Joe Hill Archives - Novel Notions

Book Review: 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

October 31, 2022 Celeste Comments 0 Comment

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

20th Century Ghosts is not the first short story collection I’ve read by Hill, but it’s the first one he released. As a whole, I think it might be a touch stronger than Full Throttle, a more recent short story collection of his I read in 2019. However, I also found the individual stories largely less memorable. It was more even across the board, but that meant that there were fewer that stood out to me. That being said, I really enjoyed my time with this collection, and there wasn’t a single story that I legitimately hated. In a collection of 15 stories, I’d say that’s a pretty fantastic achievement. Below are micro-reviews of each story. …

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Book Review: The Golden Age (Locke & Key #6.5) by Joe Hill

July 21, 2022 Celeste Comments 1 comment

Locke & Key: The Golden Age by Joe Hill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I read the original 6 volumes of Locke & Key, I fell head-over-heels in love with every element of it: the story, the art, the characters, the concepts, the setting, all of it completely enchanted me. I consider it one of my favorite series of all time, and definitely my favorite series of graphic novels I’ve ever read. Every single volume was a 5 star experience. I wouldn’t have changed a single sentence or frame. It’s one of those rare instances where the art and the prose carry equal weight in the story, and something about Rodriguez’s art style stole my heart as surely as Hill’s writing did. I loved every single thing about it. …

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Celeste’s Top 20 Books of the Year (2020)

December 28, 2020 Celeste Comments 2 comments

The featured image above was specifically designed by Felix Ortiz for Novel Notions’ Top Books Lists. His work is amazing, and we feel incredibly fortunate to have been favored with it. Thank you so much, Felix!

If you’d like to see a list of everything I’ve read this year, you can click here to see my year in books for 2020!

2020 was an incredible reading year for me. I read over 150 books, and have found a number of new favorites. I haven’t read as much fantasy this year, but I still managed to find some wonderful new stories that I know will stick with me for a long time to come. Thank goodness for books, right? I don’t think I could’ve gotten through the dumpster fire that was 2020 without them. It was incredibly difficult to narrow my list down to twelve books, but I finally managed it. There will be a handful of honorable mentions at the end of this post, for those I just couldn’t bare to not include. I’m taking a page from Petrik and following three rules for my list:

1. Only one book per author.
2. Rereads don’t count.
3. The books were new to me, but didn’t have to be published this year.

Once again, I’m ranking my reads. That being said, every single book on this list was a 5 star read and I highly recommend them all. You can view my full review of each book (including the honorable mentions) by clicking the link in each title. And now, without further ado, here are my favorite books of 2020. …

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Celeste’s Top 12 Books of the Year So Far (January 1st, 2020 – June 30th, 2020)

July 3, 2020 Celeste Comments 0 Comment

If you’d like to see a list of everything I’ve read so far this year, you can click here to see my year in books for 2020!

So far, 2020 has been an incredible reading year for me. Between January 1st and June 30th I read right around 75 books, and have found a number of new favorites. I haven’t read as much fantasy this year, but I still managed to find some wonderful new stories that I know will stick with me for a long time to come. Thank goodness for books, right? I don’t think I could’ve gotten through the dumpster fire that was the first half of 2020 without them. It was incredibly difficult to narrow my list down to twelve books, but I finally managed it. There will be a handful of honorable mentions at the end of this post, for those I just couldn’t bare to not include. I’m taking a page from Petrik and following three rules for my list:

1. Only one book per author.
2. Rereads don’t count.
3. The books were new to me, but didn’t have to be published this year.

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Book Review: Locke & Key: The Complete Series (Volumes 1 – 6)

February 7, 2020 Celeste Comments 2 comments

Locke & Key: The Complete Series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez
My rating: 6 of 5 stars

Two or three times a year, I get a random and powerful craving for graphic novels. This is not generally my genre of choice, but it makes for a fun departure from my usual reading. That craving hit early this year when I saw that Netflix was developing the Locke & Key series of graphic novels into their own original series. Since I have this thing about reading this book before seeing the show or movie, I knew I needed to read these immediately. They’ve also been on my TBR list for literally years, so what better time to take the plunge? I’m so glad I did. For the first time in my life, I think that a series of graphic novels might be contenders for my favorite reading experience of the year. And it’s only February!

“Dying is nothing. I’ve died a thousand times and I’ve always come back. Ideas can’t really be killed. Not for good.”

…

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Book Review: Full Throttle: Stories by Joe Hill

November 5, 2019 Celeste Comments 7 comments

Full Throttle by Joe Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Vary rarely do I review the audio of a book. Though I’m a big audiobook reader/listener, I tend to swap between the physical and audio versions of I’m reading and generally just review the actual book itself, not the audio production. There have been a few notable exceptions, most especially Daisy Jones & The Six, but those exceptions are few and far between. Today, I have another exception to add to the list with Joe Hill’s most recent short fiction collection, Full Throttle. And it was such a strong collection! There were only two stories that I really didn’t care for and two that I felt were just okay, as opposed to the nine stories that were either 4, 4.5, or 5 star experiences. …

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