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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
It's a solid three stars.
The Best:
Everything's Eventual (the book's namesake) - Five stars, easily. Best story in the compilation. I wish it was a full length novel with those characters and that premise. Fantastic.
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away - Four stars. Love the premise. Love the idea of compiling bathroom graffiti.
The Man in the Black Suit - Four stars. The writing for this one was on point. The story itself is a little tired. Almost every horror writer pens a "meeting with the devil" story. But King's writing really made this one count.
The Road Virus Heads North - Four stars. For a changing-picture story (also overdone), I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I think I like the title even more than the story itself but I stand by it. Seriously, it's such a great title.
The Worst:
Autopsy Room Four - Finished it, but had to force it. Almost made me put down the whole book it was so bad. One star.
The Death of Jack Hamilton - Didn't finish it. Barely made it halfway without gagging. King's writing couldn't even save this trainwreck. No stars.
The Little Sisters of Eluria - I know this is a Dark Tower short story and if that's what Dark Tower is like, I can guarantee I won't be reading that series. Made it about halfway, didn't finish it, didn't feel like it belonged in the compilation at all. No stars.
So with a spattering of high marks, low marks, and a bunch of in-betweeners (1408, Riding the Bullet, etc), three stars overall seems like a fair assessment.
The Best:
Everything's Eventual (the book's namesake) - Five stars, easily. Best story in the compilation. I wish it was a full length novel with those characters and that premise. Fantastic.
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away - Four stars. Love the premise. Love the idea of compiling bathroom graffiti.
The Man in the Black Suit - Four stars. The writing for this one was on point. The story itself is a little tired. Almost every horror writer pens a "meeting with the devil" story. But King's writing really made this one count.
The Road Virus Heads North - Four stars. For a changing-picture story (also overdone), I was pleasantly surprised by this one. I think I like the title even more than the story itself but I stand by it. Seriously, it's such a great title.
The Worst:
Autopsy Room Four - Finished it, but had to force it. Almost made me put down the whole book it was so bad. One star.
The Death of Jack Hamilton - Didn't finish it. Barely made it halfway without gagging. King's writing couldn't even save this trainwreck. No stars.
The Little Sisters of Eluria - I know this is a Dark Tower short story and if that's what Dark Tower is like, I can guarantee I won't be reading that series. Made it about halfway, didn't finish it, didn't feel like it belonged in the compilation at all. No stars.
So with a spattering of high marks, low marks, and a bunch of in-betweeners (1408, Riding the Bullet, etc), three stars overall seems like a fair assessment.
I had forgotten how great this book is. I alway love Stephen King's short stories and his ability to run the gambit from funny (Autopsy Room Four and Lunch at the Gotham Cafe) to totally horrifying (Man in the Black Suit and Riding the Bullet). He is such a great writer and one of the only who has mastered the short story!
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I would recommend this book to anyone new to Stephen King. It shows a lot of his variety in his writing, both style and genre. While not all of the stories are scary like I had anticipated, they were mostly all lovely to read. I wasn't a huge fan of "The Little Sisters of Eluria", but I think that's because I haven't read The Dark Tower series (which is what it goes along with). The rest of the stories all made me think and feel something, whether discomfort or sadness.
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
The short stories in Everything's Eventual slowly build suspense, layering dread, until you start to feel like you simply can't take anymore. A series of occurrences contingent upon some uncertain event.
"We're in it together, after all. This is a date we're on. We should have fun. We should dance." Stephen King to his "Constant Readers"
Autopsy Room Four ✩✩✩✩
About a man awaiting his eventual autopsy, laying on the table, awake, and unsure if he's really dead. I may have broken the world record for breath holding while reading this one.
"There's a harsh ripping sound and all at once I am in white light; it is blinding, like the sun breaking through a scrim of clouds on a winter day. I try to squint my eyes shut against it, but nothing happens. My eyelids are like blinds on broken rollers."
Adapted to TV in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 7th episode
The Man in the Black Suit ✩✩✩✩✩
A man who hasn't told anyone that as a child he met the devil in the woods eventually tells this story.
"...the terrible stranger turned his burning eyes on me again, his thin lips pulled back from tiny rows of sharp teeth in a cannibal smile."
Adapted to Short Film in 2004
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away ✩✩✩✩
A man has felt lonely for too long and has eventually planned his suicide. I have read an entire sad novel and not shed a tear, yet this story made me cry three times in 15 pages.
