As I Lay Reading

Book Reviews & Occasional Author and Book - Fangirling

My Experience with Stephen King Books

June 1, 2016 By Kellie Leave a Comment

Stephen King Books

I may have said this before, but I had never really been a Stephen King fan before now.

My first experience with King’s work was back in the 90’s, when tv-movie adaptations of some of his books were released. I enjoyed the on-screen versions of “The Stand” and “Sometimes They Come Back”–  just to name a couple. I found the stories and characters engaging.

Of course, as most people often say (myself included), the book is usually better because it includes ALL details that fully bring the character or a story to life. Movies are limited to a 2-hour runtime, so the little things (and sometimes some of the bigger things) are left out to compress the main point into a 2-hour time block. Which sucks, because sometimes those little details are important to the relationship between characters or helped define a certain character’s direction. Take “The Hunger Games” series, for instance. In the books, Katniss remembers Peeta as the boy with the bread. It was a pivotal moment between the two characters (in their past) that helped forge the initial bond between them in the story. That was lost in the movie but I digress.

I had tried to read “The Stand” more than a couple of times. It was hard. My young mind couldn’t wrap itself around all of the complications that surrounded the telling of   a good story. There were so many details and characters to keep track of. Just when I was taken down one rabbit hole for a character or group of characters, another character would be introduced and so I had to re-route. In that way, I found it was hard to care. For me, I have to care in order to keep reading. Needless to say, I couldn’t muster up the same curiosity and care for “The Stand” in book form as I had with the movie, so I put it down — never to be reopened.

I stayed far away from Stephen King novels after that. Despite that he was a huge commercial success, I just wasn’t that into his work — though I loved the movie adaptations of his novels.

Then came King’s novel 11/22/63. The premise of this story fascinated me. I am a history-buff. I have always been fascinated by the JFK assassination and all of the theories that surround it.

This book had been rated highly on Amazon (I consume book reviews because I don’t want to waste time on a bad read) and there seemed to be a lot of excitement in the lit community about it. I decided to give Stephen King another chance. I am so glad that I did!

11/22/63 is probably one of my favorite books, ever. If you are interested, you can read the review I wrote. Only after reading this novel did I decide that maybe… just maybe all was not lost with Stephen King. At 30 years old, I could pick up another King novel and get through it… couldn’t I?

Then, I read Mr. Mercedes and Salem’s Lot. I genuinely liked both books. However, i’ve gotta say, while they both embrace King’s unique and polished writing style, they were written differently. In Mr. Mercedes, the story (similar to 11/22/63) focused on the characters. In Salem’s Lot, the story was focused on building the town and the characters were fleshed out through that development, but mainly the story centered on the town. In 11/22/63, the story focused on the characters and plot first and then developed further around a wonderful little town in Texas.

I enjoyed Salem’s Lot and Mr. Mercedes but I didn’t enjoy the stories more than 11/22/63. In fact, neither King book inspired me to want to read another one the way that 11/22/63 did. With that novel, I read for hours straight. I couldn’t bear to put it down.

Here’s the thing… I don’t just want to like King’s books, I want to love them! So far, out of the 3 books that I have read (well, 4 if you count my attempt to read “The Stand”), one was a heavy favorite while the other two were just “okay”. They had moments where I couldn’t put them down, but more moments where I struggled to read more than 10 minutes at a time. I want to get lost in a book and not just feel like I have to give it an obligatory read.

Will I ever become a Stephen King fan? I don’t know. At this point, i’m still too new to his work to really make that judgement. I do know that i’m not ready to give up on him yet.

Are you a fan of Stephen King? What are your favorite books?

 

 

The Blackstone Chronicles

March 12, 2014 By Kellie Leave a Comment

blackstone-chronicles-john-saul

I finally finished reading The Blackstone Chronicles by John Saul.  It took me about 3 weeks to read this one, though not for lack of effort (just a lot going on).

The story is comprised of about 6 novellas — with a total length of about 544 pages.

The story takes place in a town called Blackstone, which is located in New Hampshire.  As the story opens, we find that the town has an old asylum that is set to be torn down so that a new mall can be put in its place.  We are introduced to a very sinister unnamed / unknown character that sends anonymous cursed “gifts” to some of the people in the town.

There are 6 anonymous cursed gifts in all and each novella / story centers around each gift.  Each gift centers around a story or memory of the asylum.

The book opens with the story of the cursed doll.  Our unknown sinister character recalls a story surrounding the doll and a little boy who dressed and thought of himself as a little girl.   Not only did the little boy realize that his true nature was that of a little girl, but the mother also saw the boy’s true nature and treated him like a girl when the father was not around.  The child’s father was outraged and sent the child to the asylum where she was exposed to horrendous shock therapy and other cruel forms of treatment.  The doll was left behind and many moons later anonymously delivered to the home of Bill and Elizabeth McGuire.  A series of unfortunate evil events happen to the McGuire family after they receive the doll.

The McGuire family’s misfortunes seem to be the kickoff to the other tragedies that happen as a result of the cursed gifts.

The Blackstone Chronicles by John Saul was a pretty good book, all in all.  There were stories that kept my attention (like “The Doll”) and other stories that didn’t fully catch my attention until I was well into them.  If you’ve ever read a John Saul novel, you will recognize that this story (like some of his other stories) follows a familiar formula.  I found myself enjoying the back story of the Asylum much more than the story in some cases.

My Rating For The Blackstone Chronicles:

3-star

 

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