Fairy Tale
By Stephen King
Scribner, 9781668002179, September 2022, 608pp.
The Short of It:
My prediction is that lovers of fantasy will absolutely love Fairy Tale. However, that is not me.
The Rest of It:
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours. ` Indiebound
Although the fantasy elements didn’t win me over, the main character and dog did. Charlie Reade is probably right up there with my favorite King characters. And Radar, his aging canine sidekick, made me like this book even though the fantasy parts didn’t score any points with me. The one thing that is always true, is that King is a heck of a storyteller. He pulls me right in and I keep drinking his Kool-aid. Willingly.
While Charlie is caring for his injured neighbor, he stumbles across a mysterious shed, hears some strange sounds and becomes all too aware of how Radar reacts to those noises. Who is in that shed? What is in that shed and what could his neighbor Mr. Bowditch be hiding?
I may be the only reader to notice this but I found some similarities between Fairy Tale and Murakami’s Killing Commendatore and The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. At one point Fairy Tale felt very familiar to me and yet it wasn’t at all what I expected from King. It was at this point that I began to skim a little. It’s a chunk of a book and it felt a tad repetitive but I also wanted to finish it.
Have you read it? What are your thoughts? King fans might be surprised by this one but fans of fantasy might find a new favorite in Fairy Tale.
Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.
Book Chatter 
I used to read everything I could get my hands on by King, but haven’t in the last few years. Don’t know if I’d like this book or not.
My husband had the same reaction as you. It starts off so well, typical SK, but it gets bogged down about halfway in. I’ll probably still read it. First up though, I have Billy Summers in my stacks.
Billy Summers is wonderful. I heard that Fairy Tale was awesome on audio but I can very rarely handle audio without going astray.
I don’t think of King as a fantasy writer so it’s interesting to see this book. But, like you, it probably isn’t for me since I am not much of a fantasy fan.
I’m not a fantasy reader, but I really was sucked into this story. I think it was Charlie and Radar that kept me going. I couldn’t put it down, but I also had the audio, and the narrator was brilliant.
I heard that the audio version is amazing.