Posts Tagged ‘Stephen King

07
May
18

Goodreads Review: Sleeping Beauties

By Kaine Andrews 3 Comments
Categories: Book Reviews and Living Conditions
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Sleeping BeautiesSleeping Beauties by Stephen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I don’t know what went wrong, here. I suspect the youngest King sibling just isn’t up to the snuff of his father and older brother.

While reading this, I frequently felt as though the two authors were fighting for control. One would go off on a tangent of limited importance, often garbled by what felt like overblown political correctness, and in the next handful of pages you could almost physically feel someone grabbing hold of the helm and dragging it back to course… painfully, and not always successfully.

The premise – every woman in the world falls asleep and goes into a cocoon, what happens now? – is interesting enough, but I felt the execution was frequently lacking. Most sequences felt as though I’d seen them, in better shape, elsewhere; by the halfway point I was wondering if Owen dug through dad’s junk drawer, pulled out a pile of random first draft pages of other books – especially Under the Dome, The Stand and Cell – then asked dad to help him glue them together somehow. It sounds kind of harsh to put it that way, but…

I found the whole thing difficult to care about. There were dozens of characters, but unlike other King works where a large cast – like The Stand, ‘Salem’s Lot, or the Dark Tower saga – features, I had difficulty telling them apart. Most of them were faceless and interchangeable, and descriptives for the majority of them only came when a hammer was about to be brought out for a bit of virtue signaling. Clint and Lila are well done and interesting, but their marital conflict feels forced and stupid, and blows over way too easily, leaving you asking yourself what the point of it was.

The last gripe about the characters comes in the form of who one might arguably call the “main” character of the book; Evie Black. Without spoiling much, she’s the key to everything, and has the standard set of mystic mumbo-jumbo for the magic MacGuffin. She has the potential to be interesting, but despite having several chapters from her POV and multiple other characters commenting on her emotional state, we never really get to understand what she’s doing. She seems to be playing both sides against the middle for no reason, despite obvious distaste for it and sympathy on both sides. If there was some more insight into her motives, her nature, or what the hell she was actually hoping to accomplish, it might have been better off.

And then there’s the ending. We’re treated to roughly twenty pages of staccato notes on what everybody did after things were resolved, feeling like one of those 80’s movies that puts text over still images of the main characters, only even less satisfying. It’s not their fates that are the problem; it’s the presentation.

All in all, I feel this wasn’t really worth my time. It was… okay, at best. Maybe worth grabbing if it’s on the cheap or you absolutely MUST have everything King has written, but probably skippable otherwise.

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28
Feb
18

Goodreads Review: Joyland

By Kaine Andrews Leave a Comment
Categories: Book Reviews and Living Conditions
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JoylandJoyland by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joyland’s premise is simple; drop an unsuspecting college kid on the edge of a nervous breakdown into a (potentially haunted) amusement park, toss in a damsel in distress, an unsolved murder (or four…) and maybe a ghost or two, let the mess sort itself out.

Fairly standard King, in other words. And it’s not all that inaccurate; Joyland is indeed like much of King’s backlog. Take one depressed post-teenager, a semi-mundane (but slightly surreal) setting, add spooks, and stir. But like most King novels, there’s a lot more under the hood if you stop to look.

Dev Jones comes to Joyland one summer to put some cash in his pocket and get a little perspective on life. When he joins the rest of Team Beagle at the dog-themed amusement park, we’re given a vivid description of carnival terminology and a slice of a life beyond what most of us will ever be used to. Unlike most of his fellow “greenies,” Dev takes to it with a will, even requesting that he stay on for the off season, taking a semester off from college (and away from his cheating ex-girlfriend). The local fortune-teller’s cryptic warnings, and the friendship Dev forms with Mike, Annie and Milo Ross along with the whispers of a ghost haunting the Horror House certainly help make that decision as well.

