Gotta tell you guys, I’m a little nervous about writing this review. You all know that I am very honest about how I feel about books I read. Some are fantastic! I wouldn’t love to read if they weren’t. But, some fall short of my enthusiasm.
Really, I shouldn’t phrase it that way. I am almost always enthusiastic when it comes to reviewing a book…just sometimes I am enthusiastic in the wrong direction.
Some of the adult booklrs (as in age, not XXX) have started a chat, and I was grumbling about reading this month’s “husband book”–Desperation by Stephen King. I no more told them that I didn’t like it…and then there was a huge BOOOOOOOM and I lost all my power!!
Apparently, the fiction gods did not agree with my assessment.
And so, I’m writing this on a notepad, to be posted later…we’ll see what happens when it goes live. Please, Mr. King, don’t shut my power off again.
*fingers crossed*
(Ok. This is getting creepy guys. I wrote that line, and my power came back on. I cannot make this shit up.)
I am finding that Stephen King is a mixed bag. I didn’t hate Cujo and The Shining. And 11/22/63 was brilliant, but it was so different than anything he’s ever written that it’s hard to compare that with his other books.
Most of them are 300 pages too long, so the middle is stuffed full of nothingness. I guess it is supposed to draw out suspense, but to me it just seems like that second movie in a trilogy–the one everyone hates because absolutely nothing happens. Sure, the monsters are scary, but a scary monster can only carry you so far if the plot is a dud and the rest of the characters lack the depth of a plastic kiddie pool!
Desperation is all of these things. I really wish I had done a “hate read” on Tumblr, because it would have been hilarious. Next time I read Stephen King, I’m doing it. #haleyreadsherhusbandsbooks
Several different stereotypical groups of people go on roadtrips to middle of nowhere desert town and get stopped by giant creepy cop guy. He arrests them all on bullshit charges and begins attacking them. It’s very icky and gorey, just like a Stephen King novel usually is.
There’s two people who are on their way to rescue everyone! YES! Everyone is going to be saaaaaaved!!!! But wait…it’s only like page 250, what? Oh, right, they meet up with everyone and get trapped two. Wah whoooomp. Pretty much the plot flatlines for the next 300 pages.
And at page 524 it got interesting. All of the sudden it somewhat made sense.
But that’s my point–it shouldn’t take FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FOUR PAGES for a book to make me interested. If this wasn’t a “husband book”–something we owned so I feel I need to try to finish–I would have trashed it 100 pages in.
Now you’re starting to see why the God of Fiction struck me down today, right? I’m going to be on the road to Indiana when this post goes live, so hopefully nothing terrible happens! This book has been out for decades, so I’m hoping Mr. King is ok with one person not caring for his book. My husband loves his books…they just aren’t for me.