Sort of an interesting introduction to Joe Hill for me. I was absorbed in the story, but it felt both too long and too short, with pacing and an ending that didn’t quite pan out.

Highlights: you get a hell of a lot of audiobook for your money; the narration is stellar; the characters are pretty good; premise is intriguing; story holds your attention almost right up until the end.

Detractors: pacing felt really off - fast then slow then fast and ending on a slow note; fatphobia or something like it. A real obsession with how obese or skinny Lou is; ableism or something like it - a strange focus on how “feeble minded” certain traits made Charlie Manx look; almost got through the whole book with no slurs, but not quite; lackluster ending; kind of a mediocre villain in the end. 

I did find myself wanting to reread Doctor Sleep halfway through this, but at no point did I actually want to put down NOS4A2. It’s a good book that I may return to at some point, but ultimately I hope Hill’s future works surpass this one. It was promising.