Book and Movie Review: "Heart-shaped Box" and "Knocked Up"

I finished Heart Shaped Box pretty late the other night, mainly because I shut off the TV and the computer and stayed up past midnight to finish it.

It's not a bad book, but as scary goes it kind of has its ups and downs. In the beginning I was really creeped out, to the point that I stopped reading it for a night. Then it quickly seemed to be falling back into decent but not really scary ghost story territory, but about two thirds of the way through there was a scene so creepy that I realized my arms and legs were completely covered in goose bumps. By the end it was back down to decent but not scary, though, so I guess it just had some really well written moments.

Stacked against the work of other authors' children (Joe Hill is Stephen King's son, but wanted to establish himself in his own name rather than trading on his father's), it was better written than anything Christopher Rice has dropped on us, and the ending had fewer outlandish coincidences suddenly adding up at once than a Carol Higgins Clark book. I liked it, overall, and will look for his next book and for the fall release of his short story collection.

Last night I went with Jenn and George to see “Knocked Up”, which was funny in places and really slow and boring in places. It also flashes a vagina toward the end of the movie, and shows a baby coming out of it, like that horrible movie you had to watch in health class. Everyone in the theater was like, “Oh my God!” and then, “Jesus Christ! Again?” and then, “Holy shit, is that the baby? What the hell?”

It’s not like I’ve never seen one before, but it was rather surprisingly graphic for a comedy. It’ll probably also give me more nightmares than the book.