Saturday, September 24, 2016

*Review* Locke & Key by Joe Hill


Genre: Horror (Audiobook)
Published: October 5, 2015
Length: 13 hours, 26 minutes

Synopsis

Based on the best-selling, award-winning graphic novel series Locke & Key - written by acclaimed suspense novelist Joe Hill (NOS4A2Horns) and illustrated by Gabriel Rodriguez - this multi-cast, fully dramatized audio production brings the images and words to life. 

A brutal and tragic event drives the Locke family from their home in California to the relative safety of their ancestral estate in Lovecraft, Massachusetts, an old house with powerful keys and fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them. As siblings Tyler, Kinsey, and Bode Locke discover the secrets of the old house, they also find that it's home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all.... 

Featuring performances by Haley Joel Osment (EntourageThe Sixth Sense), Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black), Kate Mulgrew (Orange Is the New BlackStar Trek: Voyager), Joe Hill, Gabriel Rodriguez, and Stephen King (The Stand11-22-63), as well as a cast of more than 50 voice actors, this audio production preserves the heart-stopping impact of the graphic novel's astounding artwork through the use of richly imagined sound design and a powerful original score.


Review

I listened to the audiobook version of this book (because it was either that or read graphic novels, and I'm not fond of graphic novels.) 

As a proclaimed fan of Stephen King, I've had several people recommend Joe Hill to me as an author I need to read. I've been meaning to try him out for a while now because of that, so when I got the promotion to download this audiobook for free, I jumped on it.

Locke & Key does not have much narration, and most of the narration it does have is more like stage directions. So I really only got descriptions of things from the characters dialogue, and those descriptions were minimal. Based on reviews that I skimmed after I finished listening, the audiobook is better if you're already familiar with the graphic novels, because you will have seen the people and places that way. I didn't really feel like I was missing out on much though, and I haven't read the graphic novels, I just had a lot more leeway for the pictures in my head. It's possible that what I imagined is nothing like the graphic novels, but I had clear pictures in my head nonetheless. 

This book has a full cast for the voices, so they are all different and there are no caricatures (like I often complain about for single narrator audiobooks). There were two secondary characters that I had trouble keeping straight, but their roles in the story were fairly minor in the whole scheme of things (although I likely wouldn't have had that issue if I were familiar with the graphic novels). 

Overall I give Locke & Key 5 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

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