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3.87 AVERAGE
3.87 AVERAGE
fast-paced
Probably my second fave of him. But some things were a little weird. I don't understand why the incest was thrown in there, "uncle harry" didnt even have an important role. He was in the nursing home the whole time. Maybe I'm missing the bigger picture, besides that i did really like it!
This book has me consistently gasping all the way until the last few pages. One of the best examples of first-person narration I’ve read in a while.
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I thought of asking her if it freaked her out to look up at night and see the stars and know they go on forever and ever, but didn't bother. I just said no. You get used to marvelous things. You take them for granted. You can try not to, but you do. There's too much wonder, that's all. It's everywhere.
I had a strange feeling while reading this book, the same one I had with The Institute, that Stephen King did not write it
I had a strange feeling while reading this book, the same one I had with The Institute, that Stephen King did not write it
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
This was an easy, quick and engaging read. It left me wanting a little more when it came to the story or character development.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Even a little kid knows certain basic things if he’s not soft in the attic. You said please, you said thank you, you didn’t flap your weenie around in public or chew with your mouth open, and you didn’t talk to dead folks when they were standing next to living folks who were just starting to miss them.
Ooooh my gosh, this was so close to 5 stars for me; an incredibly solid 4.5 stars, almost rounded up. I really enjoyed King's first Hard Case Crime book, [b:The Colorado Kid|10574|The Colorado Kid|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1422099676l/10574._SY75_.jpg|856005], and this one is his newest and it's still great: the story of Jamie Conklin, a young boy who can see and speak to ghosts, and who's being raised alone by his struggling single mother.
The narrative voice is so fantastic: it's narrated by Jamie himself in his 20s, looking back on his childhood like a bildungsroman, the way the 2008 financial crash trainwrecked their lives, his mother's long-term lesbian relationship with her girlfriend Liz, and how those dominoes eventually tumble, too. It's a constant mystery and a thriller and a horror story, all in one.
It's so short that it makes for such a taut, tight-knit tale about how Jamie's power entwines with his childhood, with various formative (and traumatising) incidents that explore different facets of his abilities, the perfectly-paced way these paranormal events escalate and escalate. Some of the hauntings are so deliciously unnerving. I was riveted and absolutely glued to the page for all of them, for all the various ways his power could be used, the things he unearths. Unlike [b:The Talisman|59219|The Talisman (The Talisman, #1)|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1170530286l/59219._SX50_.jpg|3324421], my last King read — ironically also featuring a precocious young boy with special powers raised by a single mom — Jamie's personality always felt like a real kid, in all his sulkiness and pettiness and trusting nature.
I also just loved the way King/Jamie unfolds the story, the dramatic foreshadowing of him telling the story from the future, with the things he knows now, the casual way he drops chilling references to what's to come. The relationship between him and his mom is also so touching and real, as is the complicated relationship between him and Liz. The characters are painted with such rich, sympathetic details, and Jamie's development over the years feels so authentic.
There are some slight tie-ins to [b:IT|830502|It|Stephen King|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502._SY75_.jpg|150259], which were an unexpected delight. The whole concept of the haunting and the way it unfurls, even after Jamie ostensibly 'wins', is still chilling; because if you hand a man a rope, he'll hang himself with it. The thing with the whistling is almost, idk, urban legend-ish or Greek myth-ish, a circular kind of way to doom yourself. Just brilliant stuff.
But it is, singlehandedly, the very last chapter which makes the book stumble a little for me. There's a particular endgame reveal which literally made me gasp out loud and go "WHAT??", but it also felt— too shocking, perhaps too manufactured for mere shock value. And yet it does fit, narratively speaking: there has always been the recurring theme in this story that everybody has their secrets, and secrets which you may not want to find out, and some questions which are better off unanswered. It was a bit like Chekov's gun sitting on the shelf for the whole book, and so I suppose it was all inevitably leading there... but I don't know, it still wigged me out. I can't quite sort out how I feel about it. But I still loved this book, and tore right through it.
Addendum: To share our book club's gigabrain realisation: So there's a lot of commonalities between the demon-thing haunting Jamie and IT, considering Jamie's specific description of the "deadlights" radiating from it, and constantly calling it "the deadlight thing". The twenty-seven-year cycle of the creature in IT went from 1957 to 1984, and so if you extrapolate one more cycle... that lands its appearance in 2011, which is squarely around the time this book is set, a few years after the financial crisis. AHHHHHH.