Horns

 Joe Hill

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Horror

Initial Impression

I had this book for such a long time. I accidentally watched the movie a few years ago without realizing it was an adaptation. Thankfully, other than the horns, I don’t remember much from the story. 

Summary

Ignatius Perrish wakes up after a night of heavy drinking to find horns growing out of his head. Not metaphorical ones—actual, curling horns that itch and throb and refuse to go away. What’s worse is how people start behaving around him. Friends, strangers, police officers, and baristas—everyone suddenly feels compelled to confess their darkest impulses in his presence. Desires they barely admit to themselves spill out casually, sometimes cruelly, often grotesquely. Ig, already the prime suspect in his girlfriend Merrin’s unsolved murder, realizes that whatever these horns are, they’ve turned him into something unnatural.

As Ig navigates this strange new reality, the story moves back and forth between the present—where the horns grant him a disturbing kind of power—and the past, where his relationship with Merrin slowly unfolds. Their love story isn’t idealized or syrupy. It’s awkward, tender, sometimes petty, and painfully human. Those flashbacks work to remind us that Merrin was not just a victim in a crime but a fully formed person, someone with agency and contradictions of her own.

Meanwhile, the horns do more than force confessions. They seem to sharpen Ig’s understanding of human weakness. People don’t shy away from telling him all that is going on in their minds; they fully open up to him. Violence, lust, and cruelty hover close to the surface, and Ig becomes both observer and catalyst. There’s an uneasy question running underneath it all: are the horns revealing the truth about humanity, or are they warping it?

As the mystery of Merrin’s death comes back into focus, the novel slides toward something darker and more overtly supernatural. What begins as a strange curse story starts to resemble a revenge tale, with biblical overtones and moral ambiguity. Ig’s transformation, both physical and psychological, forces the reader to ask whether justice, vengeance, and corruption can even be separated anymore.

Characters

Ig Perrish is a compelling lead, though not always a comfortable one to follow. His grief feels genuine, messy, and occasionally ugly. He isn’t written as a noble sufferer; he’s angry, impulsive, and sometimes cruel, which makes his arc feel earned rather than manufactured. The horns don’t magically fix him, but they also amplify parts of him that were already there. That tension between who he was and who he’s becoming is likely the novel’s strongest character work.

The supporting cast is a mixed bag, though intentionally so. Many characters exist to expose a single vice or hypocrisy once the horns loosen their tongues, which can feel a little on-the-nose. Still, figures like Merrin and Lee Tourneau stand out. Merrin, especially, is given enough depth in the flashbacks that her absence feels heavy, not just narratively useful. Lee’s role, without spoiling too much, adds an unsettling layer about belief, entitlement, and the stories people tell themselves to justify terrible acts.

Writing Style

Joe Hill’s writing is sharp but not showy. The novel is written in third-person narration, closely aligned with Ig’s perspective, which allows for both intimacy and distance when needed. One moment you’re reading about casual small-town routines, the next about something deeply unsettling, described almost offhandedly. The humor is dark and occasionally juvenile, but it mostly works because it feels intentional rather than careless. As the first time reading something by him, I was pleasantly surprised by his storytelling methods.

Setting and Atmosphere

The story is set in a small New England town that feels claustrophobic in the way only familiar places can. People know each other, or at least think they do, until they don’t! Forests, bars, churches, and childhood homes recur often, grounding the supernatural elements in recognizably ordinary spaces.

Atmosphere-wise, Horns leans hard into discomfort. There’s a general and continuous unease, like something is really wrong and absurd beneath the surface of polite society, which seems to be just a superficial show. The book doesn’t rush to scare you outright; instead, it lets dread accumulate through confessions, quiet cruelty, and moral slippage. It’s less about jump scares and more about the slow realization that people might be worse than the demons haunting them.

Final Thoughts

At four stars, Horns is a strong, flawed, and memorable novel. The first 25% of the book is easily its strongest stretch. The concept is fresh, the emotional hook lands quickly, and watching Ig test the limits of his curse is genuinely gripping. There’s a rawness early on that feels both angry and curious, like the book itself is still figuring out how far it wants to go.

That said, I think that the constant shifts between past and present do slow the momentum. While the flashbacks add emotional weight and a good background story, their frequency sometimes breaks the tension, taking my mind out of the current tension. It’s like when something becomes really exciting, the author decides to cool things down again.  Regardless of all of this, the novel is thought-provoking. It may not fully stick there for everyone, but it leaves behind uncomfortable questions that tend to linger longer than clean answers.

