Horns

Horns was a book that spiked in popularity last year due to a movie based it that starred Daniel Radcliffe.  I didn't actually see the film but I read the book because a friend had and wanted to discuss it.

The basic plot is that the protagonist wakes up one morning with, you guessed it, horns.  He quickly realizes that these horns have powers that affect the people around him and much of the book is an exploration of those powers.

Horns' protagonist, while not fundamentally unlikable, generates a lot of pity.  He has lived a rough life and, as such, doesn't use his powers in the best possible way.  However, he shies away from being completely evil, avoiding my complete disgust,

The book was billed as a horror story but there isn't really very much scary stuff going on.  Instead of keeping you up at night worrying someone will come after you with a hacksaw, you are more likely to be kept up wrestling with the worst of human nature.  (Despite what I said about a lack of actual scary parts, there is one place where the reader is reminded that the brain is a physical object that can be damaged without being destroyed, a concept that always troubles me.)

The book also has a quote that I really enjoyed. "When the world comes for your children with its knives out, it is your job to stand in the way.  Everyone knows that."  This quote, while it comes at a trying time in the book, is representative of the parent I want to be when taken out of context like this.

To summarize, while this book has an interesting concept or two, there isn't really that much special there,  It sits squarely in the no man's land between good and bad, without making huge leaps towards either side.

Overall, I would give this book an 81%.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

This Book is Full of Spiders is the sequel to a book I like very much entitled John Dies at the End.  Before even talking about This Book is Full of Spiders, you have to know a little about John Dies at the End. John Dies at the End started off as a collection of stories about the narrator (David, the author) and his friend John.  These stories were compiled and condensed into one novel.  While it still retains hints of its origin, the compilation works much better than many I have seen.  The book is a mixture of humor and horror, with a tidbit of science fiction thrown in for good measure.  If you haven't guessed from the titles, the books are a strange mix of taking themselves seriously and not.  For a further example, here are the covers of both books:

As you can see, the covers are... unique.  The books have been described as if Douglas Adams wrote Stephen King and I think that is a perfect description.  There are multiple parts of the book that are significantly creepy but there were many parts that made me laugh out loud.

Some of the humor is juvenile (suggesting communicating with smeared feces) while there are parts that really make you think.  The books revolve partially around a worldwide conspiracy and while parts of it are clearly fictional, there are some parts that make you question the direction the world is headed in.

I have never seen humor and horror blended as artfully as it has been in these books.  If you are a fan of either genre I would recommend these books.  Fair warning, however, they do lean more towards the humor than the horror.



Overall, I would give this book (is full of spiders) a 93%.



House of Leaves

House of Leaves is a truly unique and fantastic book.  From it's opening page that says simply "This is not for you" all the way to its conclusion that completely rerenders the reader's view of the story, this book blew me away. 

Describing the basic premise of the book makes it sound somewhat ridiculous.  It is about a man who finds and edits an exhaustive movie review.  This review is of a documentary (or perhaps horror) film called The Navidson Record.  However, as the man, Truant,  reads and edits the review things in his life tend to get stranger and stranger.  The Navidson Record doesn't exist within the world of the book (nor in real life) which makes the story all the more intriguing.  The main portion of the book is the review of the movie and the story of the editor is told in footnotes.

The book has a beautifully executed gradual ramp up to anything scary, in the beginning it is much more of a mystery than anything else.  As the histories of the characters are slowly revealed, one step at a time, the book really grows.

This book also, in the world of ebooks and pdfs, truly embraces the printed medium.  The book itself is such a critical part of the feel of the story, from the small touches like certain words being consistently printed in different colors, to the big touches like strange page layouts and multipage upside down footnotes. The very layout of the book tells part of the story.

The book is eccentric in other ways too.  It is over 700 pages, 200 of which are appendices and an index.  The appendices have random additional information, some of it relevant, some of it not.  The index is another beast entirely.  Some parts have interesting

I will say that the story of the editor did not interest me anywhere near as much as the story of the characters in The Navidson Record but it provided an interesting break from the main story and some of the most pervasive imagery, the parts that literally kept me up at night, were in the sections written by Truant.

I feel like there is almost nothing that I can say that will truly do this book justice, but I can say for a certainty, it is a unique literary experience.  This is my favorite book that I have read so far in 2012.

Overall, I would give this book a 98%.