To say much more would likely give the game away, but the point of it is this: The on-top story (about friendship with Annie, Milo and Mike and digging into the murder in the park) is just paint. Joyland is really about living, growing up, the scabs and scars that get inflicted on us in our youth and what we do with them as adults. And those moments that, as King puts it, “are treasure. They’re precious. They shine.” Hidden underneath all the carny-talk and whodunit questions, you see Dev trying to rebuild himself, to be a better man… and from the occasional interjections of his older self (who’s telling us this story) you see the places where he succeeded… and where he failed. Joyland will rest happily alongside IT and ‘Salem’s Lot as a testament to those ideals, to childhood and learning to grow up – or thinking you had, only to see that it’s all still there, from that first kiss with the girl next door to the fear of the boogeyman under the bed or in the closet – and the bittersweet taste of your childhood’s departure. It’s about feeling something, and that always has been what King does best… even without a parade of beasts.

I recommend this one to anybody, but especially to people who like a good whodunit or ghost story, and those looking to be punched right in the feels, as the internet is fond of saying these days. Joyland makes you care about Mike Ross, Laura Gray and Dev Jones, and the epilogue is more touching and somehow right than any thousand romances or “heartwarming stories” that clog the shelves these days. Check it out.

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28
Feb
18

Goodreads Review: NOS4A2

By Kaine Andrews Leave a Comment
Categories: Book Reviews and Living Conditions
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NOS4A2NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh, NOS4A2. I will miss you so, now that our time is done.

I have to say, I enjoyed this immensely; I came to it with a bit of trepidation, motivated mostly by curiosity, given that the author is Stephen King’s son. Snatched up alongside Heart-Shaped Box, I think NOS4A2 must now take its place amongst my favorite books. Whatever magic King found in his own youth could quite possibly be genetic, as it shines out in his son’s work as well.

The basics are easy enough: Vic McQueen (known to her father as “The Brat”) goes looking for trouble, and finds it, in the form of Charles Talent Manx. Vic has a knack for finding things; gifted with psychic abilities that draw her to the place where she can find what she wants most – so long as she is astride her favorite bike, at least – she’s found bracelets, a lost kitten and other objects. This time, it puts her in the hands of a psychotic who is also capable of traveling hidden roads. Manx – and his car, a vintage Rolls Royce with the ironic license plate of “NOS4A2” (say it phonetically) – has a habit of kidnapping children, draining whatever it is that makes them human, and depositing them in Christmasland, a wonderful amusement park where the fun (often in the form of games like scissors-for-the-drifter or bite-the-smallest) never ends. Besting Manx – with the assistance of an overweight bike mechanic and a few onlookers at the local general store – Vic proves the only victim to ever escape that fate.

Twenty years later, Manx is back. The years have taken their toll on Vic, and the psychic damage incurred by her too-frequent reality-bending trips through the “Shorter Way” on her bike have left her broken, half-psychotic, and barely able to care for herself, let alone her lover and son. When Manx steps in to take her child as vengeance, Vic has to rediscover her childhood talent to bring him back… before Wayne joins the other monstrous children in Christmasland.

All in all, a remarkable book, entertaining on multiple levels. The dialogue is spot-on, from Manx’s creepy (and vaguely bigoted) Southern Gentleman style to Tabitha (the FBI agent helping to look for Wayne)’s no-nonsense geek-girl authority. The characters are all entertaining and compelling, leaving the reader with definite ties towards each (and emitting a silent cheer each time one gets their just rewards, or mourning when things end poorly.)

What I found most interesting about the book were the callbacks – both deliberate statements and in general tone – to some of King’s work. This was perhaps made more obvious to me by my reading of Doctor Sleep not long before, but in many ways the two novels seem to have some mirrored themes… but while I felt Doctor Sleep missed a few boats and was entirely too tidy, NOS4A2 chimes properly. The pain of growing up and the sacrifices we have to make during the process; the loss of childhood wonder (and what too much of that wonder can do); the destruction of innocence and the consequences it holds later in life; growing to understand your parents, even if you can’t forgive them. All of those, plus the typical “we have to pretend this isn’t in any way autobiographical, so we’ll wrap it up in a story about psychic powers and freaky vampire-things!” remind this reader strongly of early King, and do it well. The children of Christmasland, and the disturbing thoughts they bring to mind – especially the discussion regarding “pure fun” essentially being “pure evil” – are some of the best “vampires” I’ve seen lately, and Manx and Bing make suitably gruesome antagonists (all the more so because they truly believe themselves to be doing good.)

