With this being only Joe Hill's third novel, I'm very hopeful he'll have the same kind of long, evolutionary career his father has had. N0S4A2 very much feels like a book Stephen King could've written, what with its gateways to other worlds, magic cars, vampires that aren't quite vampires, children in supernatural danger, hell there's even a direct reference to It. But despite those obvious inheritances, Joe Hill writes with a flare and imagination that sets him apart from King in ways I really loved. He's not just his father's son. He's clearly influenced by the likes of Lovecraft and Poe and Peter Straub and other great horror writers, and has used those influences to become his own thoroughly enjoyable author. 
 First of all, this book MOVES. It's almost 700 pages long, but it feels like every detail is important for establishing the rules and lives of the characters. By a mere few chapters into the book, I had full faith that any time Hill took me somewhere, I was going to see something important. There ain't a lot of people just laying around worrying about stuff. 
 That said, I felt like even more development could've been done on some of the characters. We get a ton of development for Vic, the central protagonist, but people like Lou Carmody, who are vastly important to the story, are pretty one-dimensional. For instance, Lou is a fat nerd. Every decision he makes is a fat nerd decision, and every sentence out of his mouth has a pop culture reference in it. I got pretty tired of this, especially since the book relied so heavily on Lou's weight to be his defining character trait. I'd like a little less FAT and a little more PERSON in my characters, please. 
 In the long run, though, this is a minor concern. Hill does a masterful job crafting a simultaneously scary and enticing world, where the horror isn't defined by the supernatural elements, but rather the way they are utilized. Charlie Manx is the bad guy here. I particularly appreciated the way Hill gave Manx plenty of depth. At no point is Manx's motivation to kidnap children based on "just being crazy" or "just being a pervert" or anything like that. He isn't those things. He's a man who genuinely believes that the awful things he's doing are in the best interest of the people he's doing them to (with a few exceptions based on his own survival). This leads to a much more terrifying figure than, say, a murdery ghost or something. He can't be reasoned with because he is a misguided human, not an entity based solely on vengeance. 
 After reading this, I'm definitely adding Heart-Shaped Box and Horns to my list for future reading. I loved Locke & Key, and now with N024A2 under my belt, I think it's safe to say I'm becoming a Hill fan. He's just got a way of world-building that sucks you in and lets you really feel like the crazy shit that's going on is REAL. I'm on board, y'all.