Scaredy Cat Approved: A NOS4A2 Book Review

Navigation (Click on a section to jump to it):

• NOS4A2 Book Review
• Is NOS4A2 Scary?
• Why is it Called NOS4A2?
• How Long is the Audiobook NOS4A2?
• Where Can I Read NOS4A2?
• Favorite Quotes from NOS4A2 (May Contain Spoilers)
• TL;DR

NOS4A2 Book Review

Joe Hill’s NOS4A2 is a dreadful delight. The writing is compelling to the point where this squeamish reader could not put it down.

NOS4A2 is a very devour-able story. I routinely found myself reading through entire chunks of the book each time I sat down, unable to find a “good point” at which to stop. It’s ALL good. Although I will note I gave it 4.5 stars out of 5, so while it’s not perfect, it’s still damn good. The half star dock is due to portions of the first half that drag a little longer than necessary, in my opinion. The first half admittedly has a few repetitive sections, but once the second half hits, you’re off like a shot. The story overall is very worth reading, just remember: it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

I did a tandem read, reading the ebook through my library and listening to the audiobook while out and about or at work. I’m not the biggest audiobook person, but the audiobook was very helpful to keep making progress in the story, especially because it’s on the longer side (at least, for me).

What I liked:

• The Plot
  • NOS4A2 is unlike anything I’ve read before. We follow Victoria “Vic” McQueen from her childhood all the way through adulthood as she grapples with her “gift”: a bike that can take her across a nonexistent bridge to places that are very, very real. It would be easy to solely focus on Vic the entire book, but Hill spoils readers by giving even the smallest of side characters fleshed out lives. From a mother and a baby at a rural gas station to a dedicated FBI agent, everyone gets to show off who they are in ways both great and small. There are no vague bystanders here, everyone’s picture is painted.
  • Hill lays out the idea power comes with a price. None of the characters with their various “knives” and their respective gifts escape unscathed. Each time a character makes the decision to use that power, they suffer a little more for it. Look at our villain, Charlie Manx: he uses and uses and uses, and we can see by the end what he’s turned into.
• Joe Hill’s Writing Style
  • I have a good handful of highlights and notes purely due the fact that the writing is brilliant. It’s evocative in ways that gave me chills, broke my heart, and left me wide-eyed with wonder. A few of my favorites are:
    • “Through the dead, droning silence, she heard it, heard an inhuman growl, a precision-engineered, perfectly articulated roar of hate.”
    • “Vic took a last look around the room, a visitor to a grubby exhibit in some museum of suffering.”
    • “The thought of eating a sugared jelly doughnut was like imagining putting the barrel of a loaded gun in his mouth.”
  • Readers who pay attention are rewarded time and time again, in the best ways. I have several notes for foreshadowing and their eventual, satisfying payoff. Hill lays the bread crumb trail for those paying attention, and for those who miss the smaller details, he still guides readers to the satisfying realization of what’s about to happen right before the payoff kicks in.
• The Unbelievability of Vic’s Story (In a Good Way)
  • The other characters behave the way many of us would behave if we were presented with a similar story in our real lives. You say you can travel hundreds of miles in an instant, using a covered bridge that appears when your mind wills it? We’d have sent Vic McQueen to the institution the same way they did. The supporting characters behave in true horror movie fashion, wholly unaware of the genre they exist in. Leave it to Lou, the lovable comic nerd to be the only one who finally gets wise to his genre by the end.

What I Didn’t Like:

• My main and only real gripe with the story is the pacing in the first half of the story. There are a few repetitive sections where you can pretty much guess what’s going to happen because they’ve already happened in a similar fashion. There’s nothing wrong with showing readers Vic’s progression from child to adult grappling with her “knife”, but it prevents the story from truly taking off running until the 50% mark.

Is NOS4A2 Scary?

Yes and no. It is horror, don’t get me wrong. But it’s not a “scare you senseless” story, the horror lay in the more realistic elements of the story, things that can, and do, happen in the real world. Charlie Manx existing as a vampire is less frightening than the way in which he abducts children, and creates less visceral fear than how Bing Partridge’s actions are described. They form a bond reminiscent of Pinky and the Brain, only far, far more unsettling.

Make no mistake, this story will set your spine tingling and your heart racing. But, for the most part, it shouldn’t be anything you can’t handle. I do recommend looking up if you have any specific triggers to see if they appear in the story, there’s one or two that might pop up for some people, although never in graphic detail.

Why is it called NOS4A2?

If you say the title out loud, it sounds like “Nosferatu”, which is a German vampire film. Charlie Manx is a type of vampire. Although not the kind of vampire we traditionally associate with that word. The title is NOS4A2 instead of “Nosferatu” because it’s the license plate on Charlie Manx’s car, the Wraith.

How Long is the Audiobook NOS4A2?

The audiobook is available on Spotify premium and lasts 19 hours, 42 minutes. You can also check Libby for the audiobook through your library!

Where Can I Read NOS4A2?

I recommend checking out Libby through your local library for the ebook or the audiobook, for free! The physical book can be purchased here new, or here pre-owned (which I recommend).

Favorite Quotes from NOS4A2 (May Contain Spoilers)

This story has some of my favorite prose I’ve read in a while, I highlighted a great many lines just because I loved the way they read.

• “She breathed deeply of the scent of decaying fiction, disintegrating history, and forgotten verse, and she observed for the first time that a room full of books smelled like dessert: a sweet snack made of figs, vanilla, glue, and cleverness.”
• “In a world made of thought—in an inscape—every idea is a fact. Emotions are as real as gravity. Dreams are as powerful as history.”
• “Hooper, though, had tried to show him what to do. Hooper had tried to show him that even when you seemed completely overpowered, you could still show your teeth.”
• “Manx’s face was painted with blood, as if he had gone bobbing for apples in a bucket full of the stuff.”
• “Vic took a last look around the room, a visitor to a grubby exhibit in some museum of suffering.”
• “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.”
• “It sounded like delusion until you remembered that people made the imaginary real all the time: taking the music they heard in their head and recording it, seeing a house in their imagination and building it. Fantasy was always only a reality waiting to be switched on.”

TL;DR

NOS4A2 is a fantastic, scaredy-cat approved horror novel. The writing is excellent, and while the first half can get a bit repetitive, the second half takes off running and doesn’t stop until the very end. The audiobook is around 20 hours long, the paperback is roughly 700ish pages, and the ebook is nearly 1000 pages.

4 word review: Long but absolutely worthwhile.

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If you’ve read NOS4A2, leave a comment and let me know what you though of the story!