Lisey's Story

Stephen King is an author I’ve wanted to read for a while. He is an absolute legend for how strong and prolific his bibliography is, and many people I trust list him as one of their top writers. At the same time I’ve always been intimidated by him due to the sheer volume of his work. Luckily I was given this for free and thus I can now say that I’ve read a Stephen King novel.

I’m glad to have done it too! Lisey’s Story is just a really cool read. It goes from heart-warming to terrifying to tear jerking very seamlessly. One of the things I’ve always heard in terms of King’s writing is how good he is at writing characters. After reading this I can certainly see why. He has a really firm grasp on every main character here to the point that it feels like they actually exist. The strength of his characters allows the bizarre plot to progress in a compelling way. King’s use of imagery is also fantastic, particularly when describing the surreal world known as Boo’Ya Moon. It feels like something straight out of the Twilight Zone and I’m sure I’ll see it in my dreams (and nightmares) for weeks to come.

There are weaknesses to this book. The main thing is that King really exaggerates accents to the point that I’m not even sure what I’m reading. I don’t think this book needs all the accents. There are also points where King lingers a bit too long on certain scenes. This book is over 500 pages but it could have been 450 with minimal issues. I don’t think the book is poorly edited, I just think some plot points didn’t need to drag on as long as they did.

I don’t know if I’ll be making another trip to Castle Rock, but my first time there was a very good one.

Once I finally got to the meat of the story (about halfway through the book), I liked the story. I hated all the goofy inside-joke words and phrases. I normally like a little of that but this was over the top. I hope I never read “smucked” or “smucking” one more fucking time in my life.

Sin dudas, de mis libros favoritos de Stephen King

Whew .. OK! I meant to read this one a long time ago but when it comes to Stephen King I HAVE to really want to read him. If you love this author .. you KNOW. It did take me a few to get into this one. I had to stop and start a few times, because I needed to reboot my mindset when cracking this one open.

While this wasn't a favorite of his for me, I still loved it. This man's writing is just so good and (for me at least) always offers much more than the supernatural, mysterious or horror. The fragility of our minds and the perceptions of what we make of our surroundings is on a whole other level when reading King.

I'm glad I finally yanked this off my shelf, no subtlety there

Yikes. I had a hard time getting thru this book. And, honestly, if it hadn???t been a King book, I would have given up. I found it tedious and boring, which is a shame because I usually love Stephen King???s writing. My mind wandered often and because of that, I often found myself confused. Perhaps I will give this book another chance in the future (a lot of folks on here seem to love it), but I think it???ll be a long, long time before I do.

Ok this is hands down my favorite King book I have read so far. As is the case with all of Kings books I went into this book blind so I knew nothing about what it was supposed to be about. I was reading this with the #KeeperofKing group on Instagram and we read it in three parts. IN the discussion for the first part we all pretty much said the same thing. We were really into the story although we hadn't really been able to figure out what was going on. After that I got sucked in more and more as I read it. Nicholas Sparks' said it perfectly “It's a love story done Stephen King style” The emotions in this book were so palpable that I found myself tearing up. Also this is Stephen Kings best ending. At least from the books I've read. I always say he has issues getting the endings right in his books but this one ended perfectly for me. I just loved absolutely everything about this book. 

This long, fat book had me stymied for the maybe two-thirds of the book, but I hung in there and the payoff was well worth it. I only give it four stars because I know it was a struggle to get to the payoff. At first, I accused King's editor of doing him an injustice, but the end of the book clarifies that in his acknowledgements. It says:

“Quite often reviewers of novels–especially novels by people who sell great numbers of books–will say, ‘So-and-so would have benefitted from actual editing.' To those tempted to say it about LISEY'S STORY, I would be happy to submit sample pages from my first-draft manuscript, complete with [his editor's] notes. I had first-year French essays that came back cleaner.”

So, the mystery was intentional. I'm not sure if the narrator was supposed to be unreliable, but that's how it felt to me.

“...the yellow thread of memory...”: very sharp foreshadowing

Note for myself: “Sh-Boom” was written and recorded by The Chords; the white versions that did well were the covers by The Billy Williams Quartet and The Crew-Cuts

The reason it took me so long to finish this book, after a couple of starts and much time, was my misreading of Lisey. The beginning of the novel reads, to me, like a famous widow's bragging to self-soothe through grief: that's right, he was my man, the world was jealous. But it's a false facade if you hang on...and if you pay attention to details, such as how very difficult Scott actually was as a spouse...and the much more subtle fact that Scott and Lisey appear to have no friends outside of each other...
Then it becomes another, richer novel entirely.

Ninety-eight percent of what goes on in people's heads is none of their smucking business.

It's the pool where we all go down to drink, to swim, to catch a little fish from the edge of the shore; it's also the pool where some hardy souls go out in their flimsy wooden boats after the big ones. It is the pool of life, the cup of imagination, and she has an idea that different people see different versions of it, but with two things ever in common: it's always about a mile deep in the Fairy Forest, and it's always sad. Because imagination isn't the only thing this place is about. It's also about (giving in) waiting. Just sitting...and looking out over those dreamy waters...and waiting. It's coming, you think. It's coming soon, I know it is. But you don't know exactly what and so the years pass.

I think most kids have a place they go to when they're scared or lonely or just plain bored. They call it NeverLand or the Shire, Boo'ya Moon if they've got big imaginations and make it up for themselves. Most of them forget.

She had come to believe that the very things the practical world dismissed as ephemera—things like songs and moonlight and kisses—were sometimes the things that lasted the longest. They might be foolish, but they defied forgetting. And that was good. That was good.

So many long nights when the mind of something...other...might turn to a person, if that person could not keep her mind from turning to it. And how, exactly, did you keep from doing that? How did you not think of somethin?

I used to read King all the time, anticipating his new releases like J.K. Rowling's fans did with the Harry Potter novels. But I burned out on him right about when The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon came out. In any case, when I picked this up it had been a very long time since I'd read a Stephen King novel, and I was a bit wary going in.

I was floored. This is not just a Stephen King scary-thriller book. This is a love story. One that is particularly compelling, considering that one half of the couple is dead from the very get-go.

I laughed, I worried, I devoured these pages like a kid who just got her braces off devours bubblegum and popcorn... and when I got to the last page I burst into tears. Big, sloppy, tears. I wasn't even expecting them; they just happened. Stephen King won me back with this book, and I think that says everything that needs to be said.