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A review by emilypolcyn
The Talisman by Peter Straub, Stephen King
4.0
So much great stuff in here -- loved the cross-country road trip, loved the entire cast of characters (Wolf is a new all-time favorite character from any book tbh), loved the strange mix of high fantasy / americana horror that only King could pull off, and I had a grand time pretending this was a gay coming of age story (and I have MANY thoughts on this that I won't get into here but just know that I'm right)
My only complaint is that the climactic final showdown in the hotel was too damn long. This is obviously a common complaint for a lot of Stephen King, but normally I get the reason for the length. But having the climax of the book last a hundred pages when it's pretty clear what the broad strokes of the ending are gonna be (I mean in a story of a 13 year old fighting good vs. evil what do you think is gonna happen) just slowed this down so much for me, to the point I was completely slogging through the most important action of the book. I also felt a lot of the scares in that section were just not very effective and didn't feel very earned, so it felt like a bunch of random gross stuff happening in the middle of the finale. But I loved so much of this book so I think I'm going to pretend like that section doesn't exist respectfully <3
My only complaint is that the climactic final showdown in the hotel was too damn long. This is obviously a common complaint for a lot of Stephen King, but normally I get the reason for the length. But having the climax of the book last a hundred pages when it's pretty clear what the broad strokes of the ending are gonna be (I mean in a story of a 13 year old fighting good vs. evil what do you think is gonna happen) just slowed this down so much for me, to the point I was completely slogging through the most important action of the book. I also felt a lot of the scares in that section were just not very effective and didn't feel very earned, so it felt like a bunch of random gross stuff happening in the middle of the finale. But I loved so much of this book so I think I'm going to pretend like that section doesn't exist respectfully <3