HomeGroupsTalkMoreZeitgeist
Search Site
This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and (if not signed in) for advertising. By using LibraryThing you acknowledge that you have read and understand our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms.

Results from Google Books

Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.

Loading...

Heart-Shaped Box (2007)

by Joe Hill

Other authors: See the other authors section.

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
6,7953701,372 (3.74)402
The remarkable debut novel by a new master of dark fantasy...Heart-Shaped Box Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals...a used hangman's noose...a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is widely known. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, a thing so terrible-strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet. 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.… (more)
  1. 30
    Gone South by Robert R. McCammon (5hrdrive)
    5hrdrive: Another weird road-trip to the Deep South.
  2. 30
    The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (sturlington)
    sturlington: Both are very scary ghost stories.
  3. 22
    John Dies at the End by David Wong (5hrdrive)
    5hrdrive: Same relentless style with a supernatural theme.
  4. 12
    Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout (asphyxiad0ll)
  5. 26
    Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (kraaivrouw)
    kraaivrouw: Different types of plots, but both great examples of what newer writers are accomplishing in the horror genre.
Loading...

Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.

No current Talk conversations about this book.

» See also 402 mentions

English (359)  Spanish (2)  Portuguese (Portugal) (1)  German (1)  Romanian (1)  French (1)  Swedish (1)  Portuguese (1)  Danish (1)  All languages (368)
Showing 1-5 of 359 (next | show all)
3.5 Stars ( )
  moonlit.shelves | Mar 5, 2024 |
okay so I started this book as a paperback at the airport years ago. a friend of mine asked me a few days ago what to read and I recommended this to her. I decided to give it a shot. finished it in 3 days. cant say its My favorite book but it was different I enjoyed it
  b00kdarling87 | Jan 7, 2024 |
Joe Hill's debut horror novel is wild, violent, disturbing, macabre fun. Much has been made of the kinship of Hill and his superstar father, Stephen King, but Heart-Shaped Box proves Hill can stand on his own two feet. Horror is totally the family business, or so it seems.

And while Heart-Shaped Box may not be Joe Hill's best novel, it certainly shows his astounding promise.

So what is it all about? The story is about an aging, retired rocker named Judas Coyne (Judas Priest and Flaming Lips combo maybe?) who is living his disturbing and sad life with his current girlfriend, Georgia. Judas also happens to collect items of the macabre (no biggie). So when he buys a ghost on-line, he gets more than he bargained for, as the ghost, which arrives by way of a used suit in a heart-shaped box, is no benign spirit. It's out for revenge and will kill anyone who stands in the way of said vengeance. The suit and the ghost did not come to Coyne by happenstance. The ghost immediately gets into Coyne’s head, urging him to murder Georgia and then commit suicide. Coyne and Georgia resist the temptations but not everyone is immune to the evil influence. Judas' assistant, Danny Wooten, kills himself, but not before contacting the woman who sent the suit. Jude finds out that the ghost was the stepfather of a groupie, Florida, whom Jude lived with for a few months and who had later committed suicide. The ghost holds Judas responsible for Florida's death and wants revenge. Jude flees his house with his current girlfriend, Georgia, with the ghost in hot pursuit. Can they find the answers they seek? The reconciliation they need? Can they fight for Flordia's memory? Can they defeat such evil?

As debuts go, Heart-Shaped Box is solid. But this isn't my first book from Joe Hill and I can't help but think other works by him are a bit better. This book seemed to ride on the style of his father a little too much. This isn't a bad thing per se but rather, just an observation.

This being said, Heart-Shaped Box becomes a very riveting story. I was impressed with Joe Hill's ability to cause me to really dislike Jude and Georgia at the beginning of the novel and how by the ending of the novel, I had grown to sympathize with them and was rooting for them to survive. I was not ecstatic early on about the premise, mainly because I didn't care for Judas as a character. He was such a jerk! Yet, as he took responsibility for his actions throughout the novel and listed his regrets I grew to appreciate him as a character. The supernatural aspect of the book was intriguing and is always one of the things I think Joe Hill does extremely well. Craddock in a way reminded me of Freddie Krueger, as the hostile ghost sets out to destroy Coyne and all those he holds dear.

Heart-Shaped Box is not for the faint of heart. Read at your own peril.

Trigger warnings: suicide, abusive relationships, depression, drug use.

( )
  ryantlaferney87 | Dec 8, 2023 |
This horror tends more toward slash and gore than Nosfer4tu, which was the first Joe Hill I’d read. Nevertheless, it had satisfyingly scary ghosts, and that phone call from Danny was one of the creepiest things I’ve read (or more accurately, listened to) in quite some time. It will probably be the thing I remember most about this book. ( )
  Charon07 | Oct 30, 2023 |
Hmmm....didn't like it as much as NOS4ATU or In the Tall Grass...The story was not nearly as scary as I expected but certainly had it's moments.

On a good note, I loved the narrator. I thought he gave the characters their personality through his intonations...even the female characters. ( )
  SCiarmiello | Oct 4, 2023 |
Showing 1-5 of 359 (next | show all)
"Heart-Shaped Box" truly deserves the superlatives heaped upon it by the publicists who smoothed the path of this first novel's advent.
 
Hill masterfully keeps the action moving and the drama escalating, giving readers just enough revelations to keep them on board this Southern train of a ghost story.
 
While I would not go so far as to hand Joe Hill his father's crown just yet, this debut is a promising start. It's safe to say a new contender for the throne has arrived.
 
Heart-Shaped Box isn't about appeasing fathers, and learning to love them, and seeing that they, too, are human beings and not monsters. It's not about that at all. It's about knowing your father, and finding him, and then killing him. That's what the best artists do.
 
Hill’s debut novel is as assured a debut novel as I have ever read, regardless of genre. Heart-Shaped Box, itself an entertaining and superb novel, offers hints of a great writing career to come.
 

» Add other authors (18 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Hill, Joeprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Belt, LiaTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Kolstad, HenningTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Lang, StephenNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Müller, WolfgangTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mortensen, Hans PalleTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Rosier, ValérieTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sierra, Julio A.Translatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed

Belongs to Publisher Series

Editora Sextante (2007), Arqueiro (2010)
You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data.
For more help see the Common Knowledge help page.
Canonical title
Original title
Alternative titles
Original publication date
People/Characters
Important places
Important events
Related movies
Epigraph
How may the dead have destinations?

—Alan Moore, Voice of the Fire
Dedication
For my dad, one of the good ones
First words
Jude had a private collection.
Quotations
Last words
(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
Disambiguation notice
Publisher's editors
Blurbers
Original language
Information from the Portuguese (Brazil) Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

References to this work on external resources.

Wikipedia in English (2)

The remarkable debut novel by a new master of dark fantasy...Heart-Shaped Box Judas Coyne is a collector of the macabre: a cookbook for cannibals...a used hangman's noose...a snuff film. An aging death-metal rock god, his taste for the unnatural is widely known. But nothing he possesses is as unlikely or as dreadful as his latest discovery, a thing so terrible-strange, Jude can't help but reach for his wallet. 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.

No library descriptions found.

Book description
Haiku summary

LibraryThing Author

Joe Hill is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.

profile page | author page

Current Discussions

None

Popular covers

Quick Links

Rating

Average: (3.74)
0.5 6
1 36
1.5 7
2 128
2.5 44
3 544
3.5 136
4 824
4.5 85
5 445

 

About | Contact | Privacy/Terms | Help/FAQs | Blog | Store | APIs | TinyCat | Legacy Libraries | Early Reviewers | Common Knowledge | 203,218,070 books! | Top bar: Always visible