Nos4A2

NOS4A2 is a spine-tingling novel of supernatural suspense from master of horror Joe Hill, the New York Times bestselling author of Heart-Shaped Box and Horns.

Victoria McQueen has a secret gift for finding things: a misplaced bracelet, a missing photograph, 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.

Exclusive to the print editions of NOS4A2 are more than 15 illustrations by award-winning Locke & Key artist Gabriel Rodríguez.

• Nos4A2 by Joe Hill
• Published: Harper Audio on April 30, 2013
• Genre: Horror, fantasy, suspense, thriller
• Listening length: 19 hours 41 minutes
• Dates listened: 11.9.25 – 11.19.25
• Format: Audiobook (Libby)
• Narrator: Kate Mulgrew
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• ⭐⭐⭐
• ☠

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I feel like I was hoodwinked by Netflix. Again! lol I’m a sucker for a movie or show that is based on a novel. If the movie/show looks interesting, I will first go read the book. I figure it takes longer to read a book than it does to watch something, so I want no spoilers if I’m going to spend 10+ hours reading something. Just recently, I saw a show based on this novel by Joe Hill pop up on Netflix. Yes, I realize that the show originally aired in 2019-2020, but I don’t watch anything on cable, so I was unaware of it. Don’t judge me! haha

I snagged this book on a BookBub sale back in July, before I even knew about the show, so it’s been on the TBR for a minute. I remember reading Hill’s debut novel, Heart–Shaped Box, back in 2007, and I thought it was decent. So I decided to grab this one and check it out. It was only $2.99, what do I have to lose, right? When the show popped up on Netflix, I remembered having the eBook of it. So I pulled it up and “Whoa!!! 900+ pages!? That’s a bit of a commitment,” I thought to myself. “Let me check Libby, and maybe there’s an audiobook version. I can commit to that!” And sure enough! It was available immediately, and now here I am!

Let me preface the rest of this review by saying that the narrator for Nos4A2 is really what saved this book for me. Kate Mulgrew did an amazing job narrating. She gave Charlie Manx the creepiest voice. I could just picture him in my head, and I totally pictured that preacher from The Poltergeist. Y’all know who I’m talking about, right?! All of the voices that she did for the characters were really good, but Manx was really creepy, and it helped bring the story to life for me. Lou was perfectly whiny and annoying, just like his character, too.

So about the book. I didn’t hate it, but I definitely didn’t love it, either. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Joe Hill as an author, but this whole book definitely gave me Stephen King vibes. I’m a fan of Stephen King, but I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t love ALL of his work. The ones that I tend to not enjoy as much as others are the long-winded ones, and this book reminded me of one of those. It felt like it went on and on…and on, without going anywhere for much of the book. The story could have been the same, with about 300 fewer pages. There were paths that the story took that introduced some characters, which ultimately had zero bearing on the story whatsoever. And when an author does that, it just makes me wonder…why? The only reason I can think of is that they wanted “fluff”. Who are you trying to prove you’re a writer to, sir? I can only imagine how hard it would be to be an author and also be the son of Stephen King. But the book felt like he was trying to prove something to someone, and it left me less than impressed.

The difference between childhood and adulthood, Vic had come to believe, was the difference between imagination and resignation. You traded one for the other and lost your way

My biggest complaint about this book was the ending!!! OMG, this is probably going to go down as one of my most hated endings of any book I have ever read. **Spoilers incoming** I can forgive the rambling, the long-winded details, and the detours in the plot that amount to zilch…if the ending is worth it! But you made me sit through 19+ hours of that, just to have the heroine of the story sacrifice herself for her son. On top of that, everyone that is left after her sacrifice just gets happy ever afters, like their life is so much better now that Vic is gone! Overweight and annoying Lou gets to lose a bunch of weight and find “the love he deserves” in the FBI agent, who by the way, wanted to throw Vic into jail?! And Vic’s son, Wayne, doesn’t seem bothered in the least by this. Mom’s just gone. Oh well!

Vic went through hell thinking that she was crazy. She had so many demons in her life, leading her to make one destructive mistake after another. She is the one who deserved redemption! She sacrifices her life to save Wayne and Lou, telling him to find the love that he deserves, but SHE was the love that he deserved. She was what was stopping herself from being happy because of all the inner demons that she was fighting. It just really infuriated me that we went through all of this trauma with Vic, just for it to seem like “Oh well! Such is life!” Not since A Little Life has an ending really pissed me off and left me thinking, what was the whole point of that?

Anywho…I kind of don’t feel like recommending this book to anyone. Because like I said, the narrator was really the only thing I ended up truly enjoying about the book. If I had read it, I think this book would have gotten only 1.5, MAYBE 2 stars. Other than the narrator giving Charlie Manx a creepy voice, I didn’t find anything really scary about the book either. Even the title of Nos4A2 makes the book a bit misleading, because you’re maybe expecting a book about vampires, but it turns out it was more of an inside joke because his wife used to berate him and call him a vampire, sucking life and happiness out of her. It was also the movie they saw together on their first date. I suppose in a metaphorical sense, he is a vampire, staying young by draining the life from young kids. But that’s a big stretch of the imagination when you’re expecting a blood sucking vampire! lol I’m still going to check the show out though. Maybe I’ll enjoy it more than the book! *fingers crossed*