Reviews with content warning for Drug abuse - The Drawing of the Three

Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King

29 reviews

bluejayreads's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.0

This was a weird reading experience. I’m reading this series more to talk about it with a friend than because I want to read it, and if it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t have continued after The Gunslinger. This book does get more into the action, so it felt less like an extended beginning and more like an actual story. At some points it was even enjoyable.

Roland spends this book going back and forth through doors that are only half there to collect the three people the man in black told him he needed. These three people are in our world in different times. There’s Eddie, a drug addict who’s on his first smuggling run when Roland meets him and who quickly became my favorite. There’s Odetta, a black amputee and two different varieties of racist stereotype. And there’s Jack Mort, whose section was fairly enjoyable even though I spent the entire time hoping that he would not have to end up joining the group.

That’s pretty much the plot. There’s an overarching plot of Roland has an infected injury and is trying to stay alive and the three shorter plots of what’s through the doors and trying to get the three people to join him, tied together by sections of walking down a disturbing beach. It is slow-paced, but it’s interesting enough, and compared to book one it’s absolutely action-packed.

It was true of book one, and only got more extreme in this book, but The Drawing of the Three falls into one of my biggest complaints with adult fantasy-adjacent books: relying on grossness and bodily fluids to portray “realism.” There’s a lot of urine, feces, sweat, pus, saliva, and all other kinds of disgusting liquid-ish things that the human body can produce. I know that it is realistic, but personally I read for fun and prefer all the gross stuff to be sanitized by the lens of fiction. I’m aware this is a personal opinion, but if bodily fluids make you squeamish you may want to skip this one.

I was also pretty weirded out by the preteen girl masturbation scene and the guy who orgasmed by murdering people, but it’s not like Stephen King has never written creepy sexual scenes before, so I guess that’s a risk you take when reading his books.

When I finished this book, I was really ambivalent about reading on. Even though this series isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever read, it’s a little too slow and gross for me. This series was starting to feel more like an obligation than anything I particularly want to read. But my friend who’s also reading the series gave me a spoiler for future books that makes me more interested in reading on. So I guess I am continuing the series after all.

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bookbelle5_17's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Review of The Drawing of Three
By: Stephen King
If “The Gunslinger” is the prologue, then “The Drawing of Three” is when the real story begins. Roland wakes up on a beach right after his encounter with The Man in Black. He must find the 3 doors and the 3 beings, The Prisoner, The Lady of Shadows, the Pusher/Death. First, he comes to New York City in the 80s (I think) and meets junkie Eddie Dean. The second door leads to the 50s (again, I think) where he meets Susannah a wheel chair bound black woman who has a dual personality. The trio travels together on this beach in search of the third door with one of Susannah’s personalities fighting them the whole way.
If you know anything about Stephen King then you can guess that Eddie Dean probably has a bit in common with the author. He is a character I got frustrated with and I confess I couldn’t relate to his problems. Though, I understood his love and loyalty to his older brother Henry, even if he didn’t deserve it. Luckily, my sister does deserve my love and loyalty unlike Henry Dean. Eddie’s drug addiction makes him paranoid, anxious, and temperamental. The situation Roland, and partially his brother, puts him in makes his moodiness worse. He was hard for me to like but as the story progresses I liked him more. I enjoyed Susannah more as a character especially with her going back and forth with her personalities, even though one of the personalities is hateful and down right mean. Her monstrous personality is more compelling with her hatefulness, paranoia, and she proves herself to be incredibly smart but using her smarts for more selfish reasons. Both of them are sympathetic, but Eddie had a choice while what happened to Susannah that caused her two personalities was not something she chose. The lobstrosities are creepy and ugly to imagine as we anticipate when they’re going to come and attack the trio. The relationship between this trio is compelling to read as they have a love/hate feeling towards each other. Eddie resents that Roland has dragged him along on this dangerous mission and finds the Gunslinger to be a hypocrite, because he believes Roland is a Junkie for the Tower. He also has fallen for Susannah and hates Roland for putting her in danger as well. The endless beach that King describes adds to the tension as we don’t know when it will stop and they’ll get to their destination. It is an uncomfortable situation for all and emotions are high. Roland accepts and knows more than the others and he won’t show emotion as he doesn’t question anything. He is that person that says it’s all meant to be and that frustrates Eddie. The juxtaposition of our world and versus this part of Roland’s is interesting and highlights how bizarre his world is compare to ours. He fascinated by things we take for granted and things that are common sense to us is bewildering for him. He notices how much paper we use and he cannot believe it as paper in his world is rare and a valuable commodity. He is amused by the drug store and has mixed feelings about our food. His outsider perspective allows him to see more clearly like with Eddie and his addiction. I vaguely remember loving the “The Waste Lands’, the third book in the series, so I cannot wait to start it.

