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Jesse and Gerald are married and spending time together in a remote holiday home when Gerald suggests playing a game. With handcuffs and a suggestive roleplay plot in mind, it's not long till his wife is chained to the bed. But this time Jesse doesn't want to play. One hard kick sends Gerald onto the floor, and the game is suddenly over.

But now, Jesse is trapped. Handcuffed to the bed with her husband dead on the hardwood. It wasn't meant to be like this, and soon Jesse's predicament goes from shocking to life-threatening as she struggles with a hungry stray dog, her inner demons, and worst of all, a terrifying shape in the corner of the bedroom hidden in the night. A figure that holds a bag of bones and brings with him the scent of death.

I've watched the movie version of Gerald's Game multiple times and have always enjoyed the adaptation, but I always wanted more immersion, and the source material delivered just that. In the book, all the characters gain more depth, even the stray dog helps to widen the story and add a new level of terror to the tale. the novel is genuinely unsettling, and Stephen King shows once more that he is a master of horror. Gerald's Game feels like an often overlooked novel, but this has climbed high on my list of favourites this year.

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4.0

Gerald's Game is a novel which could have been over before it started if both parties understood consent and safety. Example, Jessie: "Paper moose." Gerald: "Okay, we're stopping."
(Un)fortunately this is a Stephen King novel, so realism doesn't exist here. Gerald just up and goes ghost, so we have this painful story of a woman trying not to die while tons of awful stuff happens to her.
I initially only read it because I am trying to read every Stephen King work, but I liked most of it. This book is expectedly graphic and hard to read at some moments. What else would you expect from King?