Overall, I’d recommend the book to anyone who has a taste for horror but has been sadly starved of late, old-school King fans, someone looking for vampire themes without the glitter, and anyone who read Doctor Sleep and liked the ideas – child psychic atoning for the sins of the father and the self – but didn’t care for the execution.

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28
Feb
18

Goodreads Review: Doctor Sleep

By Kaine Andrews Leave a Comment
Categories: Book Reviews and Living Conditions
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Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ooooh, Doctor Sleep. What do I say about you? I suppose I should mention that The Shining was never one of my favorites, despite my rabid love of most things Stephen King. It had moments, sure, but for the most part I could have lived my life quite happily without input from Danny Torrance and his drunken, abusive father and milquetoast mother.

Of course, thirty-ish years later, I’m still shelling out to buy the sequel, so I suppose that says something, doesn’t it?

The premise? Danny Torrance isn’t coping so well. Despite plenty of sunshine, love from his mother and a bit of psychic assistance from his pal Dick Halloran (who, as longtime readers may remember, saved little “Doc”‘s bacon back in The Shining), he’s become exactly what he despised. A washed up drunk who thinks it’s totally okay to steal from a single mother, so long as he can keep enough antifreeze in his system to keep the psychic voices quiet. Of course, that doesn’t make for much of a compelling character nor a Stephen King plot, so after finally discovering he’s hit rock bottom, Danny gets himself into the program, finds himself a nice quiet town, and all seems to be coming up roses at last.

Except for the guilt, that is. And the occasional psychic flashes of a young girl (Abra) who’s going to need his help, and of something terrible waiting ahead, a woman in a top hat who is not to be trifled with.

Doctor Sleep leads us down some interesting byways about redemption and the responsibilities inherent to the guilty and those with power, and prods at the idea of the abused-becoming-abuser (whether it be a child or a substance) concept, and does most of it fairly well; the prose is as clean and quick as King’s usual fare, and the True Knot are certainly an interesting take on vampires. Rosie the Hat makes for a suitably crazy villain, and despite the sappiness of the blossoming relationship between Abra and Danny (that has more than it’s share of echoes and callbacks to Doc and Dick in the original book, deliberately so), it works well enough, with the possible exception of one little plot twist regarding Abra’s heritage that comes up in the last few pages; most readers will see it coming, and dread it, and when it’s finally confirmed, it’s facepalm worthy (and a coincidence of the sort that only happens in Stephen King novels, to paraphrase one of his other characters from another series) but you can mostly ignore it and continue on.

Then you get to the ending. Had the book just stopped as Danny and his friends prepared to saddle up and ride down to the Overlook (because of course the ghosts of the past have their hands in the troubles of the present; if there’s one thing this book is about, it’s that one cannot escape the past; surprisingly, it manages to convey this theme without becoming completely heavy handed about it, and half the callbacks will only ding the “aha” moment later, or if you go back and reread the first one), I think I might have liked it better. Had the finale played out a little differently, or had the ultra-sappy reunion scene not been forced upon us (and this seems to be a trend with Mr. King of late; see also the end of 11/22/63 or Joyland) it might also have remained fairly well regarded. Alas, with the War of the Worlds-esque defeat of the True Knot and far too much handholding in the epilogue, I was left with a bitter taste in my mouth.

Now, that nastiness aside, there’s things to like here; most of the characters are interesting and well fleshed out (Rosie the Hat in particular is quite a joy to read, for me; that probably says something about my warped state of mind, but oh well.) and the plot moves along at a decent clip without skipping around unnecessarily. Personally, I would have liked to see more development for the members of the Knot, more background and detail on their escapades (actually, a whole novel on the main crew in this book coming together would do well on my wish list, methinks), but for who we get, King does well.

Overall, if you’re looking for a good redemption story, or if you just have to know what became of Danny, Wendy and Dick after the events of The Shining, it’s worth a read; otherwise, it’s probably safe to pass it up. You aren’t missing much. Except the opportunity to look with morbid curiosity every time an RV full of old people on vacation drives by you on the freeway…

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