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luciawolfie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

In this book the POV is switched between characters... a lot, slowing down the action in doing so. And while in some parts it is an effective tool to increase suspense, like in the plane scene, making it feel claustrophobic in a way, in some others it just frustrates the reader, like in the shot-out with the drug dealers. In that specific case, the POV changed every few lines from one character to another, and each new change begun with repeating the events we learnt about from the previous voice. It slowed down what was supposed to be an action packed scene, not in a good adrenaline-infused-slow-motion, but in a "will you get on with it already?". In the latter chapters I find that this problem is not so prevalent, probably because there are less characters to switch but also because the author does not repeat the same info while switching from one voice to another anymore.
Another reason why I felt a bit weird about this book is

why the character of Odetta/Detta. It is just weird to me. I am by no means an expert on Dissociative Disorders, but the way she is presented... it does not sit right. It is like a stereotype of Jekyll and Hyde but because she is a woman we have to add a Madonna-whore complex. The way she is sexualized is also a classic instance of Men-writing-women. The description is just weird... and kinda fetishizing her dark skin as well. And why was the n-word discussion necessary in the least?

I am very disappointed because otherwise I really enjoyed the book.

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roenfoe's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Based on exploring the reviews on Goodreads and on here, I can see that I am in the minority of those who preferred The Gunslinger to The Drawing of the Three. While it's a close call, I am a long-time "far future dystopia" fan and I enjoy when the author explains little to nothing about the setting (instead choosing to present it through the eyes of someone who lives there and is accustomed to their surroundings). The element of mystery and overpowering loneliness achieved in The Gunslinger properly conveyed a world that had "moved on", setting up the gravity of the story King will tell in the next six volumes. However, this doesn't mean I didn't enjoy The Drawing of the Three- in fact, I liked it a lot! Spoilers ahead.

The best new element of this book was the characters- I love character driven narratives, and while Roland is a fine main character, I was so happy to see two new, fully fleshed-out and diverse characters to dive into. Additionally, there are quite a few well developed tertiary characters that added further dimension to the story. While I loved the isolation of the first book, I'm glad that this novel featured a larger cast. Eddie and Odetta felt real, often more real than Roland (which I think is the point) and I felt connected to them throughout the course of the story. However, it is impossible to review this book without mentioning the egregiously racist caricature that Odetta's alter "Detta" represents. I recognize that King lampshades this vile racism by having his characters discuss how she acts like a stereotype, but that doesn't make it any less excusable. Detta could easily still have been a hostile threat without becoming a living embodiment of the "crazy angry prejudiced undereducated black woman with a bayou accent" caricature. This aspect of the story aged so poorly that I wouldn't be remotely surprised if this element alone prevented a lot of people from finishing the book at all. It's disappointing that the first major, named female character that has any consequence for the long term narrative is developed this way.

Additionally, the incredible, unique surreal/fantasy elements continued in the form of the "door" system. I loved the surreal set pieces of the last book (the jawbone, the succubus, the tarot cards) and honestly wish there had been more in this volume.

Overall-despite this book's failings, it still gripped me and is extremely unique. I used to love fantasy all the way until high school, when I switched to science fiction. This is the first fantasy series I have picked up, let alone enjoyed, in a really long time. I look forward to (hopefully) seeing it through to the end!

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