArmchair put together a playlist based on the artists mentioned and it was a really fun post to read. Check out the playlist, I’m not a Spotify subscriber but I have been building my own on AppleMusic.