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directorpurry's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
2.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Death, and Gun violence
Moderate: Ableism, Infidelity, and Adult/minor relationship
ggcd1981's review
dark
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I’ve been reading The Dark Tower and I have been enjoying my time with it…that is, until Wizard and Glass. I’ll cut to the chase, Wizard and Glass was pure dogshit. This fourth installment of The Dark Tower was painful to read. The worst book I’ve read in years. The misogyny, sexism and Objectification of Female Character was unbearable and I read The Dresden Files. The book started fairly good with Roland and his companions winning against Blaine The mono in a potentially fatal riddle contest thanks to Eddie’s out of the box thinking by using his “bad jokes” to stump Blaine. After that the Ka-tet gets to a version of the city of Topeka, Kansas, where everyone died of the superflu or "Captain Trips" (a reference to The Stand). They travel along the road where they see and hear a thinny, a silver-green cloud of fog. A thinny is a place where reality has been eroded away. The sound that a thinny produces is extremely unpleasant and yet will lure nearby people in. Thinnies have become more common since the "world has moved on."
Roland then decides is time to tell his friends of his past and what he considers his mistakes. Sitting around a camp fire he tells his tale to Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy and that boring to death tale is over 90% of the book. Roland tells as his old friends Cuthbert and Alain together with himself were send from Gilead with false names and false backstory to the distant town of Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis, back in their teenage years. They were send there by their fathers to get them away from the war with John Farson’s men but the three boys end up stumbling upon a plan from some of Hambry’s men to help the same Farson against the Affiliation for money. The plan is to provide John Farson’s army with horses, with oil to fuel his war machines from before the world had “moved on”, and most importantly protecting and returning Farson’s wizard glass. Executing this plan were the three mercenaries known as the Big Coffin Hunters, Eldred Jonas, a failed gunslinger, being their leader.
This plot was already only mildly interesting, however the main focus of the tale was not this plan it was actually the romance between Roland and Susan Delgado, the teen girl who is promised to become the mistress to the town’s old, married Mayor Thorin, and bear him a child. Whoever told Stephen King that he could write Romance lied to his face. Roland and Susan’s Romance is the most boring and unbearable romance I have ever seen in book or movie. They had no chemistry, Roland loves her because she is pretty and Susan loves him because he is the first boy to make her horny. The book is ridiculously long and yet Stephen King failed to build any real, solid reason for Roland and Susan to love each other, other than she is pretty….have I mention she is pretty? because Stephen King sure did, in almost every scene Susan took part in. Including making Cuthbert, Roland’s best friend back then, feel jealous, envious and hostile towards his “best” friend because she was apparently unresisteble ….and making me disgusted by this being an issue in a real friendship as we are supposed to believe they had. Other thing King seemed to want to mention every chance he had was Susan’s virginity. In the pen of Mr. King Susan’s virginity was a character in itself. Every chance he got he found new ways of mention it to the point that for most of the book her virginity seemed the most important thing about Miss Delgado’s plot. I read a review that said that Susan Delgado’s virginity didn’t need a book written about it. I agree whole heartily. Stephen King didn’t. This brings me to another point that made me hate the story: the treatment of female characters. The objectification is ridiculously bad. Susan seemed only to be able to say goodbye to Roland by leading him to squeeze her boob. Silly me, how can I call myself a woman when I never knew that the way for a woman to express love and sorrow for parting with the man she loves is by making him squeeze her boobs. NO, King just no. This may sound romantic to your creepy old man brain but boob squeezing is not a woman’s choice idea for showing her deepest, strongest feelings when parting with the “supposedly” love of her life. It makes as much sense for a woman to do that as to a man to say goodbye to the love of his life, a woman he doesn’t know he will be able to keep seeing or will lose her definitely, by putting her hand on his balls and making her squeeze them. If “goodbye balls squeeze” doesn’t sound romantic, deep and meaningful to a man a “goodbye boob squeeze” is not romantic, deep or meaningful to a woman either. This is something only a male author would write. This is only the most laughably bad example of objectification, but it is constant, almost every female character has their breast or hips mentioned at one point or another. The author constantly writes that this series’ world “has moved on” but it did not move on, it “moved back”. If it had moved on it would be a world where women would be as ruthless as men, if not more, in their attempt at surviving a world with crumbling institutions. But what Roland’s world, a place that clearly at some point had known progress, shows is a “moving back” in time to when women were subjected to men’s mercy and this, to me, is bullshit. If at some point this world had known progress, technology and modern thinking, there is no way you will convince me women as people will collectively just shut up and go back quietly to subject themselves to be nothing more than wives, mothers, daughters or prostitutes again. It is very short sighted for King to think that. To me a world that “moved on” would look a lot different than the one described by the author, with women, who had already known the taste of freedom, becoming even more ruthless than men to be able to survive it without lowering their heads ever again. In my opinion is highly unlikely that a formerly enslaved and oppressed people which now has known freedom will collectively lower their heads and go back to be enslaved and oppressed just like they were before only because modern institutions crumbled. So excuse me if I don’t buy that in a world that has truly “moved on” women would just go “well, I cannot sue this creepy man for sexual assault because there are no laws against that anymore, so I better shut up, become his mistress and bear him a child” instead of putting a bullet or knife through him and any other men that would try that.
