RaveThe Washington Independent Review of BooksHill delivers a story even more intense and complex than his first two novels, Heart-Shaped Box and Horns. Some elements of the horror are low-key and pervasive threads woven into the novel, such as the twisted ways in which Christmas haunts the characters. At other times, it is gut-twisting and in your face, with gore and sexual violence. His pacing is reminiscent of another horror master, Clive Barker; building steadily, punctuated with more graphic moments of violence until the last third, which is a torrent of intense desperation that makes the book almost impossible to put down. NOS4A2 is an excellent work of horror that stays with the reader long after the pages have been closed … especially when Christmastime rolls ‘round again.
