I tackled Joe Hill’s ‘NOS4A2’ for my forty-third read of the year.
This book is epic with a capital ‘E’. It comes in shy of 1,000 pages. I started this a month ago, so it took me a while to get through it. With a reading goal of forty-five books this year, it wasn’t the smartest choice to tackle a few epics like this. But I couldn’t help it; they looked like fun reads! And they proved me right.
‘NOS4A2’ deals with a vampire who takes children to a place he calls ‘Christmasland’. You can see why I chose this time of year to tackle this behemoth. The title comes from the creature’s license plate on his old-fashioned Rolls Royce. Our protagonist, Vic, encounters the vampire as a child and survives. But later, when she is grown and has a child, the monster awakens from its slumber.
I adored this book. It reminded me of Stephen King’s epics, such as ‘It’. That makes sense, considering that Hill is King’s son. There are a few nods to his father’s works, but this is no mimicry or cheap copy. Joe Hill is himself, and ‘NOS4A2’ is a shining example of his creative powers. Considering the book is roughly 1,000 pages, it felt shorter. I read and liked Hill’s debut, ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ a few years back. As a writer, Hill has come on leaps and bounds since then.
I will look out for more of Hill’s work; this was a modern-day masterpiece.
joshuainsole.com 