stephen king
Short Book Wrap Up #2
Sunday, 3 November 2019 • book review, book wrap-up, books, short books, stephen king
It’s time for the second Short Book Wrap Up and this one has a theme! It’s all Stephen King books so yay! That’s right, while Stephen King may be known for super huge books (like The Stand, It, and Under The Dome), he does quite a few short novels and novellas too. I’ve read a few of those in the past year so why not put them all into one blog? If I’m being honest, Carrie is closer to a standard size novel than the other two, but compared to some of his epic tomes, it’s a short book.
Full disclosure, I’m a huge Stephen King fan. You may already know this if you’re a fan of my podcast Future Flicks with Billiam or if you read one of my other King reviews like my Dreamcatcher review. So I went into all of these books with a love of King and his work and while I try not to let my preconceived notions cloud my judgement, I still feel I must admit that I’m a huge Stephen King mark. So here we go with three short books from the master of horror and thrillers, Stephen King.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
This book has a very simple premise that we’re all quite familiar with. A kid named Trisha goes on a hike with her dysfunctional family and gets separated from her family and thus, lost. She has only two things to help her find her way out of the forest. Her wits, and Boston Red Sox relief pitcher, number 36, Tom Gordon. Along the way she must overcome many obstacles like hunger, thirst, injury, and a mysterious creature she’s never seen, but leaves behind bloody animal bits as proof of its existence.
This is and isn’t your typical Stephen King book. It is, because his writing style is very unique and unmistakable. It isn’t because it’s more of a standard fiction/moderate thriller book than anything remotely scary. While this book isn’t his best work, not by a long shot, it’s also not bad. It was an quick enjoyable read.
Trisha is a good main character who I came to like and support as the story went on. Her struggle and her well being became important to me as the book went on. She’s a kid and you never forget that. She’s not some wilderness expert or magically has a wealth of information that saves her life. She learns, makes mistakes, and she grows while taking you along for the ride.
If you like Stephen King, then pick this book up if you haven’t already. If you’re not a huge fan, maybe this is one of the few you’ll like due to it’s more general fiction nature. Either way, give it a shot.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon gets a 7 out of 11
Quick note about the books in this blog. Just something fun I noticed. They’re all linked to Castle Rock. If you’re not familiar with it, Castle Rock is a fictional town that King loves to use in his books kind of like Derry, Maine. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon has a brief mention of Castle Rock while the next two books take place in the fictional city.
Gwendy’s Button Box
This was a book that I stumbled upon at my local library. I had no idea this book was even released. I snatched it up as soon as I saw it and cracked it open once I got home. What I read… was weird.
What? Stephen King, weird? I know! Crazy, right? But this short book (clocking in at 171 pages) was based off an odd idea, but as usual, King spun a well written and thought out tale.
So this book is about twelve year old Gwendy who one day meets a mysterious man in black (Randal Flagg anyone?) in the park who gives her a magical box that has two buttons. Each button does something different and will change her life in different ways. The box and it’s powers seem innocuous but can have lasting consequences.
This story may have been based off an odd idea, but it turns into an enjoyable book. It’s one of those stories by King that’s good, but not great. Will I read it again? Maybe. Just because it’s short and has fun references to his other works. But I do believe that once is good enough.
I think this is a book that’s best saved for a fan of King instead of a fist venture into the pantheon of his work. It’s good, but I think I was ready to like it more than a non-King fan would be.
Gwendy’s Button Box gets a 7 out of 11
Carrie
This was Stephen King’s first book. The one he famously threw away after rejection after rejection and his wife Tabitha took it out of the trash and convinced him to keep trying. Lo and behold, he got published and thus started his journey to becoming one of the most prolific writers of the current era.
You probably know what Carrie is about, especially since it’s been turned into a movie twice and has been around since 1974. But just in case, here’s my version of the premise. Carrie White is very unpopular is school. So much so that she gets relentlessly bullied, even by people who normally wouldn’t partake in such cruel acts. Her home life isn’t much better. Her crazy evangelical mother swears that everything in a sin and forces Carrie to repent for everything, including the powers that Carrie has that must be a curse from the devil. Can Carrie keep her cool despite all the outside influence? Or will she break, unleashing her powers?
Okay, we all know the answer to that question. To be fair, you probably know the answer to that question even if you’ve never read it or seen one of the two movies (three if you count the sequel).
The important difference that I noticed between the movie and the book is how well developed the character of Sue Snell is. Sue, if you’re not familiar, is the popular girl in school who finds herself taking part in teasing Carrie and later wonders what came over her. In the movie Sue is a basic character. Not bad but not overly developed. But in the book she’s much more relatable and just a better character.
