Nick
One thing I really enjoyed about this book was that the end of the world seemed very realistic. Most stories about societal collapse will follow a fascist dictatorship and/or a bunch of roving gangs. While Station Eleven did explore the darker side of humans trying to survive, the main focus was the belief that humans just want to be humans.
I wanted to like this more than I did. There was a lot of hype behind this considering it's only like 28 pages. It felt like this was a teaser for a new book more than a complete short story.
The premise is that a guy knows that monsters live under his (and sometimes others') beds but apparently does nothing about it? Like, he fully believes it but doesn't think to maybe sleep with a mattress on the ground or keep lights on? C'mon, man...
If you want a full review, read the top one for this book. The reviewer summed it up perfectly.
Only thing I want to say is that I'm severely underwhelmed. Not only did the book not live up to the hype, it just straight up sucked.
OK, so I had to laugh. This is totally an aside, but I read several reviews and a lot of people complained that this book didn't have enough action and that it wasn't about the FBI. Yeah, it's a fuckin' non-fiction book. Do you think the author should've thrown in a car chase shootout or something? And it says “birth of the FBI,” which was touched upon. It isn't a Blue Lives Matter history of the FBI shooting bad guys. Sheesh.
Anyhow, I really loved this book. I wasn't too into the idea of watching a dramatized version, but the movie's existence did put this story on my radar. I'm glad I read it. In the US, we tend to stray away from stories that make us look unfavorable. It's hard to convince the world that everyone who isn't a WASP is a savage when those are the ones doing the most heinous shit imaginable. Rather than some shitty allegory about race, the author gives an actual account of capitalism at its worst. Native Americans are told to leave their land, their new land contains oil, the ones that get rich start disappearing. So fucked up. This is the sort of thing that needs to be taught in school.
If I had to make a few complaints, I'd start by saying that because of the subject matter, the writing did feel a little clinical at times. Obviously, it'd be fiction to spruce up the story, but the writing could've been punched up a bit. Another thing that sort of got me was that the story of the creation of the FBI made Hoover sound a little too sympathetic. I feel like there were more politics at play than J Edgar actually caring much about Native Americans. Maybe that's a story for another time and another place.
In 2016 I picked up [b:Finders Keepers 23492589 Finders Keepers (Bill Hodges Trilogy, #2) Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1469092087l/23492589.SY75.jpg 41884478] at an airport bookstore. It wasn't until after paying for it that I realized that that book was actually part two in a new series.Fast forward several years. I'm staring at my shelf and spot Finders Keepers again. I'm running out of new books to read so I finally order Mr Mercedes and begin to read it during the pandemic.Now I know that Stephen King likes to be a genre chameleon from time to time, but he often finds himself using familiar tropes for comfort. This particular book does start in true King fashion but then goes into a pretty tense cat-and-mouse game. A man runs over and kills several people at a job fair in a Mercedes; thus, he is given the nickname Mr Mercedes. Bill Hodges, a retired detective, starts getting taunted by the very same Mr M. This quickly escalates in a game of wits with Bill trying to stop the killer from striking again.Also notable in this book is the first appearance of Holly Gibney, a new fan favorite from this point on who now even has her own spinoff book [b:Holly 65916344 Holly Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1674418461l/65916344.SY75.jpg 106237905].
Why? Why? Why Why? Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why? Why Why Why Why Why Why Why Why?
This single word echoed in my head with every single new plot point like the world’s most annoying Fibonacci Sequence.
From the get-go the reader is promised a fun little romp where a bunch of strangers vie for a dead millionaire’s fortune and things immediately go south. It’s a dumb but entertaining flip from Escape Room to the Saw movies as one could probably guess. Quickly, the author shoves the hook away and apparently starts slamming his fist on the keyboard. By the second escape room, the silliness snowballs into an incomprehensible mess.
I figured, by the way the book started, that the plot would slowly unfold into some huge interconnected web where everything came together. Well, that’s not so much what happened. The one-dimensional characters remained in 1D World. They made silly decisions. The world’s greatest puzzle maker made shitty puzzles. Stuff just sort of happened with no rhyme or reason. Attempts at humor fell flat. Plot twists happen that will make you scratch your head. Honestly, I’m not certain Dan Brown didn’t ghost write this. That’s how bad it was.
It was decent. I enjoyed the writing and I'll definitely be reading more Cutter, but I was pretty underwhelmed by the overall plot. I did quite enjoy the first third or so, in particular, but after that was so-so for me. My biggest gripe is the use of flashforward to the interviews. They just brought everything to a screeching halt and completely ruined the suspense by revealing too much. The plot itself wasn't terribly original either, and I didn't much care for the ending.
