Desperation

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.)

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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.

 

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House of Echoes

Good thrillers are hard to find. That genre seems to be overrun with cop dramas and murder mysteries, and to me, that isn’t really what a thriller is. A great thriller should be psychologically complicated–something that tweeks that part of your brain to keep you guessing. A thriller should keep you up at night, wondering what exactly the “monster” is–human?not human?

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Brendan Duffy’s first novel is a fantastic example of the thriller pedigree. The characters have their own psychological issues to begin with, so you don’t know if they are imagining things or if there really is all this strife going on. The book has freakin’ creepy kids. *shudder* And the combination of giant old house and tiny isolated town is something right out of The Shining and The Village. You even have a “monster” in the forest, lurking around causing trouble.

I couldn’t put this one down, and it definitely interrupted my sleep patterns. House of Echoes comes out next week, April 14, and if you like being on the edge of your seat as much as I do, this is a must read for late nights!

 

NetGalley provided this ARC for an unbiased review.

WWW Wednesday 7/16/2015

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What are you currently reading?

The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson

The Rook by Daniel O’Malley

She Walks in Beauty by Caroline Kennedy

 

What did you just finish reading?

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

The Shining by Stephen King

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

 

The Shining

HOOOOLY Helloooo there. Long time no blog. I did warn you though!

What I wild ride this one was! Note to self. Don’t read psychological horror while travelling. It can lead to some crazy stress dreams. I’m pretty sure my mom killed me at some point, and last night, I stalked a local baseball star until he fell in love with me. So yeah. Next trip I’ll pack some cute YA romance or something. Oops.

I haven’t read a whole lot of Stephen King. I’m way behind the times. Most of his bestsellers were coming out when I was cutting my reader’s teeth on harlequin romance, and since I grew up in a family of girls–we didn’t watch his movies either.

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The Shining has been on my list for ages, and I’ve finally gotten around to reading it. And man is King a genius when it comes to psychological thrillers. This is a crazy crazy book. I absolutely loved Danny–as you’re meant to. His schizophrenic shining portrayal is just fantastic to follow. The way King shows his mind reading, without the reader catching on at first to what is happening, really shows the level of writing that is going on here. It makes me wonder how many different methods he tried before coming up with that one. Will this work? No, that looks stupid. How about this one? No, you can’t hear it that way.

I did struggle a little bit connecting images with the characters. But I don’t think that was so much King’s fault, as much as I’ve seen so many clips of the movie with Jack Nicholson going crazy, that I had a hard time seeing him as a loving father in the beginning. I’d already see him be mad and murderous. That’s the hazard with reading an older book/movie set–the spoilers are already spoiled.

My library doesn’t have Doctor Sleep, but I’ll keep an eye out after we move and will try to read that soon. I do want to find out what happens to Danny, I really liked his character framework. Wendy was a weakpoint for me and I don’t so much care what happens to her. Is that callous? Perhaps. Danny needed a guardian…otherwise she could have died IMO. *shrug*

Alright, time to go get packing. We have a LOT to do in the next few weeks! Enjoy your weekend!