by Stephen King
A Horror, 1975 by Doubleday, 483 Pages
What I Didn’t Like:
- This book introduces the worst in average people before slamming into more fantastical horror. You encounter child abuse, adultery, spousal abuse, and other monstrosities. It’s tough to read at times.
- Lots of extensive description. Sometimes it feels like too much information.
- Lots of characters that can be tricky to keep track of. This is a full town and a full cast. Sometimes a character will pop back in and the reader will have to go back and try to find where else they were mentioned.
What I Did Like:
- King does a remarkable job of highlighting the fact that this is a normal town with normal people going about a normal day early on in the story. It’s honestly where he does his best work. This could be any small town anywhere, which makes the horrific introduction of vampires that much more shocking.
- The doubt that practically everyone has for the mythical creatures is well written. It would be shocking if everyone were an expert or if everyone just believed it. This is more natural and realistic.
- The vibe is very similar to Bram Stoker’s famous vampire book, which was the inspiration for this one. It’s not easy to capture the vibe of something else so succinctly and considering the source material, this is high praise.
Who Should Read This One:
- Fans of Dracula who want something a bit more modern.
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