Heart-Shaped Box
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Get 3 months for $0.99 a month + $20 Audible credit
Buy Now for $31.46
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Narrated by:
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Stephen Lang
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Written by:
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Joe Hill
About this listen
I will sell my stepfather's ghost to the highest bidder.
For a thousand dollars, Jude will become the proud owner of a dead man's suit, said to be haunted by a restless spirit. He isn't afraid. He has spent a lifetime coping with ghosts: of an abusive father, of the lovers he callously abandoned, of the bandmates he betrayed. What's one more? But what UPS delivers to his door in a black heart-shaped box is no imaginary or metaphorical ghost. It's the real thing.
And suddenly the suit's previous owner is everywhere: behind the bedroom door...seated in Jude's restored vintage Mustang...standing outside his window...staring out from his widescreen TV. Waiting - with a gleaming razor blade on a chain dangling from one hand.
A multiple award-winner for his short fiction, author Joe Hill immediately vaults into the top echelon of dark fantasists with a masterwork brimming with relentless thrills and acid terror.
©2007 Joe Hill (P)2007 HarperCollins PublishersWhat the critics say
- Audie Award winner, Thriller/Suspense, 2008
- Thriller Award, Best Novel, 2008
"Powerful....[Hill's] subtle and skillful treatment of horrors that could easily have exploded over the top and out of control helps make this a truly memorable debut." (Publishers Weekly)
"Mr. Hill elicits honest empathy for Jude, who turned his stage persona into a nightmare version of his fears and must now figure out what strength he has left for legitimate battles. This dynamic is both frightening and funny, and the book weaves together those two threads in clever ways." (The New York Times)
The concept of HEART-SHAPED BOX hooked me right away: Who doesn’t love a story where a ghost has haunted a suit? From there, I found the writing to be nice and crisp, the characters to be complex, and the atmosphere to be quite creepy.
Jude is definitely a morally grey hero who has some skeleton in his closet, though he always tried to do right by the people closest to him. He’s not a good man, but he’s also sympathetic enough that I wanted to see him succeed. Same for Georgia, who fell into hard times and yet proved to be a tough lifeline for Jude when he needed it.
Most of the plot is dark and disturbing, and there were more than a few moments where I grimaced at the visceral imagery. That said, the plot moves at a good clip with enough downtime that nothing felt unbalanced. There are some truly terrifying moments, especially at the end, with a paranormal aspect that isn’t too outlandish for readers who might not want to venture far from realism.
While this is my first Joe Hill book, it won’t be the last, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a dark, supernatural thriller!
Disturbing and Complex
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Great narrator, great ghost story!
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Unique
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Very entertaining but not his best
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Good story great narrator.
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awesome
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awesome!
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Ended well
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bugs
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Great Storytelling
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