Reviews with content warning for Sexual assault - The Stand

Reviews tagging 'Sexual assault'

The Stand by Stephen King

55 reviews

artmajorese's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.0

I had to stop 62% in. I picked it as my first Stephen King novel because it's in a couple of the top 10 lists from King fans. Big "men writing women" vibes. Plus the unique "heterosexual white man writes post-apocalyptic sex lives" vibes, which are as problematic as you might think.

He edited it to add a bunch of extra stuff in the '90s, but didn't bother to edit out the N word. Left the whole racist tone intact.

Pacing is kind of uneven. Not my taste for a book! Instead of anything horrifying or spooky, the tension stems from the fact that you might run smack into sexual violence around any corner.

Content Warnings

mswarning's review against another edition

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dark mysterious

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

3.75

Omg I finished this M-O-O-N, that spells monster, of a book. Jesus. Fucking. Christ. As someone who did not read a book over 500 pages until mid September, I deserve a gold star for reading a book this long. Holy shit.

I know this tells you nothing of what I thought of the book itself. Well, I added a lot of notes while I read this book. Allow me to share:

2%: "The n-word usage is not my fave." - SG
2%: "This one is sooo long. Hoping I can finish in 18 days 😬 " - Instagram
5%: "I'm not super into this narrator." - SG
30%: "I'm getting there, slowly but surely. Waaaaay too many characters and POVs. And I'm so-so on the narrator." - GR
30%: "I'm listening to the extended uncut version, btw. I'm sure the original one is better." - GR. At this point, I was still naïve AF.
30%: "Took awhile to get into it, especially with so many povs. 12 days to finish now. 🤞" - Instagram
43%: "M-O-O-N spells slog." - GR
53%: "The first 40% was way too long. I can't believe I didn't know that this book is over 1100 pages. 😂" - GR
69%: "I have to finish in 5 days, which I think is doable. If I had to do this over again, I would stick to the print." - GR
69%: "Semi-regular 'The Stand' update. Feeling less irritable about the length now. Pretty confident I'll finish in 5 days. I can't say it's been a pleasurable experience racing to the end. I can tell this book sits better on the buildup of anticipation with dread steadily increasing - as all good King books do. Get a copy without a due date and stay away from the audiobook. Or if you do get it, prepare to increase the speed or you'll feel it suck the life out of you. I miss listening to music or letting myself think in silence. I feel guilty when I watch TV, that I should be listening to this book. Ugh." - Instagram
82%: "I might make it? The book is due in 3 days. Less than 9 hours left [in the audiobook]." - GR
95%: "I'm gonna make it after allllll." - GR
100%: "Finished with 5 hours to spare! I feel like all of my complaints were 1) the audiobook narrator and 2) the loan period. So don't make those mistakes, and you'll be fine." - Instagram

Highlights: Walking at the lake this past weekend listening to the book aloud because my bluetooth headphones had no battery left. The, uh, sex scenes and n-word usage while doing so was a bit sketchy. I had to pause the book or turn down the volume as I passed people.

Overall, I still ended up liking this book. You can tell how naïve I was about the length. I mean I knew it was 47 hours long, but I didn't really know ANYTHING about what that meant. I kept thinking I knew where this book was going or how it would end. I think that's the point, you're prepared for certain tropes or plot twists because authors tend to pull the same shenanigans. I was pleasantly surprised. I wouldn't say it's my favorite King book, but I think it's definitely my favorite King reading experience. Because of all my thoughts and feelings and the fact that I documented it all here.. and on GR and Insta. 😂

I still stand by all the updates/comments I made while I listened to The Stand. It's too long. As time went by and all the characters met up, I kind of forgot about the slog of the beginning. Part of that is recency bias, I think. But I understand why it's so long. I can appreciate it more on this side of it, even if I hated it while it was happening.

And yeah, check out the content warnings. There are a lot.

Content Warnings

snowypineapples's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense slow-paced

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

4.0

This was a very good book, the story and plot and journey were incredible, thought provoking and interesting. However the conclusion to the plot is rather silly:

the literal hand of God appears in the sky

The silliness really ruined that part of the boom for me and although I loved the majority, there was lots of areas, not just that, where the boom felt like a chore to read

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sneakyhobbit's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

2.0

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flamesocks's review against another edition

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slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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ktdakotareads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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zoes_human's review against another edition

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adventurous

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

5.0

I couldn't tell you how many times I've read The Stand. I read the original version as a young teen and the uncut, and far superior, version when it came out. Less scary than most of his books, it is one of his best works for character development. There are some uses of language that haven't aged well, but they were true to their time period (1978) and clearly born of ignorance rather than hostility. This read was as ever a delight, but in many ways even more so as my spouse, who doesn't like scary things and is definitely the gentler spouse, asked me to pick out a Stephen King for our out-loud book. He knows how much I love the author, and just asked that I be willing to skip any bits that were too much for him. I gladly did this, there were only a couple, and enjoyed the story of Kojak more than ever because of how much my husband loves dogs and his delighted cries of "What a good boy!" throughout the book.

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