My Summer of Stephen King

Lately, I have been feeling nostalgic. Maybe it is being a parent. 

Maybe it is the summer ahead of me, already hot and sticky and reminding me of those summers

I spent in the cool air conditioning of the local library, surrounded by books.

Taking those books home and hunkering down with them in the heat of the day.

In those summers of my youth, I would read Stephen King. So much Stephen King.

I feel like it is time to revisit some of my favorites.

So, this summer I will be. 

Not all of his books, that would be impossible! But the ones that I really loved and really stuck with me. 

We all have our favorites, but here are mine.

   

It should be on this list, but I don't think my heart could take it this year. So I replaced it with Revival, which I have never actually read!

The Stand ~ You can't have a SK list without this book, it is not possible, Plus, does anyone else get a cold when they read it?

Bag of Bones~ I think this is maybe one of my all time favorite books. I read it aloud to my husband one summer. I just really loved this one. 

Desperation ~ My brother and I share a love for this book. Occasionally out of the blue we text each other random Tak En Las. 

Joyland ~ Love this one. I am picking it for my book club to read in July. Yay!

I hope I can handle these - I am easier to scare now than I used to be! I can add so many more to this list but I will never get through them in one summer, not now. The Shining, Tommyknockers, Needful Things, the list goes on and on. Not to mention the short story compilations!!

And for nostalgic reasons, I might as well throw in an Anne Rice, my favorite of her work.

What about you? Are there are any books or authors that remind you of summers past, those endless hours spent reading?

Book Review: Doctor Sleep

Title: Doctor Sleep
Author: Stephen King
Source: Personal Collection

Goodreads Summary:

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless—mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and spunky twelve-year-old Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the “steam” that children with the “shining” produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father’s legacy of despair, alcoholism, and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him, and a job at a nursing home where his remnant “shining” power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes “Doctor Sleep.”

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan’s own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra’s soul and survival. This is an epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of devoted readers of The Shining and satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.


My thoughts:

I tiptoed up to this book cautiously, for  two reasons. The first is, The Shining is so spectacularly amazing, how can there possibly be a sequel that compares to it, and the second more obvious reason, is that it will probably scare my socks off.  I don't know how I ever doubted the master of horror's abilities, but he definitely delivered in this book - there is no reason to fear this sequel. And I was right - this book certainly instilled fear and inspired nightmares. But of course, isn't that the reason you would reason a King book? For me, yes, yes it is, but it is still smart to proceed with caution, right? When you get a tattoo you know it is going to hurt, but you still want it.

While reading this book, I was reminded almost immediately of the thing that terrified me the most in The Shining - the woman in room 217, Mrs. Massey. When I read The Shining, she made me afraid to go into the bathroom, or pull back the shower curtain; in Doctor Sleep, we are reminded of her by a young Danny Torrance, and again, she made me a little afraid of bathrooms, especially if you have to get up in the middle of the night. I know this for a fact. Everyone I talked to had a different "scariest part" - my brother and his best friend were both freaked out by the "redrum" parts - and I feel badly about this, since I am positive I used to say it all the time to both of them, while moving my finger like in the movie. (Sorry guys) Others cited the moving topiaries, others the bartender. Whatever the flavor, we all agreed that The Shining was splendidly horrific. Doctor Sleep is a little different. It's not as in your face, except for a few places. It has its moments, but mostly you are just genuinely horrified by what could happen. At least this was the case for me.

We are reunited with Danny Torrance as an adult. Has he survived the terrors of that winter at the Overlook Hotel unscathed? Mmm not so much. And he is creating his own moments as an adult - one especially becomes the defining moment of his adulthood, the one thing he is trying to get past but can't get out of his head. He has some new ghosts now, blowing around in his mind.

The villains this time are not confined to a hotel and its grounds - they instead roam free over the country, in RV's,  motor homes, Winnebago's, and campers. Honestly, I won't look at someone driving one the same way again. Or at least, I might think twice. They call themselves the True Knot, and they are some crazy scary freaks. Their leader, Rose the Hat, is smart and wily, and psychotic and selfish. Interesting note here - Rose the Hat and her crew have dumped their actual legal names, which they call their rube names, and go by nicknames. Like pirates or vikings. And Danny has an alter ego as well, just in a different way. I just thought it was interesting too since in Joyland, King also refers to people not in the game as rubes.

We also meet Abra Stone, a magical young girl who has the shining, like Danny - or Dan as he is called in this book. Her powers are huge, and are attractive to the True Knot, for their own awful reasons. I don't want to give much of anything away, there is just so much story in this book, all the characters have their own thread, until the moment they start to intertwine, and the plot picks up its pace, running through the pages, with reader following like a rabbit after a carrot. There are surprises, revelations, and an ending that will blow your mind.