What impressed me about this book is that King didn’t make Christianity one of the bad guys seeing as a crazy evangelical is one of the main characters. He makes it clear that it’s not Christianity that’s inherently evil, but the person who’s practising it that warps the teachings into fanaticism. People are the bad guys in this. People are what drive Carrie to the edge.
If you enjoyed the movie at all, if this seems even a little interesting to you, pick this up. It’s a quick read that tells a good story and does a better job of fleshing it all out. The movie isn’t bad at all. The 1976 film is a classic. But the book is better.
Carrie gets a 9 out of 11
Pet Sematary by Stephen King | Book Review
• book review, horror, stephen king
I had read Pet Sematary when I was in elementary school and couldn’t remember a single thing about it. In all honesty my childish self may have skimmed the book being uninterested, at that time, by the character building in the first half. With the new movie coming out, it was time to revisit the sematary and reintroduce myself to the story before the movie came out. So what did I think of what is believed to be one of King’s scariest books? Here’s my review.
Let me start by saying I really enjoyed this book. I think I liked it more than IT. That being said, Pet Sematary wasn’t scary. Not even a little. Maybe I’m just too used to horror. It’s a genre I enjoy a lot but find myself rarely scared by a film. The last film to actually scare me was Annabelle Creation. Of course the Conjuring-verse is probably the most solid group of horror films ever made. So since I’m so used to horror, maybe I’m a bit desensitized to it. I love Michael Myers, but he’s not scary. Freddy’s great. Not scary.
Even though I don’t believe this book is nearly as scary as people historically believe, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, this is probably one of Stephen Kings best examples of characterization, world building, and plot development. This is one of his best books, period.
The first act of the book is mostly getting to know the Creeds. Louis, Rachel, Ellie, and Gage all became very familiar as the book goes on so I got really invested in their story. I even felt like I knew their neighbors, Jud and Norma Crandall as well. I would have been happy if it was just a slice-of-life story about these two families. But alas, it wasn’t meant to be. There’s a lot that does happen in the first act. Some moments that could be considered scary or tense happened but I read them with a sort of detached feeling. It was like when someone tells you a joke and you understand why it’s funny and you may even say “that’s funny” but you don’t laugh. We also get introduced to the Sematary in the first act and it’s power and, along with that, plenty of foreshadowing. So much foreshadowing that I almost consider it a six or sevenshadow… that joke working for anyone? No. Cool. Let’s move on.
The second act is where things pick up, mostly. A big event happens and the story focuses on Louis and the power of the sematary. And I’m happy to report that the power of the sematary isn’t just what we all know it can already do. There’s more to it too. It’s a bigger power that slowly gets revealed as the story progresses. So even if you go into this book having watched one of the movies, don’t worry, there are still secrets left to find.
As a whole, it’s a well written and well fleshed out plot that has a whip-crack fast ending after the final mistake is made but our hero. Normally I would hate a story that ended so abruptly but it all worked and it was realistic… well… as realistic as a story about a sematary that can bring back the dead can be. It would have felt odd, like the pacing was off, had the ending been drawn out anymore. It had to be quick. But just because it’s quick doesn’t mean it’s anything less than the ending the book needed.
This was a really good story that’s only downfall is that it doesn’t live up to the horror hype, but that’s really it. This is a good general fiction book with mild supernatural and horror elements. If you’re looking to be scared, watch a movie. But if you want good book, then this is for you.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King gets a 10 out of 11
Dreamcatcher by Stephen King | Book & Movie Review
• book review, featured, movie review, stephen king
I’ve said this before and I’ll probably say it every time I do a review of anything Stephen King related. He’s written a lot of books. Some of them are very well known like IT, The Stand, 11/22/63, or The Dark Tower series. But others aren’t so well known. Dreamcatcher falls somewhere in the middle of that. Everyone I’ve mentioned it to reacts about the same way. “Oh yeah! I forgot about that one.” The reason that so many people may recognize the name of this book could be that either they’re avid readers, or they remember when the movie came out, and have since forgot about it.
So happy. So full of optimism.
I’ve both read the book and watched the movie so I thought I’d do a rare book and movie review. Let’s get the premise out of the way so you’ll know what it’s about. A group of four men, friends since childhood, are on their yearly hunting trip. One of the friends stumbles upon a lost and confused man and he decides to help him out and bring him back to their cabin. That’s the beginning of the end. What they don’t know is that an alien ship has crashed in the forest and is spreading a quickly growing fungus that takes over anyone who gets in contact with it, and the lost man has been infected. The four old friends get caught up in the middle of a situation that seems like it has no good way out, but something they did when they were children, a good deed, may just help them in the present day.
Dreamcatcher: The Movie
Even though the book came out before the movie did, I want to talk about the movie first because I want to end this blog on a high note.
