3.5 stars. This could've been a damn good book if it'd "gotten there" faster. 
 Stephen King's son? You don't say? That wasn't even a hard guess. The first 25% of Heart Shaped Box was full of descriptive filler which didn't always need to be there (setting the mood tends to be a flimsy excuse when descriptiveness drags on for too long). It must be a King thing. Yep. I rhymed. I did that. 
 He saw a flicker of motion, reflected in the partly open window beyond his desk, and his gaze jumped to the image in the glass. He could see himself there and the dead man standing beside him, hunched and whispering in his ear. 
 The chilling parts were chilling, but too few and far between. One could argue that the story was meant to be light on scary in favor of Jude finding himself. Fine. I'll go with that, even if I was wanting more chill and less self-discovery. I was surprised by how much Jude evolved as a character. The author managed to evolve a self-absorbed waste-of-skin into someone almost likable. The dogs knew before I did. 
 I could have done without the Scooby Doo mystery though. I really could have. 
 Final verdict : Worth the read, but nothing blew me away.