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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
This is the first Stephen King book that I have ever read, so I don't have any prior experience with King. I wouldn't say that I loved it, but I did find parts of it fascinating.
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Well, it's 4 am and I should have been asleep hours ago. but yet again, Stephen King has made it impossible to put down a book before I was done. Now I just hope I don't have nightmares.
slow-paced
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Scott Landon, award-winning novelist, died two years ago. His wife, Lisey, is finally cleaning out his study. As she goes through his old papers, awards, and photos, buried memories come boiling to the surface. Then she gets a call from a man who tells her to hand over her late husband's unpublished work or face the consequences.
What I love best about starting a new-to-me Stephen King is that feeling. If you're a SK fan, you know what I'm talking about. There isn't really a "getting into the story" phase. You're just in it. Right where he wants you to be. And right where you want to be: in the practiced but never predictable hands of a master storyteller. This one didn't let me down.
I actually enjoyed this a lot more than [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L._SL75_.jpg|3041864], the most recent King novel I've read. It's really sort of the story of a marriage: the good times, the bad times, the barely-got-each-other-through-it times. I loved that these characters had their own insiders language. I think most relationships have this, but it's hard for a writer to get it right. I felt like I was right in the middle of a real relationship where the magic words are bool, SOWISA, strap it on, smucking, and Boo'ya Moon. He really just got this so right. I even wondered if he was using catch-phrases from his own marriage. This quote struck me:
"Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing."
Don't go into this expecting the freaky, terrifying blood baths that everyone associates with Stephen King. He's grown past that. This was really an introspection on the nature of marriage--with some creepiness thrown in. He is still Stephen King, after all.
What I love best about starting a new-to-me Stephen King is that feeling. If you're a SK fan, you know what I'm talking about. There isn't really a "getting into the story" phase. You're just in it. Right where he wants you to be. And right where you want to be: in the practiced but never predictable hands of a master storyteller. This one didn't let me down.
I actually enjoyed this a lot more than [b:Duma Key|472343|Duma Key|Stephen King|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516WEx5I49L._SL75_.jpg|3041864], the most recent King novel I've read. It's really sort of the story of a marriage: the good times, the bad times, the barely-got-each-other-through-it times. I loved that these characters had their own insiders language. I think most relationships have this, but it's hard for a writer to get it right. I felt like I was right in the middle of a real relationship where the magic words are bool, SOWISA, strap it on, smucking, and Boo'ya Moon. He really just got this so right. I even wondered if he was using catch-phrases from his own marriage. This quote struck me:
"Lying in the bed that had once held two, Lisey thought alone never felt more lonely than when you woke up and discovered you still had the house to yourself. That you and the mice in the walls were the only ones still breathing."
Don't go into this expecting the freaky, terrifying blood baths that everyone associates with Stephen King. He's grown past that. This was really an introspection on the nature of marriage--with some creepiness thrown in. He is still Stephen King, after all.
This was another hard one to rate. Maybe a 4.5 would be closer to how I felt about it. By the time I finished reading, I really, sincerely loved it! It had become all of the things that I love so much about a good Stephen King story. Well developed characters. Fully fleshed out worlds. The kind of attention to detail that feels so particular and careful and lovingly drawn. But man did it take a long time to get there. My personal experience of the book was that the first third of it really didn’t have that King feel. And, while I know that it was an intentional narrative device, it was almost too disjointed to follow until I was well into the book. I think that it more than made up for it’s weaker points (at least as far as my enjoyment goes - and that’s pretty much all I take into consideration!) by the end. I imagine it would really benefit from a reread at some point so that I can absorb the entirety of the story from the perspective of a reader who actually knows what the hell is going on 🤷🏼♀️ lol. All things considered, though, (all things the same,) I ended up really loving this book and I’m really glad I read it.
dark
emotional
funny
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
slow-paced
Having finished the amazing miniseries on Apple TV inspired by this book (the teleplay is written by Stephen King who also acts as executive producer) I can now say that I love this story in all its iterations; novel, audiobook and tv series. Looking at the ratings here on GR I can see that the story affects me more deeply than it does some others. But if you get it, you get it. Love in all its glory and ugliness is the overriding theme of this tale and I am here for it. I have read and listened to this book many more times than I have marked it down here on GR and I already look forward to experiencing it again in one form or another.