Reviews with content warning for Police brutality - Later

I really liked this book!! More than i expected i would honestly. up until a certain point nothing was so Stephen King-y that it made me roll my eyes (until it got really stephen king-y really fast, but there is not a SINGLE reference to menstruation or a single racial slur in this entire book!! good job steve).

My two complaints:

This man knows NOTHINGGG about being born in the year 2000. This book was mostly taking place in like 2012 without a single acknowledgement of either red skinny jeans or the classic song party rock anthem by LMFAO. this protagonist was supposed to be i think four months younger than me and i get that he was quirky and different and not like the other boys but i still think stephen shouldve hired me as a cultural history consultant.

My second complaint is that the Maury shit at the end came out of NOWHEREEEE!!!!! I was perfectly happy with this fatherless young man and his gayass mom and then in the last fuckin twenty pages Stephen had to go completely apeshit. IYKYK i guess but frankly i want to go back in time and unread the last little bit of the book because i dont CARE and it was WEIRD!!!!

Oh also this is a spoiler but it was weird that the one guy mentioned that the gayass mom had cancer and six months to live and then that was never addressed again and the mom lived at LEAST multiple more years. But i guess that guy who said it was also a demon and maybe also the same flavor of demon as my best friend pennywise since this book was apparently maybe also in the same universe as the clown books so i guess maybe he told a lie? Who knows but that confused me. I wish that he hadnt used the term “deadlights” and all the ritual of chud stuff because everything else about this book made fine sense to me as a stand alone novel but then it had to be recontextualized any time that shit came up. Anyway im going to bed

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megstickz's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

Weirdly unnecessary ending, but the rest of the book was pretty enjoyable. Very ‘King’, easy to read, a little spooky but not crazy. Some gross imagery which was cool. But yeah, trash ending.

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cyanide_latte's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

5.0

I'll be honest, I was excited when this book was announced, after having finished Joyland by King, and while I've never read IT, I was still interested to see what similarities there would be between the lore from King's older work and one of his newest. So take my rating and review with a grain of salt; I was biased from the start.

Later very much is what it says in the summary...and it also isn't. I find it difficult to review this book because it largely would spoil the remaining half of the book that isn't described in the summary of the novel, and at any rate, it's really one you should read and discover for yourself. I will say I absolutely enjoyed Jamie as a POV protagonist, and I feel like King handled him well. He reads as being his age, and I appreciate that immensely. And I was able to pick up on the nods to IT, despite not having read the book. (Having a best friend who takes you through the films and is more than willing to answer questions is a relief. I don't know if I have the patience to sit through IT any time in the near future.)

I usually try to figure out what the message and/or theme is in King's horror, because he usually has at least one, if not multiple layered into a novel. I think I'll need more time to mull over it, but I'll eventually give you my thoughts on that.

...you know, later.

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iseefeelings's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Stephen King is truly a master of this craft. With less than 300 pages, he excelled in telling a horror story through the perspective of a teenager and giving the depth of the relationships between characters (especially the way Jamie Conklin - our narrator - still keeps such an innocent and empathetic view towards both living and dead people). Creepy moments are well-packed but more than that, I appreciate Stephen King's sense of humour and his interesting view on the afterlife.

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