Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Firestarter

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Firestarter by Stephen King

9 reviews

hyacinthed's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

2.5

Complicated feelings on this one.

Strengths:

Strong worldbuilding (as always)
Great structure
Solid development of Charlie/decent development of Andy
Dude putting on lingerie and jerking it to a garbage disposal. Lit.

Difficulties:

Literally everything relating to Rainbird. The overt racism in his characterisation (yes it was the '80s, no it has not aged well), the literal pedophilic overtones of how he thinks and speaks about Charlie.
The homophobia sprinkled throughout.
The constant fat-shaming of Andy after he blows up on thorazine (we get it, he's fat, you don't have to remind us once a page).
The lack of resolution of Vicky's death - I was hoping for some kind of reconciliation/closure.

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bookwormloverofbooks's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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fkshg8465's review against another edition

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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? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I’ve had a Stephen Long phobia my whole life. This the first book I’ve read by him. It was so good! Excited to read more of his works now. Still a bit trepidatious, but much more open minded now for sure.

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tfredenburg's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

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

1.5

It seems that reading many of King's old works is a balancing act between great story concepts and highly-fraught execution. I cared about Charlie, and I wanted to see what would become of her, but that meant slogging through some truly horrendously racist, sexist, homophobic, fatphobic (etc.) material. And I don't mean these were small, annoying lines; I mean John Rainbird is a Native American character portrayed as predatory and frankly inhuman. It was this book that made me decide to let King's older works lie (aside from maybe Carrie, which I'd still like to visit.) I haven't read any of his newer stuff, so I can only hope this tendency has vanished.

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myleejmiller's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.0

I grew up hearing all about the legends of Stephen King. The King of Horror, many call him. I was only convinced to read the first book I have picked up by him since hearing rumors over the years: Firestarter, when I saw the movie release trailers for the second adaptation. I was not disappointed by the novel. The storytelling was beautiful and vivid. The characters were deep and astonishing. Everything came together with rhyme and reason in tandem. However, despite the greatness of the story and its writing, I note a few issues within it. One being that at some points the main characters knowingly and willingly walk into danger, dreading it, when they could easily avoid it altogether. Second, this book was marked as Science-Fantasy Horror-Thriller. I will preface this by saying I am not easily scared or excited, but this book did not feel scary or tense to me. I have read contemporary non-horror books with what felt like harsher and more gripping stakes. Third, I have to say that the end of the story is completely predictable, at least to me. I found it easy to assume which events would happen before they came to pass. Otherwise, Firestarter by Stephen King was a masterpiece. It showed his prowess in painting detailed settings and giving the readers an inside look of life through the eyes of Andy and Charlie McGee.

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