Key Themes

• Truth and Confession
• Guilt, Innocence, and Moral Ambiguity
• Love and Loss
• Power and Corruption
• Faith, Devils, and Moral Hypocrisy

The Astonishing Color of After

 Emily X.R. Pan

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Magical Realism + Young Adult

Initial Impression

This was one of my Book of the Month book releases. For no particular reason, this novel sat on my shelf for a long time. I was eager to see if the story lived up to the hype and the praise the book and the author received. 

Summary

The Astonishing Color of After opens so strongly that, for a moment, I genuinely thought I’d found a new all-time favorite. Leigh’s grief, her mother’s death, and the surreal appearance of a red bird that she believes is her mother, all of it hits with an intensity that feels almost electric. The opening chapters mix emotion and magical realism in a way that feels fresh, like the book is promising something huge. I was fully ready for a 5-star ride.

As Leigh travels to Taiwan to learn more about her mother’s past, the story appears to be heading toward an emotional and cultural breakthrough. And at first, parts of it work; there’s something fascinating about watching her try to connect the dots between her mother’s memories and the life she never got to see. But soon the narrative gets stuck in a kind of loop. Scenes start to feel like variations of the same moment—Leigh wandering, remembering, questioning, wandering again. It’s not that nothing happens; it’s that what does happen often feels like a repeat of what happened fifty pages earlier.

The relationships in Leigh’s life—her father, her best friend, and the boy who might be something more—add some texture, but even these threads start circling around the same emotional points. I kept waiting for a shift, a real push forward, but the story hesitates so often that the momentum just slips away. What was riveting at first slowly becomes predictable, like being stuck in a dream that keeps resetting before it reaches the part you actually want to see.

Still, there are moments that stand out. Some memories from Leigh’s mother’s life are sharp and genuinely touching, and the cultural atmosphere of Taiwan sometimes brings the story back to life for a few pages. Those little bursts remind you of how powerful the book could have been if the pacing didn’t keep sagging. It never regains the spark of the beginning, but the emotional core peeks through every now and then.

Characters

Leigh herself is probably the strongest part of the book. She’s messy, confused, and trying desperately to make sense of a tragedy, and her emotional swings feel believable. Even when the plot stalls, her internal struggle still has moments that feel painfully real—especially the guilt she carries about her mother’s death and the way she keeps revisiting old memories from different angles.

The rest of the cast is less defined. Some characters appear with hints of complexity but then fade out before they become fully formed. Leigh’s father, for example, seems like he could have a meaningful arc, but he spends a lot of time drifting at the edges. Friends and extended family members show glimpses of personality, but the book rarely gives them enough space to feel like actual people. It’s as if they’re meant to support Leigh’s journey without really having journeys of their own.

Writing Style

The novel is written in a lyrical first-person style that leans heavily on imagery. You have colors, sensations, and fleeting thoughts. At its best, it’s gorgeous and atmospheric. But the same poetic tone that makes the beginning feel magical also slows things down later on. The writing wanders, sometimes beautifully, sometimes aimlessly, and that may contribute to the feeling that the plot keeps circling instead of progressing.

Setting and Atmosphere

Taiwan is probably one of the book’s biggest strengths. Emily X.R. Pan writes about the country with obvious affection, from temples buzzing with incense to small alley shops to humid streets lit by neon signs. The sense of place feels real and specific enough that you can almost picture Leigh getting lost in those neighborhoods at night. Still, a few scenes linger longer than they need to, and the setting starts to feel more decorative than essential in certain stretches.

The atmosphere begins with this heavy, almost dreamlike quality that mixes grief with magic. For a while, it’s spellbinding. Then the repetition kicks in, and the mood shifts from haunting to slightly numbing. You can feel what the author wanted the atmosphere to do—hold you in that vulnerable space between reality and memory, but the longer the story repeats its beats, the more the initial spell thins out.

Final Thoughts

I honestly wish I could give this book a higher rating, because those opening chapters are some of the best I’ve read in a long time. They’re emotional without being manipulative, and they set up a story that feels like it’s going to hit hard. But somewhere along the way, the book starts spinning in circles. Every time I thought it was about to land another emotional punch, it backed away into another round of wandering or reflection.

By the end, I wasn’t angry or disappointed so much as tired. The beauty is still there, maybe scattered or even fragile, but the pacing doesn’t support it, and the story’s emotional payoff never quite arrives. It’s a 3-star read for me: a book with a phenomenal beginning, a heartfelt core, and a middle and end that just couldn’t keep the spark alive.

Key Themes

• Grief and Loss
• Memory and the Unreliable Nature of It
• Family Secrets and Generational Trauma
• Identity and Self-Discovery
• Culture and Heritage
• Mental Health
• Magical Realism|
• Communication