On a side note, the last two books I read completely overused “the __-thing.” Can all horror authors get together and find a new word for humans who have been transformed into something else? I swear I read that phrase at least 100 times in the past 2 weeks. Oh no, Bob is an undead shell of a man now. He's now “the Bob-thing” lurching towards us! Watch out!
Cordyceps turning people into zombies? Hell yeah, count me in. Really liked this novel. Great setting, interesting characters, classic themes, and a fitting ending.
My only gripe is that it relies heavily on tropes regarding treatment of infected and military. If it's your thing (and it is mostly my thing), this reads like a SyFy Channel original and that's evident in the movie adaptation. I strongly recommend reading the book before watching the movie.
3.5-3.75ish. Very good but not great. Kinda feels like the ending was written hastily to get the book done more so than completing the story. As others have said, there's not much of a climax and the ending is just sort of there. Great storytelling, as always, but I feel like there was so much more story to tell.
First read this when I was in school. This is my re-read as an adult. I have a lot to say, but honestly don't feel like typing it all out. I will say that knowing the shock ending ahead of time made the cons stick out more than the pros.
I first read this book when I was much younger, maybe 11 or 12. Although I remember not liking it as much as the other books in the series up until this point, there wasn't much I remembered, so I was essentially going in blind.
To be honest, I'm pretty impressed by how much this holds up. I was a little afraid at how much the nostalgia bug might have left me disappointed, but I'm actually pretty excited to go back and re-read all of these.
Usually my rating system takes into account what I'm reading. Obviously, giving a 5 to children's book doesn't necessarily mean it's better than a classic that I've rated 3, but I feel like this is still a solid 3 given what it is. The story itself wasn't great but it wasn't bad. The subject matter wasn't spooky like a lot of the other books. The writing was pretty solid for a book that was probably churned out in a weekend.
I read a few reviews here where readers were thrown off that NOS4A2 wasn't more like his dad's work. On the contrary, I felt like this particular novel was too much like his dad's work. I even felt like maybe SK ghostwrote some of this or least outlined the story for his son. I'm glad there were allusions to King's work like the True Knot from [b:Doctor Sleep 16130549 Doctor Sleep Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1510335480l/16130549.SY75.jpg 17851499], Pennywise from [b:It 830502 It Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334416842l/830502.SY75.jpg 150259], Shawshank...you know what, the whole book is just a reference to his dad's work. You even have Leland Gaunt driving his spooky car through Dark Tower portals. He says he put these in there as a joke, but ha ha after the 30th one? Anyway, I thought he did a pretty good job of pulling the reader into the universe but lacked good character development and the ending was done in true Stephen King form:650+ pages about how bad this dude is and 2 sentences for his downfall
1.5, and that's generous. I didn't enjoy this book at all. This is the 3rd I've read from Hill after The Fireman and NOS4A2 which I enjoyed more than this one. Luckily this book was half the size of the others or I wouldn't have finished it. The beginning was OK, the middle sucked, the climax sucked, the ending sucked. Even the acknowledgments were cheesy. The dialogue was hit and miss, the rock and roll references sounded poseur-ish, the story went off on tangents and little to none of the ghost stuff ever made sense. All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't read this first as it would have turned me off of Hill and also it's clear he's on an upward trajectory. So, that's good at least.
This was my first Neil Gaiman book. I gotta say, I was really impressed.
In Neverwhere, the main character is sucked into a shadow world inside/beneath/adjacent London. He meets quite a motley crew in this fantasy world and experiences quite a ride while trying to get home. Gaiman kind of walks the line of being twee and yet dark not unlike Tim Burton's lighter fare.
One thing for new readers to consider is that this book is based on a TV series written by Gaiman and Lenny Henry. Maybe check that out if you don't have the time to read or if you want to go deeper before/after reading.
Let's just get it out there: I feel like SK was given a boatload of money to turn an unfinished story into something that Hard Case could publish. So, what's going on with this book? Readers will be happy to know that they can find that wonderful King prose they've fallen in love with. It's no secret that the guy can tell a story. Often, King struggles with plot. On the back cover, the synopsis claims that this is not only a mystery, but also a horror and coming-of-age story. Now, I'm not sure I completely agree with that assessment, but I will say that the book seems to be none of those simultaneously. Tone shifts drastically from page to page. And unlike most SK works, there are no chapters, only breaks.
As far as mystery goes: yes, technically there's a “mystery.” In all fairness, many King novels have some sort of mystery. The cover and synopsis might lead one to believe that there's some sort of Spade/Marlowe thing going on, but that couldn't be further from the truth. In regards to horror, this is absolutely not a horror book. There is a supernatural element to the story, but nothing outright terrifying like the ghosts that have appeared in previous King works. Now, I can agree this is a nice coming-of-age tale. Young Devin goes from schoolboy to grownup in just under 300 pages and so do new friends and family.