"Alfie drew the book back to throw it, then lowered his arm. He hated to let it go, that was the truth of it."
Adapted to 6 different Short Films
The Death of Jack Hamilton ✩✩✩
This one is about a real American gangster, John Dillinger, the eventual death of his pal Jack.
"I suddenly thought of Jack standing in the street after the Mason City bank job. He was firing his tommy gun and covering me and Johnnie and Lester as we herded the hostages to the getaway car. Bullets flew all around him, and although he took a flesh wound, he looked like he'd live forever."
Adapted to Short Film
In the Deathroom ✩✩✩
When you're naming names it's inevitable that a reporter named Fletcher finds himself in a South American interrogation room fearing for his life.
"He thought his chances of ever leaving this basement room in the Ministry of Information were perhaps one or two in thirty, and perhaps that was optimistic."
The Little Sisters of Eluria ✩✩✩✩
A novella set in the world of The Dark Tower series about the gunslinger eventually discovering the nurses helping him to recover are vampires.
"The five were dressed in billowing habits as white as the walls and the panels of the ceiling. Their antique crones' faces were framed in wimples just as white, their skin as gray and runneled as droughted earth by comparison. Hanging like phylacteries from the bands of silk imprisoning their hair (if they indeed had hair) were lines of tiny bells which chimed as they moved or spoke."
Everything's Eventual ✩✩✩✩
A Fantasy novella about 19-year-old Richard who was once broke and bullied, and is now living a life where he can have whatever he wants because of his special power, but eventually learns that this life comes with much sacrifice.
"I've always had something, some kind of deal, and I sort of knew it, but not how to use it or what its name was or what it meant. And I sort of knew I had to keep quiet about it, because other people didn't have it. I thought they might put me in the circus if they found out. Or in jail."
L.T.'s Theory of Pets ✩✩✩✩✩
A short story about how a dog and a cat, given as gifts, eventually led to a divorce and disappearance of a woman.
"My friend L.T. hardly ever talks about how his wife disappeared, or how she's probably dead, just another victim of the Axe Man, but he likes to tell the story of how she walked out on him."
The Road Virus Heads North ✩✩✩✩✩
This one made it hard for me to fall asleep after reading it. It's a short story inspired by a picture King has in his home about a man who buys a creepy picture at a yard sale that changes and eventually comes to life.
"Richard Kinnell wasn't frightened when he first saw the picture at the yard sale in Rosewood...the painting was a watercolor...it showed a young man behind the wheel of a muscle car...he was grinning, and his parted lips revealed teeth which were not teeth at all but fangs."
adapted to Short Film and TV
Lunch at the Gotham Café ✩✩
A husband and wife agree to meet for lunch to discuss their eventual divorce when their waiter loses his mind.
"Time ceased to exist for me at the moment Alfalfa the maître d' brought his left hand out from behind his back and I saw the butcher-knife."
Adapted to Short Film
That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French ✩✩
A woman on a plane repeatedly wakes from a nightmare about the death of her and her husband eventually learns the truth of what the visions are trying to tell her. As someone who often experiences déjà vu this story made me feel uneasy, but I'm not a big fan of "groundhog day" plots.
"Besides, it wasn't just love that held people together. There were secrets, and the price you paid to keep them."
1408 ✩✩✩✩
Stephen King admitted he scared himself with this story about a haunted hotel room. It gave me the eebie jeebies. Goosebumpies. Hair standing on the back of your neck. You know, the good stuff. It's about a man who doesn't believe in ghosts, who makes a living researching and writing about haunted places, eventually stays at a place that's really haunted.
"Olin was really afraid of room 1408, and of what might happen to Mike there tonight...digital wristwatches don't work in room 1408..."
'You know the history of the room, beginning with the suicide of its first occupant.'
'Five men and one woman have jumped from that room's single window, Mr. Enslin. Three women and one man have overdosed with pills in that room...A man hanged himself in the closet...'
Adapted to a film by the same name starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson
Riding the Bullet ✩✩✩
A novella (according to Wikipedia, the world's first mass-market e-book) about a university student hitchhiking home after getting a call that his mother had a stroke. He learns that all life is eventual.
"I wasn't just afraid, I was terrified. Everything was wrong, everything, and I didn't know why or how it could possibly have happened so fast."
