Fairy Tale

Stephen King really shines when it comes to the human relationships and the depth of the main characters. He has a great knack for building those grounded connections. However, the fantasy elements didn't quite work for me here. About 30% of the book felt a bit slow. I loved the beginning, especially before Charlie heads off to Empis, and I also really enjoyed the ending and the lead-up to it. Despite the slow parts, I still found the story enjoyable overall.

3.9/5

This is a hard review to write. I had so many people telling me this was my perfect book. A boy who loves his dog, and tries to save her by going to a magical world with the ability to turn back time.

Unfortunately this did not live up to the hype and became a chore to read. My biggest issue is the length. There is a lot in this story that could have been cut or paired down. It is full of obscure references that didn't need to be there. It was fun at first, but quickly grew tiresome. It felt like King has this collection of favorite shows/movies/heroes/etc and wants to make sure they aren't forgotten so he ends up including everything possible in this book. Just as I got into a section of the story, these references would pull me back out. Then I'd have to fight to get myself back into the story.

A few times I started to skim the pages, ready to be done with this book. In fact, it took be almost two months or fairly consistent reading to finally complete this story.

The unfortunate thing is that the summary of the story was perfect. It's the execution that became the problem.

Just not feeling it, have no drive to keep reading 

Gave up at 69%.

I loved the beginning, but really disliked the world where Charlie's adventure takes place.

I don't usually read Stephen King books–I get them on audiobook and listen to them while driving, while working out or doing yard work, and while I take the dog on walks. I like listening to them because the narrators are always solid, and King always spins a good yarn. He's not my favorite author by a long shot, but he's a good writer and writes very listenable stories.

In FAIRY TALE, King goes full-on Neil Gaiman and spins a wild fantasy novel that is part adventure, part Wizard of Oz, and part Grimm's Fairy Tales come to life.

You can probably find the premise online. King doesn't really break much new ground, and other authors have told this sort of story better than he has, but in the end, it's still an enjoyable romp and very engrossing.

I'd recommend getting the audiobook from your library. Seth Numrich performs this book in its entirety, save for a cameo from King himself, and he does an amazing job. A narrator can make or break a book. I've had to return audiobooks to the library and pick up the physical book because the narrator just doesn't fit the book, or isn't expressive enough, or doesn't perform it well enough.

Numrich is the real deal. He made this book for me. I probably would not have maintained interest without his narration, like if I tried to read this book myself, I would have bailed after 30 or 50 pages. With Numrich lighting the path, I ground through all 24+ hours of the audiobook and enjoyed it greatly.

All in all, this isn't my favorite Stephen King book, but it's a better-than-average book for King. I'd recommend it if you don't have other books to read at the moment.

(However, if you're actively looking for other books, try my mystery novels, the Abe & Duff series. I'd appreciate it!)

DNF. I just can't bring myself to finish this. He rambles and rambles and it's not even relevant to the story for most of it. The main character, a teenager, talks like he's older than me and his actions are nothing like a teenager which is very common in a lot of people's stories so I'm not holding that part to hard against him. Still love King and as many books has he's written of course he would be bound to hit a few lows every now and then. Judging by most of the reviews either nobody agrees with me or everyone is fanatics to the point where every King story is 5 stars

I still think about this book at random moments. It's engrossing and haunting and beautiful and murky and I just love it. The characters nurture the experience with their authenticity and the ones you're not meant to like scratch and claw at you and leave you with a rotten taste in your mouth...just as they ought to. There are moments where the story is slow and gradual, but once those moments pass, you realize that you're better off for them. Should you choose to listen to this one, you won't be disappointed. The narration is fantastic.

At the end of the day, I'm a sucker for a story about a boy and his dog.

My first King. It was a wild ride but on the whole I loved it

I feel biased as I love Stephen King books very much. His writing style is something I very much appreciate.
The book itself is a very nice book all the way. The beginning, which I have with every book of his, is a bit slower, but builds the foundations of the story very nicely, which gives you the feeling of more being in the story than reading it.
I would highly recommend this book!

I kept putting this book on the back burner, thinking I’d get back to it since I’ve already put so much time into it. After realizing it’s been over a month since I last read it, I’ve finally decided to just DNF.

This is kind of a weird one. I do like the relationship between the main protag, Charlie and his dog Radar. There are genuinely moments that make you go awwww, especially if you’re an animal lover. However, this book really should’ve been edited down. You just… kind of forget you’re even reading a fantasy story. By the time you get to any fantastical elements, you’re already nearly 200 pages in (according to my Kindle) and the first few characters Charlie meets in the other world are so dull I found my attention slipping.

Honestly, I eventually read a synopsis and the next several hundred pages sounds like uninteresting fantasy tropes, including Charlie’s hair and eyes changing color to show he’s the Chosen One.

Hate to admit it’s an absolute slog of a book.

Good, but long. I appreciate that it built an amazing world, but times felt a slog.

I just finished Fairy Tale by Stephen King and here are my thoughts.

Charlie has had a rough 17 years of life, after his mother died, his father became an alcoholic. It took years for his dad to get back on track and for things to become normal. As Charlie is going past his neighbors house, he hears a dog barking. He goes to check it out and finds Mr Bowditch in bad shape. After taking care of him for a while at his home, they built a friendship. The only thing off limits to Charlie is the shed out back. One day something tries to get out and Mr Bowditch knows he has to entrust someone with his secret. He dies before he can tell Charlie everything but thankfully, knew his time was short and recorded an unbelievable story along with the deeds to the house and a safe full of gold.

