A review by cptnmarv41
Dreamcatcher by Stephen King

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

4.0

This one was a King roller coaster. It started off AWESOME - incredible characters that I was really beginning to love - including some excellent child flashback stuff (a little bit of a King staple, there. Vintage King, if you will). But then the story definitely veered away from that core - not completely, but enough where it became LESS interesting, at least to me. Once the military came into it - without giving away too many plot points - I was just less engrossed in the story. Ok, from here - I'm definitely going to be mentioning at least one key spoiler - SO - if you want to be completely in the dark about the book, please stop here. If you have read it or don't care, on you go, but don't say I didn't warn you. Where was I - oh yes, a little less interesting. But then we get to Derry and we have a brief, but absolutely phenomenal IT reference. And if you love King or you love that book in particular, that was simply an incredible couple of pages. It's such a phenomenal throwback. And this one isn't even subtle - even casual fans won't miss it. I absolutely love these details - it is what makes the King universe so grand and so fulfilling as a fan. So simple, but oh so effective. I gave it an extra star just for that. And then from there until the end, I actually thought it got a lot better. Not quite as good as the beginning of the book, but definitely satisfactory. This one was actually a challenging book to read. While King does a phenomenal job explaining all the ins and outs of this crazy story to the reader, it does take a little bit of stopping and re-reading here and there to figure out, wait what just happened there? All in all, I would have loved a book just about the core group of 5 people - I really would have. So, in some ways, I felt cheated and disappointed with how it turned out. It was kind of a big character tease and kind of a waste of great characters, to me. But, by the end, it definitely came together and it was fulfilling, even though it probably wouldn't be considered one of my all time fav King books. Lastly, if you have an upset stomach, you might want to skip this one until you feel better. Chitter chitter. lol.  And always follow the line. If you can see the line, always follow the line. SSDD.