This book was brought to my attention by my good friends over at http://www.scifisaturdaynight.com/ in their recent podcast on March 21st 2011. Now I’ll admit I was listening while doing other stuff, so I didn’t hear what led up to their discussion of the book(sometimes I tune out when Shia LeBeouf is mentioned) I tuned in when I heard the book was as good as The Golden Compass which is one of my top ten books of ever. Of course I had to scramble to figure out what they were talking about, and then run out and get it from the library. Not disappointed, not even a little. While Horns is nothing like Golden Compass it is just as enthralling.
We join the main character, Ig, the morning after an alcoholic bender. The last thing he remembers is peeing on a statue of the Virgin Mary someone placed at the site of his ex-girlfriend Merrin’s murder. Sometime between then and the morning, he grew a pair of horns. After the usual worries that he is losing his mind, he figures out the horns have a way of making people tell him their darkest secrets and desires. If he touches someone, he knows even more.
The characters are well crafted, and within pages you are drawn into Ig’s story. The secrets he learns are at turns amusing, disgusting, and horrifying, but you want to hear more. Each secret reveals a little bit of the story that led up to Merrin’s murder. The book is part love story, part horror/thriller with a little bit of humor thrown in, but none of it ever feels out of place or forced. Each piece of the book clings to your mind, leaving you thinking about it days later, as all the best stories do.