As for the ending, we all know what Stephen can and can't do with these. This one seems rushed and lazy. I don't want to get into spoiler territory, so let's just say it was very bad.
tl;dr version: Great writing, not a mystery novel, great characters, bad ending
Check out the Mr Mercedes trilogy if you'd like to see SK doing crime, especially the first two books
This was quite a strange collection of writings. There isn't really any theme that the publishers stuck to. We get novellas, short stories, poems, and to be perfectly honest, what seem like unfinished ideas. Genres range from sci-fi to body horror to Lovecraftian to supernatural. Submissions go from high school age all the way to current at the time (1985). I hate to write 22 separate reviews, but I think that's the only way to do it. I'll average out each story minus the poems.
1) The Mist - 4/5 - Great storytelling. This is King's bread and butter. Ending didn't land, but overall very good.
2) Here There Be Tygers - 2/5 - I mean, I guess it's really good for a high school student, but nothing special about this one.
3) The Monkey - 2/5 - Generic spooky story here. Think that Family Guy episode where Stephen King says a lamp is haunted or whatever. What if a monkey toy was haunted. Unoriginal and boring.
4) Cain Rose Up - 1/5 - Some early writer weirdness on this one. Seems to be immune to King's anti-gun self-censorship like Rage was.
5) Mrs Todd's Shortcut - 3/5 - I really liked this concept, but didn't work for me as a super short story. I think some things could've been fleshed out. I feel like the set-up was really cool and then a time skip happened.
6) The Jaunt - 5/5 - Awesome sci-fi storytelling on this one. King doing Asimov in King fashion. I was as rapt by the father's storytelling as the children were. And even though I knew what was going to happen, I was still terrified at the ending.
7) The Wedding - 1/5 - Doesn't seem to have much of a point than to be an excuse to use racist and fatphobic language. It's a discussion for another time, but King does this often and is at his worst when he does it.
8) Paranoid: A Chant - NR - A quick little poem about insanity and paranoia. Neither good nor bad, but I couldn't do an entire book of this.
9) The Raft - 3/5 - Honestly, I was very disappointed in this one. This story led to my favorite Creepshow vignette so I was looking forward to it quite a bit. The characters did weird, dumb stuff that no one would do. The ending wasn't nearly as fun as the movie version. Cool idea, not very well executed.
10) Word Processor of the Gods - 3/5 - King likes to write about writers. This one was OK, but works better as a teleplay. In fact, it did get filmed as an episode of Tales from the Darkside. More fatphobia.
11) The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands - 2.5/5 - I mean, it wasn't bad. It also wasn't super good. The entire plot is given away in the title, so the rest of the story seemed unecessary.
12) Beachworld - 2/5 - Not exactly sure what to make of this one. It reads like the lost chapter of the Heavy Metal movie. Kinda pointless, to be honest.
13) The Reaper's Image - 3/5 - More early King weirdness. I did like this one, but it wasn't terribly original. Some people see Grim Reaper in a painting, disappear, not much else to say.
14) Nona - 2/5 - Male rage.
15) For Owen - NR - Cute little poem for King's son. Kinda just thrown into the mix without rhyme or reason.
16) Survivor Type - 4/5 - One of the best stories in the book and not for the weak-stomached. King hype's himself up on this one, but it's not even as gory as The Raft. Corrupt doc is stuck on an island with a bunch of heroin, so he autocannibalizes. I always love horror for the “what if this happened to me?” factor. I have a few nitpicks, but overall, this one was quite enjoyable.
17) Uncle Otto's Truck - 3.5/5 - Really liked this one until the end. Unfathomably silly.
18) Morning Deliveries (Milkman #1) - 2.5/5 - Previously unpublished, this was more of an idea than a story. We get a set-up but not much beyond that. The fact that the next story involves the milkman makes me wonder if the character was shoe-horned into the whole thing as an afterthought.
19) Morning Big Wheels: A Tale of the Laundry Game (Milkman #2) - 2/5 - I hated the way the characters talked to one another. And I don't understand how the reader was supposed to know who the Milkman was or why he's important in this story. Ending seems tacked on.
20) Gramma - 3/5 - This is a classic King ending flub. I think what makes this story so scary is that a lot of us know what it's like being a kid and having to deal with adults who scare us. In a kid's imagination, anything can happen. Is gramma a witch, a monster, a serial killer? King had me by the throat up to the climax and then lost me.
