Slam Dunk, baby!!
This was one hell of an awesome novel, no pun intended (well, maybe just a little bit).
I had seen the movie first and I was amazed with how much I liked it. It seemed to me that everything touched by Daniel Radcliffe turned into a masterpiece, sometimes at the box office, sometimes in dark humor and content. Just seen Swiss Army Man, so I'm actually very amazed at his talent.
But more about the novel.. Like I said.. I thought Horns was so good because of the main character's acting talent, but the source material was outstanding.
It's been a while since I've read a book in this particular genre that was so captivating. Not that I want to compare son and dad, but like Stephen King could keep me on my toes with his early work, so Joe Hill follows.
That's where I want to stop with the comparison, though, since I don't think you can actually fit these two into the same category.
Joe Hill had a bit of a rough start, in my opinion. I've read Heart Shaped Box and didn't like it much, it was a little too much Clive Barker without the gore and not matured enough. It didn't leave a long impression, so I was a little reluctant to touch Horns for a while.
I even read NOS4A2 first, which was also a very well written book. Read my review here if you like: NOS4A2
It's amazing that I have read that novel about 2 and a half years ago, while I was very impressed.
It's not fair that there's so much to read and so little time.
Horns was every little bit as good as NOS4A2, even better in my opinion. Maybe because I could envision Daniel with his horns sticking out and that's not a bad image to have when reading. (wow.. that sounds awkward ^^).
So Daniel aka Iggy Perish is a common boy falling in love with a beautiful girl who comes to a sudden end. Someone murdered her and everyone suspects Iggy to have done it. To top it off, Iggy has two horns growing on his head, making him look like the devil everyone already thinks he is. The horns also seem to have an unexpected effect upon those seeing them, that makes Iggy's life on earth both more hellish as a redemption.
Written with very down to earth characters, with just a little tendency towards painting them black and white. Iggy himself has been portrayed perfectly, in his flawed perfection being the boyfriend everyone wants to have, Merrin maybe a little too picture perfect, but still maybe more so from Iggy's perspective, since we only know Merrin through others. Lee was just a tad too much, but it definitely worked in this story.
Yep, I'm definitely not forgetting this story soon. I only asked about ten times if my husband had seen the movie already. Just wanting him to know how awesome it was and he's not a book reader, so that's my only chance of getting him into my world.
He answered every time with yes, but I don't remember him being there when I saw it, so I guess we just have to redo the effort.
This one is being shelved on my top of the pops novels, I liked it THAT much.
