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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Review to come on my blog. Link in bio.
I'm really happy I finished this big thing. The plot was good, the whole cocoon thing was interesting and intriguing, but it was just a little boring and long. I struggled at times to get through the book. Some parts felt stretched and seemed like it wasnt needed. The ending was also a bit disappointing. I expected more of it. Speed read this over a weekend with really hot weather :).
I'm really happy I finished this big thing. The plot was good, the whole cocoon thing was interesting and intriguing, but it was just a little boring and long. I struggled at times to get through the book. Some parts felt stretched and seemed like it wasnt needed. The ending was also a bit disappointing. I expected more of it. Speed read this over a weekend with really hot weather :).
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
3.5.
I guess that, at this point, it is derivative to call this book derivative... but it's super derivative. It reads like [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269] lite. Unlike its cousin [b:The Passage|6690798|The Passage (The Passage, #1)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327874267s/6690798.jpg|2802546], it has little new to say. Also unlike [b:The Passage|6690798|The Passage (The Passage, #1)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327874267s/6690798.jpg|2802546], it has no excuse for being [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269] lite, since S.K. presumably vauely remembers writing The Stand.
Also: in this world, or at least this corner of Appalachia, all men are apparently very stupid, drug addicts, or just emotionally stunted.
The references also rubbed me wrong in this book. Something temporally unmoored about them all, probably caused by the generational divide of its writers.
Edit: Oh, my god. Owen King does not exist. Stephen King basically cops to breaking apart his books and reworking them from a "different author's perspective." I'm now convinced Owen King just read the book aloud to Stephen when he was done writing it. Here's the proof!
From "The Importance of Being Bachman," the introduction to [b:The Long Walk|9014|The Long Walk|Richard Bachman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309212400s/9014.jpg|522169]:
Stephen King literally can't stop quoting himself. How many times has he traveled this loop? How many times will he travel it?
I guess that, at this point, it is derivative to call this book derivative... but it's super derivative. It reads like [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269] lite. Unlike its cousin [b:The Passage|6690798|The Passage (The Passage, #1)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327874267s/6690798.jpg|2802546], it has little new to say. Also unlike [b:The Passage|6690798|The Passage (The Passage, #1)|Justin Cronin|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327874267s/6690798.jpg|2802546], it has no excuse for being [b:The Stand|149267|The Stand|Stephen King|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1213131305s/149267.jpg|1742269] lite, since S.K. presumably vauely remembers writing The Stand.
Also: in this world, or at least this corner of Appalachia, all men are apparently very stupid, drug addicts, or just emotionally stunted.
The references also rubbed me wrong in this book. Something temporally unmoored about them all, probably caused by the generational divide of its writers.
Edit: Oh, my god. Owen King does not exist. Stephen King basically cops to breaking apart his books and reworking them from a "different author's perspective." I'm now convinced Owen King just read the book aloud to Stephen when he was done writing it. Here's the proof!
From "The Importance of Being Bachman," the introduction to [b:The Long Walk|9014|The Long Walk|Richard Bachman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1309212400s/9014.jpg|522169]:
If I could use the rep company concept with the characters, I could use it with the plot itself - I could stack a good many of the Desperation elements in a brand-new configuration, and create a kind of mirror world. I knew even before setting out on this course that plenty of critics would call this twinning a stunt... and they would not be wrong, exactly. But, I thought, it could be a good stunt. Maybe even an illuminating stunt, one which showcased the muscularity and versatility of story, its all but limitless ability to adapt a few basic elements into endlessly pleasing variations, its prankish charm.
But the two books couldn't sound exactly the same, and they couldn't mean the same, any more than an Albee play and one by William Inge can sound and mean the same, even if they are performed on successive nights by the same company of actors. How could I possibly create a different voice?
At first I thought I couldn't, and that it would be best to cosign the idea to the Rube Goldberg bin I keep in the bottom of my mind - the one marked INTERESTING BUT UNWORKABLE CONTRAPTIONS. Then it occurred to me that I had the answer, and had had it all along: Richard Bachman could write The Regulators. His voice sounded superficially the same as mine, simultaneously funnier and more cold - hearted. [...] It was wonderful to hear Bachman's voice again, and what I had hoped might happen did happen: a book rolled out that was kind of fraternal twin to the one I had written under my own name (and the two books were quite literally written back to back, the King book finished on one day and the Bachman book commenced on the very next). They were no more alike than King and Bachman themselves.
Stephen King literally can't stop quoting himself. How many times has he traveled this loop? How many times will he travel it?
Great book and loved the audiobook. Takes place in Appalachia and gives a pretty good idea of how the world might go if all the women were suddenly out of commission.
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
As many of King’s books, it takes long detour to arrive to completion and even once there it never wants to finish. Even tough it was writing with is son, I presume, the style remained the same. The story is interesting, that’s what kept me reading, it drags forever at the mid-end of it. The main characters were somewhat interesting but lacked to develop a real attachement to the reader. Supernatural theme are not my favourite but this one was interesting enough.
Not what I would expect from Stephen King but what an amazing book! I love the premise and how everything turned out.
I had originally given this two stars, but after thinking things thru I am downgrading it. If I can't finish a book I can't give it two stars. Yes, it was kind of okay, but I was bored. However, I was expecting horror or dystopian fantasy or something else that would have been at least a little exciting and frightening. Unfortunately King did not deliver. I was disappointed by the repetitive nature of the stories as well as by their failure to arouse my interest. It's not as if I haven't loved many other King books but this never really took off for me, and I cannot recommend it. For the record - one of the most haunting, terrifying books I've read is The Stand, and I think I was hoping for that same visceral reaction here, but the book failed to elicit that.