Originally Posted by
Jean
Finished it a few days ago, and was very disappointed.
Yes, it had its moments. As WeDealInLead pointed out, the first chapters were brilliantly written. They sure were, and promised a lot.
Then the thing started collapsing. It grew repetitious and boring. It didn’t develop, it just went on and on and on, holding no surprises, exploring no new ground, telling essentially nothing. There were some occasional sparkles of gold here and there (like, speaking backward, or the names of the children’s games), but way too few and far between.
See, there was no story. Whatever story there was is old as hills, or at least as Andersen’s Ice Queen. Then again, of course, Horns had no story to speak of either – but in Horns, Joe Hill did what he does best, namely, explored what happens inside a human soul. Here he went for the events, and the events, mainly, sucked: their content was predictable, and their description mediocre. Doing this, he totally omitted to make the characters in the least plausible, let alone worth sympathy. The females were annoying like hell, the others walking clichés – with the single exception of the boy, whose evolution is exactly what Hill’s genius is about. Too bad even this was all ruined by the ending.