Reviews tagging 'Alcoholism'

11/22/63 by Stephen King

59 reviews

adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

🎧
I thought this was an enjoyable book. The pacing wasn't consistent, it was slow for most of the book and it was fast in others. I thought the characters were fine. I didn't really like many of them but I didn't dislike them either. I thought the plot was interesting, though a little predictable at times. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark medium-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I feel so conflicted about this book! On one hand, I loved it overall, but on the other hand, I disliked much of it.

This book has an amazing, well-thought out, invigorating plot, for the most part. It's so interesting, and with the exception of the slower middle half of the book, it was a real page-turner. That middle part was kind of rough though. I'm not kidding when I say this took me a few years to get through. I wanted to persevere through this book because I liked the story, but the middle part just dragged on and on, and I put it down and then picked up several times the past few years. Once I got passed the middle part, however, I was back glued to the book.

I loved that this revolved around the trope of a historian-type figuring uncovering the truth about something that happened in the past, and I liked that it actually used time travel too. Stephen King, as he always does, successfully worked horror into the story as well, and I thought it was very well done in an understated kind of way. I didn't love the ending, but it was okay, and I was just happy to find out how it ended.

This book's romance was lacking, in my opinion. The book used the 'not like other girls' and 'man teaches woman what good sex is', and I really dislike those tropes. I feel like the romance could have written so much better than it was, but it wasn't the main plot that drew me in anyways.

Overall, I enjoyed it, felt 'meh' towards some aspects of the story, and will keep the book around in my personal library. Will I read it again? Not sure, but maybe someday.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

I never thought I’d say this about a Stephen King novel — but this may be one of my favorite books ever! It was nonstop, edge of your seat reading. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next. 

This is NOT a horror or thriller. It’s truly historical fiction meets science fiction. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
mysterious tense 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: No

I enjoyed this book because I found the premise exciting and I wanted to know how the story would play out and be resolved. I did not find the main character himself to be that interesting and felt no investment in his personal relationships, so a good chunk of the last two-thirds of the book dragged, but I really thought it was all leading to something worthwhile. I was very curious to see how the story would be resolved once the main character carried out his mission, but I found the ending to be a bit of a letdown - perhaps due to my lack of emotional connection with the main character's love interest. Overall, I rated this 3.75 because I enjoyed much of the journey, but did not get the emotional "hit" I expected at the close of the book.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings

newswoman's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH: 60%

from the introduction of the love interest onwards i felt a gradual decline in my enjoyment of the book as i am not a fan of how the romance is written at all. i really liked the beginning a lot but the the main character is very hard to like in my opinion, which gets worse and worse as the story progresses. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional informative tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Loveable characters: Yes

Beautiful writing and an enjoyable story. I LOVE this take on time travel. Very unique.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Expand filter menu Content Warnings