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A review by secre
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Fairy Tale is an absolute cracker of a King book and one I enjoyed immensely. I admit, I struggled a bit in the middle, but the first and last third more than made up for it. This is also a book that takes a long time to get going, although that didn't impact my enjoyment at all as King builds up the characters and their lives superbly well in the first third, despite there only being hints at the supernatural. In fact it's when the supernatural truly comes into it's own that I felt the novel wavered and slogged more. Picking back up in the final chapters with the final showdown and conclusion.
The opening third is King at his very best; Charlie is a high flying youngster with a good academic record and a likely sports scholarship to boot. Yet when he comes across an elderly neighbour in trouble, he strikes up an unlikely friendship and becomes his caretaker at the expense of his scholarship. King writes this slice-of-life beautifully; all of the characters are vivid and interesting, he builds on the back-stories and motivations and I was fully invested in the character stories. There's tension and a ticking clock, and it is superbly done.
Things start to fall apart when Charlie finds his way into a warped fairyland world though. It loses a lot of the natural drama, becoming instead a fairly bland 'teenage hero saves the day' story. There's some nice world-building here, but it never really rose to it's potential and I'll admit that I lost interest multiple times, putting it down and reading something more interesting. It probably took me a month to plough through the middle section of the novel because of this. It's not as though it's bad; it's a fairly standard dark YA retelling of a fairy story. But it's doesn't have the edge or the drive of the earlier novel. I was pretty sure I knew exactly how it was going to end from the start, even if I didn't know exactly how it was going to get there. I was pretty much dead on the nail.
It did pick up towards the end, though I'd have liked more time back in the 'real' world, particularly considering that was where the strength of the novel lies.
All in all, I enjoyed this but I don't think it can be counted as one of the best of King's works. It seemed like it to begin with, but it was also like two different novels jammed into one. One of them was stunning. The other mediocre.
The opening third is King at his very best; Charlie is a high flying youngster with a good academic record and a likely sports scholarship to boot. Yet when he comes across an elderly neighbour in trouble, he strikes up an unlikely friendship and becomes his caretaker at the expense of his scholarship. King writes this slice-of-life beautifully; all of the characters are vivid and interesting, he builds on the back-stories and motivations and I was fully invested in the character stories. There's tension and a ticking clock, and it is superbly done.
Things start to fall apart when Charlie finds his way into a warped fairyland world though. It loses a lot of the natural drama, becoming instead a fairly bland 'teenage hero saves the day' story. There's some nice world-building here, but it never really rose to it's potential and I'll admit that I lost interest multiple times, putting it down and reading something more interesting. It probably took me a month to plough through the middle section of the novel because of this. It's not as though it's bad; it's a fairly standard dark YA retelling of a fairy story. But it's doesn't have the edge or the drive of the earlier novel. I was pretty sure I knew exactly how it was going to end from the start, even if I didn't know exactly how it was going to get there. I was pretty much dead on the nail.
It did pick up towards the end, though I'd have liked more time back in the 'real' world, particularly considering that was where the strength of the novel lies.
All in all, I enjoyed this but I don't think it can be counted as one of the best of King's works. It seemed like it to begin with, but it was also like two different novels jammed into one. One of them was stunning. The other mediocre.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Alcoholism
Moderate: Death of parent