21) The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet - 4/5 - Another one about magical typewriters, huh? No, actually, the first part of the story just seems like people in the book publishing biz having a social get-together. As the editor begins telling his story, the reader joins in on the madness. Who are the sane ones? Who are the insane? Is insanity rooted in truth?
22) The Reach - 3.5/5 - A nice, heartwarming little book end. An old lady who lives on an island has never been to the mainland. A little muddied of a plot, but overall very good.
Average comes out to 2.8/5.0 so I'll give it a 3.
I remember reading this one as a preteen but couldn't remember a lot about it. This one seems to be somewhere in the "RL Stine is out of ideas" and "Scholastic is really pushing Stine to churn these out" phase of Goosebumps. Most of the story didnt make sense, but I can see why I ate these books up when I was younger. It's been pretty fun revisiting these. Probably won't re-read this one ever again though.
OK, so some GR members are citing Blake Pierce, while the author is stated to be Molly Black. That's strange. Anyway, I'm 3/4 of the way through the book and am thinking, this is some truly amateur nonsense. But wait! What's going on with the authorship? I look up the authors and can find almost no information on him/her/them. So, what the hell? Is this AI written or is this just some pulp crap churned out by a writing mill?
Either way, this book is truly dreadful. I highly suggest avoiding this one as well as anything in the series. This could've been an episode of a generic cop drama. Who could even care about “The Artist” by the end to want a second book? Yuck.
I'm not saying that this is a sequel, but this book came off as an unofficial companion piece to [b:Station Eleven 20170404 Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680459872l/20170404.SX50.jpg 28098716]. We have a deadly virus, space travel, and even the author inserting herself into the book clearly to remark on criticism of the book. Whereas Station Eleven was more of a closed narrative, this book is better described as a sublime dreamscape. The prose is beautiful, and the journey was great, but there isn't too much going on. Everything just sort of exists for its own sake. Definitely recommended for those who have already read Station Eleven.
I'm conflicted on this one because I loved the beginning but thought the second half was just ok. By King standards, this one was on the short side but still managed to throw in a few superfluous story lines. I feel like if he could've kept things a little more concise, this one could've been a lot better. I also quite enjoyed the ending not so much for the action but for Johnny's moral dilemma when dealing with Stillson and how things turned out. 3.5 out of 5
A quick, fun romp in the forest. King throws the supernatural out the door in favor of real life terror: being 9 years old and lost in the woods all alone. This one isn't nearly as terrifying as King's other work, but a decent read nonetheless. I wouldn't put it among his best nor worst, but I would recommend it to anyone just looking for a mindless weekend read.
This was a pretty long book, but I feel like it kept up the pace pretty well. However, the first and second halves kind of felt like an exquisite corpse exercise, let's say pre/post Duane's death as a good dividing point. The first half is more a town mystery with kids banding together to face it head on. The second half becomes more of a supernatural/demonic battle and that's why so many have compared it to King's IT.
I did thoroughly enjoy this book. Simmons is a great writer. However, I did have some issues with it that keep me from giving it 5 stars. If I could do halves, I'd give this a 3.5. The first issue I had was one character's gratuitous use of the n word. Now, I know that this type of language was probably pretty common in the time and place, but it does nothing for the plot or exposition. The story the character tells essentially goes nowhere and isn't brought up again until one of the kids 200 pages later mistakes another character for being black. That leads into my next issue with the book which is that the conspiracy plot essentially goes nowhere. It builds up and then immediately goes in another direction. We're led to believe that there's this deep-seated secret society and then find out there's like a mold that can bring people back from the dead and...worms? And the worms go from like small and ingestible to 20' long for some reason?
My other huge issue came in the second half and it involved a sexual encounter with one of the main characters. Keep in mind, these kids are like 10-11 years old. Now, a lot of the theme of this novel is growing up, but this particular scene just felt unnecessary and creepy. Kids are at a birthday party, they get a bit touchy-feely. Way too much description of the kids' body parts. The female involved is barely mentioned before or after this. The entire birthday party could've been erased from the story and wouldn't have had the slightest impact.
So yeah, having said all of that, I get why people compare it to SK's writings in that he loves gratuitous racial slurs and sex scenes involving children. Both of those things are my biggest criticisms of King's works. But I will say this: Simmons was a lot better at delivering dialogue and sticking the ending.
This was a very fun romp overall. I definitely enjoyed the first half more. I wish Simmons would've went more one way or the other when fleshing out the story of the “Bell.” Its mystery just kind of went away but it wasn't even really that necessary to begin with. The kids were all great and had their own distinct personalities. The adults were all dumb and useless. Sandlot meets Night of the Comet meets IT yadda yadda yadda. Thanks for reading all of that (or skipping to the end).