Roland then decides is time to tell his friends of his past and what he considers his mistakes. Sitting around a camp fire he tells his tale to Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy and that boring to death tale is over 90% of the book. Roland tells as his old friends Cuthbert and Alain together with himself were send from Gilead with false names and false backstory to the distant town of Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis, back in their teenage years. They were send there by their fathers to get them away from the war with John Farson’s men but the three boys end up stumbling upon a plan from some of Hambry’s men to help the same Farson against the Affiliation for money. The plan is to provide John Farson’s army with horses, with oil to fuel his war machines from before the world had “moved on”, and most importantly protecting and returning Farson’s wizard glass. Executing this plan were the three mercenaries known as the Big Coffin Hunters, Eldred Jonas, a failed gunslinger, being their leader.
This plot was already only mildly interesting, however the main focus of the tale was not this plan it was actually the romance between Roland and Susan Delgado, the teen girl who is promised to become the mistress to the town’s old, married Mayor Thorin, and bear him a child. Whoever told Stephen King that he could write Romance lied to his face. Roland and Susan’s Romance is the most boring and unbearable romance I have ever seen in book or movie. They had no chemistry, Roland loves her because she is pretty and Susan loves him because he is the first boy to make her horny. The book is ridiculously long and yet Stephen King failed to build any real, solid reason for Roland and Susan to love each other, other than she is pretty….have I mention she is pretty? because Stephen King sure did, in almost every scene Susan took part in. Including making Cuthbert, Roland’s best friend back then, feel jealous, envious and hostile towards his “best” friend because she was apparently unresisteble ….and making me disgusted by this being an issue in a real friendship as we are supposed to believe they had. Other thing King seemed to want to mention every chance he had was Susan’s virginity. In the pen of Mr. King Susan’s virginity was a character in itself. Every chance he got he found new ways of mention it to the point that for most of the book her virginity seemed the most important thing about Miss Delgado’s plot. I read a review that said that Susan Delgado’s virginity didn’t need a book written about it. I agree whole heartily. Stephen King didn’t. This brings me to another point that made me hate the story: the treatment of female characters. The objectification is ridiculously bad. Susan seemed only to be able to say goodbye to Roland by leading him to squeeze her boob. Silly me, how can I call myself a woman when I never knew that the way for a woman to express love and sorrow for parting with the man she loves is by making him squeeze her boobs. NO, King just no. This may sound romantic to your creepy old man brain but boob squeezing is not a woman’s choice idea for showing her deepest, strongest feelings when parting with the “supposedly” love of her life. It makes as much sense for a woman to do that as to a man to say goodbye to the love of his life, a woman he doesn’t know he will be able to keep seeing or will lose her definitely, by putting her hand on his balls and making her squeeze them. If “goodbye balls squeeze” doesn’t sound romantic, deep and meaningful to a man a “goodbye boob squeeze” is not romantic, deep or meaningful to a woman either. This is something only a male author would write. This is only the most laughably bad example of objectification, but it is constant, almost every female character has their breast or hips mentioned at one point or another. The author constantly writes that this series’ world “has moved on” but it did not move on, it “moved back”. If it had moved on it would be a world where women would be as ruthless as men, if not more, in their attempt at surviving a world with crumbling institutions. But what Roland’s world, a place that clearly at some point had known progress, shows is a “moving back” in time to when women were subjected to men’s mercy and this, to me, is bullshit. If at some point this world had known progress, technology and modern thinking, there is no way you will convince me women as people will collectively just shut up and go back quietly to subject themselves to be nothing more than wives, mothers, daughters or prostitutes again. It is very short sighted for King to think that. To me a world that “moved on” would look a lot different than the one described by the author, with women, who had already known the taste of freedom, becoming even more ruthless than men to be able to survive it without lowering their heads ever again. In my opinion is highly unlikely that a formerly enslaved and oppressed people which now has known freedom will collectively lower their heads and go back to be enslaved and oppressed just like they were before only because modern institutions crumbled. So excuse me if I don’t buy that in a world that has truly “moved on” women would just go “well, I cannot sue this creepy man for sexual assault because there are no laws against that anymore, so I better shut up, become his mistress and bear him a child” instead of putting a bullet or knife through him and any other men that would try that.
