Reviews tagging 'Dementia'

Dolores Claiborne by Stephen King

19 reviews

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

King's characters are so relatable and real. I felt like I knew her. đź‘‘

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional hopeful inspiring sad tense medium-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: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional reflective fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

An unconventional Stephen king novel. No chapter breaks was a challenge at first but I find his writing style easy to slip into. 
Dolores is a character that will stay with me. Certainly not my favourite King but still a very good story. No horror here, more of a psychological thriller or family drama. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Loved the narration to begin with. I love most of the Stephen King novel audiobook narrations but this one was very excellent. Not only was her voice full of emotion and was she so believable the whole time, but there were a lot of moments where you’d have sound effects. Such as a glass being put on a table or you could hear a drawer opening and closing, a drink being poured, things like that. So, you get this feeling like as if you’re listening to a radio show instead of an audiobook and I, personally, love that. It gets the listener way more immersed into the story. 

This is one of those Stephen King novels that I’d classify with Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile. I wouldn’t say that this is “horror”, which is what King is known for. This is really more of just…a really intense story about a small town woman dealing with a very very hard situation. A situation, which, is far more common than some folks would probably like to admit. 

Knowing Stephen King’s background, I do know why and understand how he, a man, is able to write about a woman like this and write such strong women characters in his books. It’s honestly one of the big reasons why I’m such a huge fan of his work, regardless as to how not well aged some of his work has become over time (let’s be honest, some language that he has some of his characters use is very VERY not politically correct or socially acceptable at all today and in some cases are just straight up  racial slurs).

That being said: books like this, and many of his books, this one included, I believe are important. Mainly because they have an important story to tell. Yes, some of the language may be uncomfortable. But, as a reader who is a person of color who is also marginalized in several other ways (very intersectional with the marginalized identities here), I can recognize that the aged language is simply showing the age of when the book was written, nothing more. It’s showing what was deemed as acceptable back when it was written. Plus, one needs to remember context - context is always important. 

Anyway…I very much enjoyed this novel. I listened to it via the Libby app, so, I only borrowed it from the library. But I enjoyed it so much that I may have to save up to buy it. It’s that good. And I’m very poor, so that’s saying something. 

I don’t know if Stephen King will ever see my words here but on the rare off chance that he ever does: this was beautifully written. And how you write and develop your characters and make them into full and whole complete people is something to be admired. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark tense
Plot or Character Driven: A mix

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

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

The scariest king book I've read so far. I genuinely had a jump scare at one point. If you find real life situations scarier than things like monsters, this is the horror story for you.

There are no chapters. Just one long story as told from the narrator in one sitting. This added so much to the story. It felt like I was right there in the room. The accents are shown through stylistic spelling choices which also adding to this as you read the whole book from this perspective. 

This book is going to linger with me for awhile. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional funny sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Expand filter menu Content Warnings