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A review by travsbookshelf
Duma Key by Stephen King
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
My first impression of this book was that it bore a striking similarity to “Bag of Bones”: main character suffers great loss and travels to another location to recuperate only to find out there’s a ghost story he’s wandered into. And this is true, which made me a little hesitant at first. But I quickly learned that this story was so much more. This was a tale that had humor, very likable characters without the usual Stephen-King-ton-of-baggage types, a terrifying but BEAUTIFUL (yes, I said beautiful!) ghost story connected to a rather engagingly tragic family history, and it was set in a completely different setting unique to King’s usual backgrounds.
But what I found most clever was the writing structure. The story is set up in large sections that give the literary illusion of teaching one long art lesson on drawing pictures. It was a very unique and insanely clever way to tell this story by blending narratives together and illustrating the plot and action and emotion throughout. I literally felt like I was reading a portrait coming to life with each turn of the page. Especially the ghost story parts, and that’s why I called it beautiful. Some of the eeriest scenes I’ve ever read, and made more effective by its artistically descriptive writing. Which is gold to me because I love good ghost stories anyway and I struck the motherlode with this one. I won’t be getting much of the imagery from this book out of my mind anytime soon. Cool!
The emotional levels ran a pretty full gamut throughout as well. There was (of course) tragedy, horror, a quite large amount of humor, happiness, and even hopefulness felt by a lot of the characters. It was different for a King novel but a very nice and welcome change of pace. Wireman and Jack were definitely two standout characters for me and I loved their friendship with Edgar. They made for a quite diverse yet interesting compatible trio that worked well together. The history story was a little challenging to get through but paid off in spades once everything was revealed. And the ending is by far one of Stephen King’s best ever! I thought it was perfect.
A definite 5 star read and highly recommended book. This would be an excellent Stephen King starter novel.
But what I found most clever was the writing structure. The story is set up in large sections that give the literary illusion of teaching one long art lesson on drawing pictures. It was a very unique and insanely clever way to tell this story by blending narratives together and illustrating the plot and action and emotion throughout. I literally felt like I was reading a portrait coming to life with each turn of the page. Especially the ghost story parts, and that’s why I called it beautiful. Some of the eeriest scenes I’ve ever read, and made more effective by its artistically descriptive writing. Which is gold to me because I love good ghost stories anyway and I struck the motherlode with this one. I won’t be getting much of the imagery from this book out of my mind anytime soon. Cool!
The emotional levels ran a pretty full gamut throughout as well. There was (of course) tragedy, horror, a quite large amount of humor, happiness, and even hopefulness felt by a lot of the characters. It was different for a King novel but a very nice and welcome change of pace. Wireman and Jack were definitely two standout characters for me and I loved their friendship with Edgar. They made for a quite diverse yet interesting compatible trio that worked well together. The history story was a little challenging to get through but paid off in spades once everything was revealed. And the ending is by far one of Stephen King’s best ever! I thought it was perfect.
A definite 5 star read and highly recommended book. This would be an excellent Stephen King starter novel.