Nos4A2

Locations
Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Hill, Joe, Fiction / Hill, Joe
On Shelf At: Pittsfield Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Horror / Hill, Joe	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	Fiction / Hill, Joe	4-week checkout	Due 05-19-2024

Ill. on lining papers.
Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photography, 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.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

a pretty fast 600-pg read submitted by messelti on June 20, 2013, 7:59pm If you like Joe Hill's writing, you will like this book. He doesn't deviate from his standard tropes (bad guys that exist half in reality and half in dreams, good guys who aren't necessarily "pure and true", etc.) but does tell a unique and interesting story with some great characters. The ending fell a little flat but the ride was worth it.

Good. But it's the 4th best of his 4 books that I've read. submitted by eknapp on April 17, 2014, 1:00pm A demented soul-vampire who only wants children to be happy creates a Christmas theme park with his mind. Over the course of a century he kidnaps many dozens of children, turning them into empty-eyed, shark-toothed giggling little demon-elves. The mother of one victim uses a similar ability--she can manifest an old covered bridge that lets her find lost things--to track down her son in Christmasland.

This is by far the Stephen-Kingiest of Junior's few novels. The villain feels a little thin, just a few nasty characteristics without a foundation to hold them together. Hill used a couple of limp metaphors to explain what's what and called it good. Meh. I got similarly superficial vibes from King books like Cell, Needful Things, It, Pet Semetary.

Hill has also picked up Dad's combat-writing habits: good guy and bad guy fight, good guy receives a series of gruesome injuries, these injuries are detailed lovingly and at length and always include the the word "tearing", the reader goes "Oh my, Good Guy is ruined, however will he triumph now" and the good guy proceeds to triumph through some monumental self-sacrifice. It's not that it's a bad bit of plotting; it totally grabbed me the first few times I read it. But I am getting tired of knowing in advance how these conflicts will play out.

One thing I do appreciate is Hill's habit of non-squeaky-clean heroes. They tend towards tattoos, minor criminal records, alcohol/drug addiction. His protagonists are more interesting than his bad guys.

He also threw in some awesome nerd references and some to other Hill and King books. Great little Easter eggs.

"'I am a leaf on the wind.'"
"Dude stop saying that! I can't afford to start crying at work."

In spite of my complaints I quite liked NOS4A2; I just enjoyed Horns and Heart-Shaped Box more (and Locke & Key! Oh how I love Locke & Key.) Those feel more original and inspired. NOS4A2 is more like a Xerox of a good book.