Horns

A Novel

By: Joe Hill

Narrated by: Fred Berman

Length: 13 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache, and a pair of horns growing from his temples. At first, Ig thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. He had spent the last year in a lonely, private purgatory, following the death of his beloved, Merrin Williams, who was raped and murdered under inexplicable circumstances. A mental breakdown would have been the most natural thing in the world. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

Once the righteous Ig had enjoyed the life of the blessed: born into privilege, the second son of a renowned musician and younger brother of a rising late-night TV star, he had security, wealth, and a place in his community. Ig had it all, and more—he had Merrin and a love founded on shared daydreams, mutual daring, and unlikely midsummer magic. But Merrin's death damned all that. The only suspect in the crime, Ig was never charged or tried. And he was never cleared. In the court of public opinion in Gideon, New Hampshire, Ig is and always will be guilty because his rich and connected parents pulled strings to make the investigation go away. Nothing Ig can do, nothing he can say, matters. Everyone, it seems, including God, has abandoned him. Everyone, that is, but the devil inside.

Now Ig is possessed of a terrible new power to go with his terrible new look—a macabre talent he intends to use to find the monster who killed Merrin and destroyed his life. Being good and praying for the best got him nowhere. It's time for a little revenge. It's time the devil had his due.

©2010 Joe Hill (P)2010 HarperCollins Publishers

Amazing book. Don't listen to the Christian dweebs

Amazing book.
Great narration.
Very dark.
it took me a little time to get invested, but after that, it was hard to stop listening - I had to know what happens next!
And the ending was perfect.
But this story explores our darkest thoughts, intrusive thoughts, and the delusions we can have about other people. And so on. So it might not be for everyone.
And if you're some sensitive Christian, like many of the reviewers seem to be, skip it because it's definitely too adult for you. It features language that isn't suitable for a Bible thumper.
I'm not saying it's for everyone who isn't religious. it's not. it's very vulgar and very dark. But if you're going to leave a bad review because you were offended, then that's not a fair review and you should stick to reading about the care bears.

It was the horns for me

I've been listening to this book for months. Tonight I finally finished it and wow. This book was an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes it was confusing, but I truly truly enjoyed it. I've read short stories from this author too but the was the first time I ever read/listened to an entire book. I'm so glad I did though. A little like his Dad but he definitely marches to his own drum. I highly recommend this one.

Cheese fest

Would you try another book from Joe Hill and/or Fred Berman?

I love both Joe Hill and Frank Berman, so yes.

If you’ve listened to books by Joe Hill before, how does this one compare?

I love his books, however Horns was a low point for Mr. Hill.

Have you listened to any of Fred Berman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Berman's outstanding narration made this book tolerable.

Was Horns worth the listening time?

No way.

A disappointment

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Yes, but only carefully selected ones.

If you’ve listened to books by Joe Hill before, how does this one compare?

N/A

Which scene was your favorite?

The ending scene with his brother

Do you think Horns needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No. There is nowhere to go with a followup. It's all happened.

Any additional comments?

I bought this book thinking it would be a skilfully crafted story. Instead, it degenerated into a humdrum, poorly told, directionless pit. The prose is well done, and the sentences organized, but it seems like the storyline was not well thought out and the author took the first opportunity to just jump off.
There was some real possibility that this could have been a good story, but the author let us all down.

Started off amazing, But...

Joe Hill can write. The beginning of this was fantastic. I was hooked by the concept and was thinking this was going to be fantastic. But it slowed down a bit and jumped all over. It was enjoyable over all, but not brilliant.

The narrator was slow, so i sped it up to 1.25 or 1.5 and he came off great.

Its a good listen.

Great premise and great start

but then he does these long flashbacks that slowed the momentum a lot. I skipped the last flashback and didn't even miss anything when we rejoined the present. Not sure if I would read another, definitely a mixed bag.

Horns creates a classic look at sinners & saints

What is good / What is evil ? -- What do they look like ? IS Satan really the excutioner for God's judgement? So would that make Satan and God working the same side ? And as in all good books, will good conquer evil ?

Story woven by Hill contain many thought jewels beattifully crafted into the work, this requires several readovers to fully digest the spectrum meanings and impact the auhor challenged. Hill takes a pretty strong verbage discussing Jeudo Christian beliefs- which offenda few-but taken as part of the whole - strengthen the work.

But our devil has seemed to find contentment in the here after -- just got to figure out who he his

Would not be suprised to is this being considered a modern classic

Final Point-I found that Joe Hill wrote this story, Not his father, This author has jumped into his own, not rode the tails of his father, When reading this I did fell a long shadow looking over Hill's shoulder when he wrote it, and mine when I read it.

Gripping & Innovative

Masterfully written & narrated. More of a morality play than a horror story, but definitely worth the credits.

Movie was better but book isn't bad

I struggled with this book a bit due to the semi dragging feel I got while listening to it. I had seen the movie beforehand I imagine that actually made it more difficult for me with the book. I felt like Iggy was a better character in the movie that we could sympathize with then in the book where he came across overly dramatic and at times downright cruel. I did feel like we got more of a backstory between Iggy and his brother in the book and it was interesting for all the little sins that were mentioned, so not only were we dealing with minor things we were dealing with major ones as well. I would still recommend the movie to people who are not familiar with the book and I do think that the narrator captured the characters in motions fairly well in the audiobook.

Another decent Steven King fanfic novel.

I'm so glad Joe Hill finally let go of riffing on his dad's writing. NOS4A2 is one of my favorite books, so I've gone back to check out his earlier books. They're good, but there's just way too much of his dad's style in them.

The story requires a lot of effort to stay engaged in. It does a lot of flashbacking, out of order. And I get it, it helps build up the story, but there's unannounced flips and I spent a lot of time backtracking to find out if I'd skipped a chapter or a tiny clue what was happening.

And there's a ton, a BIG GIANT ton of extra character development/exposition in there that just didn't contribute all that much to the story. This book could've been 1/3 shorter and would have been a tight, good novel.

As it stands, it's still a good book, but I'm not left wanting to know more; the times I put it down, I didn't spend my time reflecting on the story so far, nor worrying about what was coming up, (unlike NOS4A2, which pulled me in and kept me almost the entire time).