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3.35 AVERAGE
3.35 AVERAGE
Look, by around the 300 or 400 page mark I was just hoping Owen/Henry was going to be canon cause Owen kept calling Henry "beautiful" and I just imagined him as Mads Mikkelsen and Henry as a horn rimmed sexy nerd.
But this book was written around 2000ish era, that won't happen ofc but one can hope.
Anyway, that out of the way.
This book is a hot but beautiful mess.
King does what King does best, cast his spell and MAKES you get invested in his world.
BUT
Holy shit, I thought it was his debut book of more than 800 pages as a paperback cause it's a hot pile of turds.
HOWEVER
He makes you fucking cry over Duddits, get so emotionally invested in him and Roberta and the boys that you can't help but needing to finish this to the last sticky end.
I went in hoping for a horror book, went out with a new found love of people of different types and shapes.
Fuck, man, I'm a mess after this book. The reason I'm giving it two stars is simple. King goes in every direction and hasn't really got a good handle here on how to make an emotional impact hit and feel the investment paid off. He makes it work with Duddits and that hits home so hard by the end you're just crying, not being scared of the aliens, feeling for Duddits in everyway and form. Idk if that was King's goal, but I didnt really feel scared in any of this book much. More like "lol alien", but that's about it.
It feels like a giant dream, sure, but not a good one. "Saint of Bright Doors" did a better job with that and even then Chandrasekera got a better execution.
For ex, the big thing they were charging up is how they "killed" Duddits bully, but he sort of wrote the outcome as an afterthought. It wasn't a grand scene. Shocking sure, but it was over in a single sentence.
TLDR: Book made me cry and feel things, but as a "horror" book, it didn't hit any marks for me.
Also a dog is abused horribly so ye, maybe skip this book dude
Prose: It's King, he makes you care and feel things, uses your brain to make you fill in gaps, but it was also a hot crazy mess -2
Plot: Probably the saving grace and the downfall. The plot of the aliens is deducting points but the overall arching plot of the Dreamcatcher was beautiful. -2
Pace: Slow as this book
Characters: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, there's a lot of suicide in this book so that's great. Ironically, the person most suicidal survives at the end which can be poetically hilarious or dumb depending on your outlook. Either way, everyone is fleshed out DEEP so +1
Vibe: Winter but small town Maine with alien fungus and BACON
Worldbuilding: Was fine, it's not a fantasy book so hard to get that much done. King does set his scene and depth wonderfully though. But as I said, it's not enough for me.
-
Either way, there's a LOT of CW for this book, so please do check them before deciding to read this book.
But if you can somehow skim over the animal abuse and death in the later chapters, it's a beautiful book about a mentally disabled person and will have you bawling your eyes out at the end if you have any empathy left in your heart
2/5
Content Warnings
HOLY SHIT CHECK THE CONTENT WARNINGS BEFORE GOING IN
This is a very well written and thought out book. In traditional King style, it lures you into a world so real that the monsters born there captivate your thoughts long after you put the book down. The character developments were great, and the story, if slow at times, keeps readers hooked. I enjoyed the read and the story, which is a hard combination to achieve in good literature. It makes me want to go to the book store and buy every King novel on the shelf.
Not bad, but the rep as King's most "bloated" and self-indulgent is deserved. The dream sequences were odd and really weren't needed. Decent story though.
This one took me a real long time. Almost as if I had been fighting it. I made it through the first 300 or so pages in just under two weeks, and then I got stuck, I put it down and started reading something else. Even when I decided to come back to it, started carrying it around, I couldn't push myself through more than 10 pages at a time. Finally, the finals came around, and well. That's the time to catch up on reading that's completely unrelated to any of my subjects, right? During finals and after them I managed another 300 pages, frequently switching to other books for a breath of fresh air. Then I put it aside again, with some 90 pages left, because I couldn't take it with me on vacation. These 90 pages took me five days to read.
The book is good. It's got something like a mind of its own - it hangs above you, you almost forget about it. Suddenly, it draws your attention again and you just can't keep your eyes off the page. You have to talk about it, tell everyone you know that it's by King, and ohmygod it's got aliens in it! But all along, you know it's something more than blueboys and shit-weasles. All along, you fight for the last line.
The book is good. It's got something like a mind of its own - it hangs above you, you almost forget about it. Suddenly, it draws your attention again and you just can't keep your eyes off the page. You have to talk about it, tell everyone you know that it's by King, and ohmygod it's got aliens in it! But all along, you know it's something more than blueboys and shit-weasles. All along, you fight for the last line.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I tried so hard to finish this one, but it just dragged so badly.
Wymęczyłam się przy tej książce okrutnie i podziwiam się za to, że w ogóle dotrwałam do jej końca bo wiele razy miałam ochotę ją przerwać i nigdy więcej się za nią nie oglądać. Chwilę temu przewróciłam ostatnią kartkę i nadal nie wiem o czym jest ta książka. Słaba, nudna i obrzydliwa. Największe rozczarowanie z wszystkich przeczytanych do tej pory książek S. Kinga i pierwsza, która dostaje ode mnie tak niską ocenę.
Strata czasu.
Strata czasu.
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
Did not complete. I made it halfway (300 pages) but the prose is ugly, the scenes last much longer than they should, and the army POV felt pointless and distracting (nvm Kurtz is an extremely unlikeable character).
Never have I ever been pulled out of a horror sequence faster than Stephen King's writing, who literally compared a creature to a hardening dick while it killed someone in a grotesque way. Just when I think his writing is getting better he self sabotages it.
The prose is all over the place. Serious then overly casual within sentences between. It's as if he couldn't decide on how he wanted to write it.
The only reason I made it halfway was because of how shockingly bad the writing was and I had fun sending these God awful quotes to my friends. But it felt like my brain was rotting. I spent well over my usual reading time just trying to make my way through 100 pages.
SK cannot write humor (Beaver's lines were painful to read). He cannot write horror. He cannot write (that or he needs a new editor). Because all of my criticisms contained the same failures IT had that my friend recently read (read slogged through). At least with IT she had the Loser's Club. This one (spoilers) didn't even have a group of friends together since page one and never did they reunite before they started dying off. And this is a 20 year difference in writing.
Never have I ever been pulled out of a horror sequence faster than Stephen King's writing, who literally compared a creature to a hardening dick while it killed someone in a grotesque way. Just when I think his writing is getting better he self sabotages it.
The prose is all over the place. Serious then overly casual within sentences between. It's as if he couldn't decide on how he wanted to write it.
The only reason I made it halfway was because of how shockingly bad the writing was and I had fun sending these God awful quotes to my friends. But it felt like my brain was rotting. I spent well over my usual reading time just trying to make my way through 100 pages.
SK cannot write humor (Beaver's lines were painful to read). He cannot write horror. He cannot write (that or he needs a new editor). Because all of my criticisms contained the same failures IT had that my friend recently read (read slogged through). At least with IT she had the Loser's Club. This one (spoilers) didn't even have a group of friends together since page one and never did they reunite before they started dying off. And this is a 20 year difference in writing.