Horror | Book Chatter

Misery
By Stephen King
(Signet Book, Mass Market Paperbound, 9780451169525, 352pp.)

The Short of It:

Annie Wilkes is Paul Sheldon’s #1 fan and when she finds her favorite author on the side of the road, injured in a car crash, she takes him home to “nurse” his wounds.

The Rest of It:

It’s King! And this one is a doozy. I’d forgotten the ending even though I’ve read it twice before and seen the movie so reading this book for the third time was like reading it for the first time.

Why did I read it again? This.

#MiseryRAL

I am a total sucker for read alongs involving Uncle Stevie. As long as my eyes are not scratched up by a hair brush, I will say yes. That’s all I’m saying about that. So when Care asked, I of course said yes.

The book. Wow. I had forgotten how intense the story is but I was quickly reminded just a few pages in. I won’t go into details because if you haven’t read it, you really must. Basically, Annie is nuts and when she finds Paul Sheldon on the side of the road, injured and needing help, she steps in and takes it a little too far.

Annie Wilkes is quite the character and King takes great pleasure in sharing all her cockadoodie mannerisms and oogie hygiene habits. Those words are sprinkled throughout the book, numerous times and every time I heard them, I got chills up my back. They are SO Annie.

And Paul, not as helpless as you think but still, what a predicament to be in. Trapped, injured and having to rely on Annie?? Oh my word. Yes, a tough situation to say the very least.

On the gore chart, this one is a little intense. But on the supernatural front, there is nothing really to speak of. What makes this story scary is that it could actually happen.

What’s neat about the book is that there is a story within a story. Paul is writing a book while held captive and King spends a good chunk of time fleshing that story out. Almost to the point where one blogger wanted to read the rest of THAT story! No? Yes!

Overall, this was just too much fun to read as a group. Every time we came across a little gem, we’d hop on Twitter to comment. If you want to check out the comments, search for #MiseryRAL. I guarantee you will want to join in on the next King read along after reading some of those tweets.

To sum this up, I enjoyed the book more this time around than the first two times. I must have been very young when I read it before because I really didn’t remember too many of the details. So glad I decided to read it again.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Indiebound affiliate links.

Pet Sematary
By Stephen King
(Pocket Books, Mass Market Paperback, 9780743412278, 2001, 576pp.)

The Short of It:

Probably one of King’s best.

The Rest of It:

In my late teens, early twenties, I somehow managed to read Pet Sematary twice. I think I read it a second time, right before the movie came out. I remember it being appropriately scary but not overly so. To compare, IT, to this day, is still his scariest book ever but anytime death is involved and you try to change things, you are really grabbing the bull by the horns and things just can’t go well when you try to do that with death. Trust me.

After Louis Creed accepts a position as a university doctor, he and his wife Rachel buy a house in the country and look forward to raising their two small children, Ellie and Gage, in the beauty of God’s kingdom. Except, there is a pesky road that is the main through-way for trucks getting from point A to point B. Across the way, are their elderly neighbors, the Crandalls and oh, let’s not forget the Pet Sematary, which is really the smaller part of an Indian burial ground and which just so happens to be on their property.

Indian burial ground. Yep.

As you can probably guess, that busy road becomes a very important part of the story, as does the Pet Sematary, which is spelled that way because that is how a child chose to spell it years and years ago. The story reads quickly, because once you get to a certain point, you really can’t stop reading as you must know how it all turns out.

As you may recall above, I didn’t think the book was overly scary when I read it in my twenties but that was before kids. Reading it recently, I couldn’t help but flashback to those times when my kids hurt themselves or how afraid I was of hurting them accidentally. Really, just recognizing how fragile they were. Well, the experience of parenthood adds some additional terror to the mix. For sure.

I read this for the #gangstercats read-along so I definitely had the support of others, which always makes reading a book like this a lot more fun. Plus, we got party favors too! There’s nothing like a good King discussion to bring people together. There was some interest in maybe watching the movie while live tweeting, so if that happens, you’ll hear about it soon.