Adapted to Film, starring Jonathan Jackson and David Arquette
Luckey Quarter ✩✩
A short story about a single mom with two kids working at a hotel struggling to get by, and is eventually left a lucky quarter as a tip.
"She sat down in the chair beside the rumpled, abandoned bed with the quarter in one hand and the envelope it had fallen out of in the other, looking back and forth between them and laughing until tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks."
Adapted to Short Film
I give Everything's Eventual 3.6 ✩ overall.
For more book reviews check out my blog: www.amandadroverhartwick.wordpress.com
"We're in it together, after all. This is a date we're on. We should have fun. We should dance." Stephen King to his "Constant Readers"
Autopsy Room Four ✩✩✩✩
About a man awaiting his eventual autopsy, laying on the table, awake, and unsure if he's really dead. I may have broken the world record for breath holding while reading this one.
"There's a harsh ripping sound and all at once I am in white light; it is blinding, like the sun breaking through a scrim of clouds on a winter day. I try to squint my eyes shut against it, but nothing happens. My eyelids are like blinds on broken rollers."
Adapted to TV in Nightmares and Dreamscapes, 7th episode
The Man in the Black Suit ✩✩✩✩✩
A man who hasn't told anyone that as a child he met the devil in the woods eventually tells this story.
"...the terrible stranger turned his burning eyes on me again, his thin lips pulled back from tiny rows of sharp teeth in a cannibal smile."
Adapted to Short Film in 2004
All That You Love Will Be Carried Away ✩✩✩✩
A man has felt lonely for too long and has eventually planned his suicide. I have read an entire sad novel and not shed a tear, yet this story made me cry three times in 15 pages.
"Alfie drew the book back to throw it, then lowered his arm. He hated to let it go, that was the truth of it."
Adapted to 6 different Short Films
The Death of Jack Hamilton ✩✩✩
This one is about a real American gangster, John Dillinger, the eventual death of his pal Jack.
"I suddenly thought of Jack standing in the street after the Mason City bank job. He was firing his tommy gun and covering me and Johnnie and Lester as we herded the hostages to the getaway car. Bullets flew all around him, and although he took a flesh wound, he looked like he'd live forever."
Adapted to Short Film
In the Deathroom ✩✩✩
When you're naming names it's inevitable that a reporter named Fletcher finds himself in a South American interrogation room fearing for his life.
"He thought his chances of ever leaving this basement room in the Ministry of Information were perhaps one or two in thirty, and perhaps that was optimistic."
The Little Sisters of Eluria ✩✩✩✩
A novella set in the world of The Dark Tower series about the gunslinger eventually discovering the nurses helping him to recover are vampires.
"The five were dressed in billowing habits as white as the walls and the panels of the ceiling. Their antique crones' faces were framed in wimples just as white, their skin as gray and runneled as droughted earth by comparison. Hanging like phylacteries from the bands of silk imprisoning their hair (if they indeed had hair) were lines of tiny bells which chimed as they moved or spoke."
Everything's Eventual ✩✩✩✩
A Fantasy novella about 19-year-old Richard who was once broke and bullied, and is now living a life where he can have whatever he wants because of his special power, but eventually learns that this life comes with much sacrifice.
"I've always had something, some kind of deal, and I sort of knew it, but not how to use it or what its name was or what it meant. And I sort of knew I had to keep quiet about it, because other people didn't have it. I thought they might put me in the circus if they found out. Or in jail."
L.T.'s Theory of Pets ✩✩✩✩✩
A short story about how a dog and a cat, given as gifts, eventually led to a divorce and disappearance of a woman.
"My friend L.T. hardly ever talks about how his wife disappeared, or how she's probably dead, just another victim of the Axe Man, but he likes to tell the story of how she walked out on him."
The Road Virus Heads North ✩✩✩✩✩
This one made it hard for me to fall asleep after reading it. It's a short story inspired by a picture King has in his home about a man who buys a creepy picture at a yard sale that changes and eventually comes to life.
"Richard Kinnell wasn't frightened when he first saw the picture at the yard sale in Rosewood...the painting was a watercolor...it showed a young man behind the wheel of a muscle car...he was grinning, and his parted lips revealed teeth which were not teeth at all but fangs."
adapted to Short Film and TV
Lunch at the Gotham Café ✩✩
A husband and wife agree to meet for lunch to discuss their eventual divorce when their waiter loses his mind.