I liked Cuthbert, Alain and Sheemie, a neurodivergent character, who after being saved by Cuthbert from being killed became a loyal friend to him, Roland, Alain and Susan. Nonetheless Roland’s long tale overall was absolutely awfully boring and irritating to read. My enjoyment of this book was almost zero. I only enjoyed the parts that involved Eddie, Susannah, Jake and Oy, but those were too little in face of my suffering during the tedious parts. This book was an over 27 hours audiobook that bored me and pissed me off so I cannot give it more than 1 star. Still, I will continue the series because I trust now we will get back to the characters I care about and to the main plot, the dark tower.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Blood, Body shaming, Death of parent, Gun violence, Death, Misogyny, Murder, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Violence, Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Sexism, Body horror, Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Bullying, Grief, Infidelity, Kidnapping, and Mental illness
Moderate: Alcohol, Infertility, Rape, Cursing, Fatphobia, Child abuse, and Emotional abuse
Minor: War
sydneyl23's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
relaxing
sad
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? Yes
5.0
The reviews on this book are hilarious. It is the best. The very best. I cannot remember how many times I have read through it, or listened to it. It is the magnum opus, it is the finale, it is the backbone of the series.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Death, Gun violence, Grief, Murder, Sexual violence, and Violence
bluejayreads's review
3.5
I waited a while to pick up this one after finishing The Waste Lands, mainly because I can read a Dark Tower book in two days via audiobook at work but it takes the friend I’m reading the series with a month or two to get through each book. But this one picks up exactly where the last book left off, with the riddle contest with Blaine the Mono.
There are two different stories going on in this book. There’s the frame story with Roland and the ka-tet traveling along the path of the beam towards the Dark Tower. But a good three-quarters of the story is backstory, framed as Roland telling part of his story to Eddie, Susannah, and Jake.
It was kind of interesting to get that history. Susan has been mentioned as part of Roland’s past previously, but now we get to find out who she was, how Roland met her, and what tragedy happened that caused Roland so much pain and regret. There’s also more of Alain and Cuthbert, who have also been mentioned previously. This story expands on their personalities so we get to know them a little bit better – although it doesn’t cover what tragedy happened to them.
If the purpose of the story had been to fill in those gaps in Roland’s history, it would have been significantly shorter. I believe this is the longest book in the series, and the story of Roland and Susan is the reason. I did not like it all that much, to be honest. Roland and friends were focused on preventing or winning a war, but since we’ve spent the previous three Dark Tower books in a world where the war happened and went very badly, I knew how it ultimately ended and didn’t much care how it played out.
The rest of the plot was Roland’s young love with Susan, and it turns out I have very little patience for star-struck young love. So much of the romance had me rolling my eyes, wishing Roland would think with his brain instead of his dick and the story would just move along already. Since it was Roland’s story told by Roland, Alain and Cuthbert were not major contenders for reader connection, and Roland and Susan were too busy being stupid for love for me to enjoy them all that much. Roland himself, despite being fourteen at this point, is pretty much the same as the older version telling the story – less jaded and significantly more horny, but still clever, secretive, and dedicated to being a gunslinger.
The annoying thing is that I was actually interested in the parts of the story that were about our normal protagonists – Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake. They finished their ride with Blaine the Mono, ended up in a weird parallel version of Kansas, and had a bizarrely Wizard of Oz-themed encounter before continuing on the journey. That part, I enjoyed. The backstory I think should have been about half its length. (Although to be fair, if you think about all seven books as one single story as opposed to each book being an entry in a series, proportionally that’s a fairly reasonable length for telling a backstory. I just didn’t particularly enjoy it all stuffed in one book.)
This is not my favorite of the Dark Tower books. However, I am still enjoying Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake’s journeys through strange and interesting post-apocalyptic worlds as they hunt for this Dark Tower. I will be continuing the series – I just hope the next book focuses more on the present than the past.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Death, Violence, and Gun violence
Moderate: Animal death, Excrement, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, and Infidelity
Animal suffering, sexual content between consenting minors, forced marriage, verbal abuse, pandemicluciawolfie's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
I really enjoyed this one, but my biggest issue is why is the age of the main characters. When you are talking about "young men" I am thinking 18-25 yo, not tweens. I always aged them up in my head, because from the age given in the story they wouldn't even have gone through puberty yet.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Torture, War, Animal cruelty, Classism, Cursing, Death, Gun violence, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, and Child death
Moderate: Infidelity and Infertility
nodogsonthemoon's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Misogyny, Murder, Blood, Animal death, Body shaming, Death of parent, Gun violence, and Violence
Moderate: Sexual harassment and Sexual content
lindseyrenee's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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? Yes
3.75
This was able to give a ton of the backstory needed for Roland and his obsession with the dark tower. Lots of action and the reader gets to know the friends he refers to from his past so often
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gun violence, and Murder
Moderate: Emotional abuse and Sexual content
Minor: Alcohol, Death of parent, Gaslighting, and Infidelity
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