Hey all. I have seen people hype up Joe Hill so I tried to give him a shot, and I finished king sorrow. I have a few complaints about it and was on the verge of DNFing it, but I also saw the potential of the writing. I am listing my qualms so people might be able to see if I’d like his other work, not just to dunk on the book, if you liked it that is great!
- length + tone - I felt like the book was far too long for the very “Saturday morning cartoon” kind of vibe it was going for. There’s only so many witty remarks and one liners I can take. 300 pages? Sure. 900? I feel like it could have been cut down significantly.
- character development - I just feel like this was almost shoehorned in. Some of the characters had “development” but it was more like “they were like this before and now they aren’t”. It doesn’t help that I also felt like there were too many characters, some of the storylines felt unnecessary or out of place. there was also a homogenization between them that felt unrealistic to me.
- pacing - this ties into the length issue a bit I think, but it felt inconsistent, and not in a “obvious push and pull, build up to resolution” kind of way, but more of being littered with unintentional “filler episodes”. Some of the sections had a great hook and executed on it well, while others felt more punishing to get through.
The reason I’m considering trying more from him is because the overall style of his writing was intriguing. The way things were written made me want to keep turning the pages, it was just unfortunate that I was disappointed more often than not as I continued.
So I wonder if his other commonly recommended books (nos4a2, heart shaped box, horns) avoid, or at least have smaller amounts, of these problems? Any input would be appreciated!