"Time ceased to exist for me at the moment Alfalfa the maître d' brought his left hand out from behind his back and I saw the butcher-knife."
Adapted to Short Film
That Feeling, You Can Only Say What it is in French ✩✩
A woman on a plane repeatedly wakes from a nightmare about the death of her and her husband eventually learns the truth of what the visions are trying to tell her. As someone who often experiences déjà vu this story made me feel uneasy, but I'm not a big fan of "groundhog day" plots.
"Besides, it wasn't just love that held people together. There were secrets, and the price you paid to keep them."
1408 ✩✩✩✩
Stephen King admitted he scared himself with this story about a haunted hotel room. It gave me the eebie jeebies. Goosebumpies. Hair standing on the back of your neck. You know, the good stuff. It's about a man who doesn't believe in ghosts, who makes a living researching and writing about haunted places, eventually stays at a place that's really haunted.
"Olin was really afraid of room 1408, and of what might happen to Mike there tonight...digital wristwatches don't work in room 1408..."
'You know the history of the room, beginning with the suicide of its first occupant.'
'Five men and one woman have jumped from that room's single window, Mr. Enslin. Three women and one man have overdosed with pills in that room...A man hanged himself in the closet...'
Adapted to a film by the same name starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson
Riding the Bullet ✩✩✩
A novella (according to Wikipedia, the world's first mass-market e-book) about a university student hitchhiking home after getting a call that his mother had a stroke. He learns that all life is eventual.
"I wasn't just afraid, I was terrified. Everything was wrong, everything, and I didn't know why or how it could possibly have happened so fast."
Adapted to Film, starring Jonathan Jackson and David Arquette
Luckey Quarter ✩✩
A short story about a single mom with two kids working at a hotel struggling to get by, and is eventually left a lucky quarter as a tip.
"She sat down in the chair beside the rumpled, abandoned bed with the quarter in one hand and the envelope it had fallen out of in the other, looking back and forth between them and laughing until tears spilled from her eyes and rolled down her cheeks."
Adapted to Short Film
I give Everything's Eventual 3.6 ✩ overall.
For more book reviews check out my blog: www.amandadroverhartwick.wordpress.com
This was the first King anthology I read, and every single story blew my socks clean off. Take this with a tiny grain of salt, however, as that was sixteen years ago and my 19-year-old tastes may have been a little less sophisticated than they are today. Regardless, this book cemented King as a looming patron saint of the short story in my imagination.
This starts out with what ended up being my favorite story from this collection: Autopsy Room 4. Super creepy and well done.
Then there are four stories in a row that I don't really remember. I think it's funny that three put of the four were published in the New Yorker. I did remember these feeling too long.
Then we get a story about Roland from the Dark Tower series!!! This was a great story and I think it stands alone even if you haven't read those books.
I enjoyed all of the stories after this one as well, except I was too scared to read the one with "pets" in the title. I didn't trust King to not do something awful to the animals.
The title story was really interesting and I'd like to see him revisit that story and write about some of the other trannies (not what you think it means). 1408 was a great story with about an evil place. I enjoyed Lunch at the Gotham Cafe even though we don't get any explanation, although maybe that's part of what I liked. We don't usually get explanations in real life either. The deja vu story was well written but wasn't exactly enjoyable, but it wasn't supposed to be. Finally, Riding the Bullet and Luckey Quarter were both sad.
Then there are four stories in a row that I don't really remember. I think it's funny that three put of the four were published in the New Yorker. I did remember these feeling too long.
Then we get a story about Roland from the Dark Tower series!!! This was a great story and I think it stands alone even if you haven't read those books.
I enjoyed all of the stories after this one as well, except I was too scared to read the one with "pets" in the title. I didn't trust King to not do something awful to the animals.
The title story was really interesting and I'd like to see him revisit that story and write about some of the other trannies (not what you think it means). 1408 was a great story with about an evil place. I enjoyed Lunch at the Gotham Cafe even though we don't get any explanation, although maybe that's part of what I liked. We don't usually get explanations in real life either. The deja vu story was well written but wasn't exactly enjoyable, but it wasn't supposed to be. Finally, Riding the Bullet and Luckey Quarter were both sad.