 I absolutely loved this book, and King remains one of my favorite authors of all time.

Joyland- Review

Title: Joyland
Author: Stephen King
Source: My copy

Goodreads Summary:

"I love crime, I love mysteries, and I love ghosts," says Stephen King, who has combined these elements into a wonderful new story. Joyland is a whodunit noir crime novel and a haunting ghost story set in the world of an amusement park.

It tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a 'carny' in small-town North Carolina and has to confront the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the way both will change his life forever. It is also a wonderful coming-of-age novel about friendship, loss, and your first heartbreak. Who dares enter the funhouse of fear?


My thoughts:

I loved this book so much; I didn’t want it to end! The feel of it was classic top of his game King. It put me in mind of Bag of Bones. Thinner, and The Body. The story was a sentimental and nostalgic coming of age story; there were triumphs and revelations and a bit of sadness too. The story is told from the point of view of Devin as a wistful older man, looking back at this summer, a monumental one that changed him forever.

In the summer of 1973, college student Devin Jones packed his suitcase and his broken heart and headed down south to work at an amusement park named Joyland. He flounders at first, but soon falls right into the pace and life of a carny – not carny from carny, but good enough, especially at wearing the fur. He is taken under the wing of experienced carny Lane, and makes friends with his fellow coworkers and boarding housemates, Tom and Erin. (I have to interject here – it was a little weird for me to read the names. My name is Erin and my brother’s name is Devin, so it was odd to keep reading our names.) Devin is trying to outrun his heartbreak at the hands of his ex-girlfriend, Wendy. He throws himself into his work, and when not working, either escapes from his memories of his relationship with her by hanging out with Erin and Tom or Lane, and if they are not around, by listening to depressing 70s music in his room. King hints at suicidal thoughts, but doesn’t necessarily go all the way there.


Joyland is a happy place, with music, the calls of the carnies, the whooshing and clacking of the rides, the screams and laughter of the children and other patrons of the park. But Joyland has a dark secret, the ghost of a young woman. A few years ago, a young woman was murdered on a ride, and the killer was never caught. Devin plunges headfirst into the mystery, wanting to solve the case. He also wants to see the ghost. She is said to haunt the Horror House – which is run by the cantankerous Eddie Parks. (Eddie is short for Edwin, Devin later finds out, and it is also Stephen King’s middle name)

Devin and his friends work to solve the mystery – much like Scooby Doo and his gang. There are moments of heroism, moments of friendship, a young boy who is confined to a wheelchair but is able to go far in his dreams, the young boy's dog, his mom, and a killer.



One thing though..we never find out what happened to his ex-girlfriend Wendy, and in the story Devin himself says he never heard from her again, not even to properly break up. Did anyone else think this ominous?

Read as part of R.I.P. VIII - Peril the First

The Wind Through the Keyhole - Review

Title: The Wind Through the Keyhole
Author: Stephen King
Source: my brother

Goodreads Summary:

In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling achievement.

Roland Deschain and his ka-tet—Jake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.

In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a “skin-man” preying upon the population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s never too old for stories,” Roland says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.” And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for all ages, a story that lives for us.

King began the Dark Tower series in 1974; it gained momentum in the 1980s; and he brought it to a thrilling conclusion when the last three novels were published in 2003 and 2004. The Wind Through the Keyhole is sure to fascinate avid fans of the Dark Tower epic. But this novel also stands on its own for all readers, an enchanting and haunting journey to Roland’s world and testimony to the power of Stephen King’s storytelling magic.

My thoughts:

I love the Gunslinger series, although I am a few books behind.  The Wind Through the Keyhole is number 4.5 in the series, according to King.  Which is precisely where I left off, on number 4.  

I loved this book.  It begins with Roland and his gang making their way along the beam, following Oy, and then they all have to take cover - the Starkblast was coming.  Oy, a billy-bumbler, has the ability to detect starkblasts, which are huge blizzard storms, where the wind blows so hard and so cold that anything living outside would die.  Roland and the others gather 'round the fire they have built inside an abandoned hotel, and Roland tells them a story, about one of his adventures when he was young.  

The cool part is that while Roland is telling the story to Jake, Susannah, and Eddie, the younger version of himself in his story, is telling another story, to another child.  A story within a story within a story, the Droste Effect, but with words.  I enjoyed both of the stories, but the story that the book gets its title from was the best.  A starkblast also happens in all three stories.  

King says in his prologue that even if you haven't read the series, you can read this book.   I can see why he says that, since there is not much actual advancement in the series, just Roland telling tales. King writes in his introduction as well the things he feels a reader should know before reading the book.  I have read books in the series, so I didn't have any problems with this one.  I would be curious to know what people think of the book if this is the only one they have read though.