The shed leads to another world, The place where Mr Bowditch got the gold and the ability to stay alive. Charlie makes the harrowing journey to save the dog that has now become his very best friend.

King knows how to spin a tale... See what I did there? Haha! I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the last part. I enjoyed Mr Bowditch and the friendship that blossomed between him and Charlie. The second half of the book had Charlie in the other realm and, don't get my wrong, was brilliant, I just missed that crotchety old man.

The world building was phenomenal and I have a special place in my heart for dogs in literature. The story was very powerful and I loved all the fairytale references that were dropped in the book. The book was seriously long but anyone who knows King, knows he likes meat on his bones.

It was definitely one of my favorites of the year so far!

4.5 stars

There was a time (a thousand years ago) when I could claim to have read everything that Stephen King had written. Generally, horror is not my genre, but his writing is so clear and easy and even though the stories are sometime monstrously long, you never seem to get bored. As a writer, King does not ever waste your time. Fairy Tale is no exception. You forget (if you ever knew) just how fine a line there is between horror and fairytales. Fairy Tale will remind you. A nice follow up to Starling House. 4.5 stars really. Definitely a very satisfying read. If you don't read King because you think of him as only horror, but you do love modern fairy tales, this book was written for you.

You know how you're working on a big project and you're almost at the finish line and you start to get that feeling where you just want to scream because you're almost done, but there's still stuff to do?

That's how this book felt.

It was good, no doubt. The story was full of adventure and tension and love, but it just went on for so long. I'm glad to be done with it.

If the movie adaptation is done properly it could be genuinely incredible. Absolutely love the way you learn about the world of Empis alongside Charlie, instead of the usually fantasy situation of having to understand the world alone as the reader, as he is seeing everything for the first time just as you are. Loved this to death

Pretty underwhelming for King's usual standards.

This book was such an interesting combination where the first half of the book is a non-magic but compelling story of a boy, Charlie, helping an old man and his dog while recovering from his father's bout of alcoholism and the death of his mother. The second half of the book feels like a whole new story, with a fantasy world, a kingdom ruled by an evil king, a damsel-in-distress princess, and Charlie transforming into a prince out of a fairy tale. I enjoyed both halves, but the first half with no fantasy elements was my favorite and established all my emotional attachment to the characters. The world that Charlie came from felt so deep and real with fleshed-out characters while many of the supporting characters in the fairytale world felt a bit too cutesy.

I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it.

I really enjoyed this! I found it a little slow to start, and kind of disorientating for two reasons. 1) Unlike many (most?) of King's books, this isn't set in Maine, but in Illinois (my home state), so it felt pretty close to home. 2) The protagonist is a high school kid, in high school at roughly the same year that I graduated high school. This caused some odd friction when King writes about “opening up Safari” or “going to the Tube” or “everything's on the Net” which is “awesome sauce.”

Thankfully, once the story gets going, we get into stuff that is much more in the ol' wheelhouse and this turns into a lovely fairy tale of fairy tales. I had a lot of fun reading this.

First 1/3 is great. The world building, character development, watching the relationship grow between the old man, the dog, and Charlie. Then the story shifts... and loses some focus. As I learned from Under the Dome, when the path of the story and outcome is less certain to the author, King has a way of circling back and repeating parts of the story...there isn't story progression so much as looping and rehashing and then some forward movement. Rinse and repeat. Charlie also seemed less like a 17 year old and more like a seasoned older adult...that became more of an issue the story progressed.
Not bad, but definitely not my fav.

Well that took me ages to read! I liked the start of the book more than when Charlie went to Empis. The characters from fairy tales made the book fun.
I was going to read another long book next for a challenge I'm doing but think I'll read something else first.

A little wibbly wobbly in the middle but the start and finish were fantastic! Plus how can you not love Radar! I enjoyed the twisting of old fairy tales and how they got the King treatment!

Overall I enjoyed this quite a bit

“You get used to the amazing, that's all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it's in your world, you go with it. It's wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it's sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that's not black magic, I don't know what is.”

I loved the first part of the book, King gets the reader to buy in to the story with great character development! Charlie and his dad's relationship is full of so much love (and forgiveness). Charlie carries the story, but I loved him in the real world, not the parallel world- either world, Charlie is a hero in the fight of good versus evil. I think many readers will love the parallel world, but it was a bit too fantastical for me and went on a bit too long.

Typical Stephen King coming of age story, about a boy, who is too nice and too smart for his age, and an old man, who reluctantly becomes his mentor.

So the first part of this book is really good, where we meet the characters, and we understand that the old man is hiding a secret about gold and monsters, and that he may be older than he seems. So we follow the boy as he helps the old man and discover a portal to a new world. In this new world there is a fountain of youth, that he wants to use to put his dog on it. So it is a quest to another world to save his dog.

Spoiler
So he does it, he saves her. But when he is trying to leave, he gets capture and is put on jail. Since that moment the story falls very flat. The story stops being just him and his dog, but there is a prophecy of the prince from another world, a revolution and oppressed town people. And I didn't like it. There are like 10 other characters in jail with him, and they have to fight till death and only one will survive. But I didn't care about any other characters, they'll just die and nothings happens. Then they just escaped and kill the Giant with one bullet. And, I don't remember the end, it was anticlimactic.

He comes back home, after months missing, and seals the portal so no one can come through again.

A bit disappointed by this instalment from King, especially after the heaps of praise showered on it. I was really enjoying the set-up but as soon as the story moved locations I felt like it ground to a halt and lost all interest. Worst of all is that felt too predictable from the middle onwards.