Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Fairy Tale

despite my initial misgivings about this being a s.king book, i actually found myself really enjoying it. there are a LOT of references - some oblique, some literally spelled out and quoted (from fairy tales to modern movies to even a name drop of obama) - but i'm a nerd who absolutely loves linking things to other things i already know, so i got over it. although s.king reaaaaally drawing out the jack in the beanstalk and rumpelstiltskin metaphors for 600 pages did get a tick tiring.

part of me was a little "meh" about

an outsider coming in to save the royal family / the world from physical disabilities and his greatest success was not having any disabilities plus being a good ol' midwestern farm boy who was good at football, combined with certain individuals having to "overcome" their disabilities to reach true character potential... it just felt a little eeeeeh to me as someone who has struggled with hearing loss, like damn guess i need a perfectly "whole" human to save the day or to magically somehow overcome my disability to kill my demons /eyeroll

. i really liked charlie's whole "i'm a dark boy" internal narrative because 1) it was funny. this kid is like, 17. from bumfuck illinois. it's not hard to rise to the top when you've only got like 150 kids in your graduating class. and he's so fucking serious because he had to grow up too fast and it's like goddamn whiplash to read a book about a kid who would be your age in your timeline dealing with this shit but also talking about touching boobs. lmao and 2) finally! an idiot (affectionate) protag who thinks they're an antihero! much better than the alternative. it definitely endeared me to his character more that he thought he didn't deserve any of this opportunity to experience and save another world beneath ours, that his past made him unworthy and he had to hold up an imaginative bargain that was never decided upon except in his soul.

i feel a little cheated because the cover definitely looks like a dragon eye and we didn't really get a dragon in this book (fight me, that one scene was not equivalent - it was an eldritch being) but! i forgive s.king.

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chelrump's review against another edition

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adventurous slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

I enjoyed the thread of the real world portion, and I liked the resolution. Things all came back around, full circle. The character arcs of the main characters followed a similar path, but that felt very intentional to drive the message home.
The ending with the big bad was interesting, and I enjoyed the shift to the Lovecraftian horror. But it felt like it lost the thread for a while there, with some moments that didn’t seem to make a lot of sense. Further, much of the writing was cyclical - words, phrases, and moments were often repeated over and over throughout the story.
It wasn’t a bad read, but felt a bit of a slog until the climax. The ending had a satisfactory conclusion all in all, at least.

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kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Fantastical. Magical. Unbelievable. Amazing. Wondrous. Delightful. While this isn’t a book I would normally chose, I absolutely fell in love with a young man named Charlie and the pet he didn’t choose but came to love anyway. Too complex for me to even give a synopsis of, I’d just say if you want to read a book about adventure, read this one.

Content Warnings