Dreamcatcher is a movie from 2003 directed by Lawrence Kasdan. The screenplay was written by William Goldman and Lawrence Kasdan and it stars Thomas Jane (Deep Blue Sea), Damian Lewis (Homeland), Timothy Olyphant (Santa Clarita Diet), Jason Lee (My Name Is Earl), Morgan Freeman (Se7en), Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan), and Donnie Wahlberg (Blue Bloods).
This movie has all signs pointing to it being a good movie. Kasdan is known for movies like The Big Chill, Wyatt Earp, and French Kiss. Those are good movies. William Goldman was written movies like Butch Cassity and the Sundance Kid, All The Presidents Men, The Princess Bride, and The Ghost and the Darkness. More good movies. The cast is made up of good actors. The book its based on is a classic Stephen King novel. So what went wrong?
I’ll tell you what went wrong. They tried to cram a six hundred and seventeen page tome into a two hour and fourteen minute movie. It’s a big book and the movie, while it was a standard length, couldn’t even begin to tackle the story King told in the pages of his book.
The acting was good, probably the best part of the movie. But The story never got off the ground. It had to move too fast and, as a result, I never once cared about anyone. More of King’s work should either be broken into two movies like IT was (both times), or a show or mini-series because King’s stories are so deep and require more than a couple hours to tell a story.
This was a bad movie and I hate to say that in considering the pedigree of the cast. Even if you read and love the book. Even if you finish it and need more of it in your life, don’t watch this movie. It’s not worth your time. The only good thing this movie did was put faces to the characters so my lazy ass didn’t have to imagine them myself.
I figure that if I never read the book, I may have given this movie a higher score. But after reading the book I was so disappointed that I was unable to separate the two. Either way, it’s not a good movie and would have received, at best, a 5.
Dreamcatcher gets a 3 out of 11
Dreamcatcher: The Book
Okay. Let’s talk about something good. In fact, let’s talk about something great. Dreamcatcher by Stephen King is a commitment (though not as big of one as The Stand or IT is) but it’s well worth it.
The premise is the same so I have nothing to add there. But lucky for us, the book does. This book tells a well thought out and well paced story that kept me turning the pages night after night until it all finished. One problem some people have with Mr. Kings work is his love of diving into the history and back stories of places and characters that we don’t really need. Those of us who love King’s work don’t mind that facet of his style but those who aren’t huge fans or are on the fence with his work may find that part of his style a little exasperating. I bring that up because I believe that Dreamcatcher avoids what books like IT had so much of. He dives deep like he normally does, but he reigns it in a bit more than with his lengthier work. Do we really need the back story of someone who’s going to die moments after being introduced? No we don’t.
I found the ending to this book to be a tad (just a tad) predictable but I’m happy to say that I didn’t fully guess it. The path the story took is a path that I saw coming based on the foreshadowing in the characters’s pasts but how it all ended wasn’t what I predicted.
One thing I really enjoyed about the book was how the story jumped between the childhood and the present day for the characters and that you can see how they became the adults they did. It’s at times inspiring when you see that these childhood friends are still close. At times it’s also heartbreaking when you see those friends that got left behind.
Oh! Here’s something I forgot to mention in the movie section. I think the writers had sh*t for brains, not only because they did a hack job on a great story, but they messed up the ending too. Don’t worry, there will be no spoilers here. All I’ll say is that they completely changed how one character affected the story and in the dumbest way possible. It actually made me angry when the finale happened because it didn’t give the same satisfaction the ending of the book did.
The ending of the book did get a little odd, but it fit. And even though it was odd, it wasn’t stupid. The writers of the movie took the odd but good ending and turned it into a giant joke.
It wasn’t even a fair fight. The movie didn’t stand a chance.
This book was enjoyable from beginning to end and kept me invested the whole time. It’s not King’s best work, but that doesn’t mean it was bad at all. I could list a bunch of his books that were better, but this was still good.
Also, if you’re a Stephen King fan, or even just remotely familiar with his work, you’ll enjoy the tiny Easter eggs he drops in his work. The main characters were born and raised in Derry, Maine. Sound familiar? There’s a radio station they sometimes listen to that comes out of Castle Rock. That’s one of the best parts of reading a book by King is trying to find all of these small hints at his greater universe. One of his short stories called UR is linked, ever so slightly, to the Dark Tower series. Pet Sematary has mention of a rabid dog in the town of Castle Rock. Cujo anyone?
But I digress, Dreamcatcher is a good book but if you’re not familiar with King’s work I would suggest picking up something like 11/22/63 or The Stand first. They may be epically long books, but they’re some of his best.
Dreamcatcher was good and I recommend it. It’s a good story that manages to avoid being as long and drawn out as some of his other works but it still tells a complete and enjoyable story.
Dreamcatcher by Stephen King gets an 9 out of 11
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