A review by jaedia
'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.25

 Took much too long to get going though King's writing has a way of making nothing seem readable. There were pages that simply detailed what different families were having for dinner. While I can respect this was to effectively show the slow death of the town, some of it was just boring. Also would be remiss not to mention the sheer amount of homophobic slurs in the book. And this was clearly written when King had a very bleak outlook of the world.

That all said, I did enjoy reading it. The writing was enjoyable, the story compelling, and the dread creeping. A nice dark vampire horror story of a town's slow, sleepy, bloodcurdling death. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Blood, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Classism, Transphobia, Suicide, Sexism, Rape, Physical abuse, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Infidelity, Homophobia, Grief, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, and Gaslighting