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I've read about half of it and I keep putting it down to read other things, so that's not a good sign. To his credit, Hill does write the comic "Locke & Key", which I quite enjoy. I don't think I'll be buying "Horns" (his new novel) until it hits the sale tables, though.
I, too, have been curious about the book, and now about Horns, discussed in this A.V. Club interview. I will inevitably pick one up off the library display someday. (It's Maine, and the library understandably gets excited to promote King-family books, so they always order plenty of the books and often display them prominently.) I'm trying to learn how to write horror, but even seeing how not to write is is instructive.
Yeah, this is definitely a "how NOT to do it" kind of book. It's very uneven, and the third act is extremely laughable. Some good scares early on, but he drives these into cliche by the end of the book.
Seriously, if you guys want two other books that will creep your shit out far, far better than this?
Try The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Black Tickets by Jayne Anne Philips. Especially this last one - easily the darkest book I've ever read. Had to put it down three times just to create "personal space" after starting to read it.
I've heard Horns is better, I'm gonna give it a try at some point. I've enjoyed his old man's stuff enough it ought to be worth a few hours of my life.
If anyone feels like reading a creepy book, try Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns.