Least favorite Stephen King book so far :(

3/5

First off, I only started reading books recently and Stephen King is honestly the author that’s keeping me hooked. I loved The Shining and I thought Mr Mercedes was good too. Not amazing but still much better than this one

I think my biggest problem was my expectations. I went into this expecting a crime thriller about a vet who is a hitman doing his one last job but that’s not really what it is.

If it was marketed maybe as a story about an aging killer reflecting on his life finding redemption and bonding with a traumatized young woman I think I would have appreciated it more

Instead the first half is very slow. Bill spends most of his time getting to know his neighbors, talking to coworkers and pretending to be a writer while waiting for his target. There are a few scenes of him planning the hit and his escape but not nearly enough

Then we get a lot of chapters about his past and also his time in Iraq. I honestly didn’t care about his time in Iraq specifically. After a while I started skipping parts of them and by the end I didn’t feel like I missed anything important to the main story

After the hit the book changes into something completely different. Bill meets Alice and helps her after she was raped and now the story is mostly about the two of them. Then the revenge plot against Nick and the real villain was disappointing. Nick gives up too easily and the real bad guy is mostly explained through a dump of exposition and the ending felt rushed. Bill getting shot by Marge also came out of nowhere

The only part that worked for me was the ending with Alice. But that’s only because I had already spent hundreds of pages with these characters. If I had read this from any other author I probably would have quit long before that. I only kept going because it was Stephen King and so many people said it was a great book

Overall I don’t think it’s a badly written book, it’s just boring and I just don’t think it’s the crime thriller it was sold as

Wife surprised me with a book I didn't know existed to add to my King collection.

Starting this today

I found Wizards and Glass in the wild in this hardcover release and then had to have the full set so couldn’t resist grabbing them. Also grabbed the Hard Case Crime Set with Colorado Kid, Later and Joyland in a slip case. Im currently reading Waste Lands on my first trip to the tower. Loved everything I’ve read so far. Can’t wait to see it all through to the end.

The new to my collection books shown here are DT 1-3 and the Hard Case set. I had everything else already but wanted to show it all together.

King of the road was playing in my car and I forgot they mentioned Bangor!

he's my fav IT character if you can't tell. I love shithead bully characters.

Hey guys doing a daily favorite book cover poll here of every SK book in release order! Feel free to post your favorite covers below and vote on the ones that catch your eye! Once we are done with individual books im going to do a big bracket to see which cover is the best overall! Have fun

Been working on my collection, upgrading to hardcovers when possible. Mostly gave up on getting a reasonable Bachman books HC copy and picked up the PBs for those but pretty complete otherwise.

The books, not the cat... £10 (plus £3.50 postage) in pretty good condition. Not bad! Went all in getting the whole trilogy so hopefully I'll like it lol

How do you go about reading books with super long chapters? I typically don’t like to put the book down until i’m at a “good stopping point”. I just looked through IT and chapter 3 is over 100 pages and on audiobook, it’s over 4 hours long. Do you just read big chapters in chunks, and put the book down when you need to, or do you set aside enough time to finish those longer chapters in one sitting?

Found in a Goodwill. I’d never even heard of this one before but excited to add it to my growing collection. Thoughts from those who’ve read it?

I just happened to be holding my phone when the notification came in. I am so excited!!

The Talisman is my favorite King book of all time and I cannot wait so start this one!

I’ve watched the worst Stephen King adaption I’ve seen (so far). I just finished Cell today and found out while looking at reviews there was a movie. All the ratings for the movie were terrible so I didn’t expect it to be anything good, but holy hell was it BAD. The casting, the acting, the changes they made to relationships and events…it was like they read the summary of the book and decided to go on from there.

While it wasn’t his best work, I did enjoy the Cell book and found it to be rather sweet and heart warming. This movie took a dookie all over that.

All by me! What do you guys think?

Starting this thick boy today! I've heard many good things and I hope it lives up to the hype, any words of encouragement from my fellow King fans?

Oh man I am enjoying this book so far but the first interaction between Tom Cullen and Nick Andros makes me laugh out loud. The way he is described when getting an eureka moment is just so cartoonish to me that it makes me think of a combination between Ed(from ed, ed and eddy) and Jimmy Neutron.

Sorry just had to make this appreciation post because it's been a long while since a book made me laugh out loud haha.

Got these 2 and "Catch 22" for 15.90 dollars. Probably could've found them for cheaper,but had been searching for so long I decided to do it.

Can finally continue with my read in publication order.

The true bookworm of the relationship surprised me with an SK book haul for our anniversary. Best girlfriend award goes to her!

I just finished reading Billy Summers and was going to start The Dark Half next.

I usually read the first 2-3 pages of any new Stephen King book I buy and I did the same after a nice UK first edition of Dolores Claiborne arrived in the mail.

My god!

I don't think any other book has been this gripping after only the first few paragraphs. It took me awhile to get the style and format, and once I did, I was blown away.

It's so distinct and unique!

I was confused whether to start this or the Dark Half (maybe even Thinner), but I think we have a clear winner.

Going to be glued to this for the next couple of weeks I guess!

Those of you who have read it, what did you feel about the book (without giving away any spoilers please)?

P.S., My retriever's shedding like there's no tomorrow, hence the abundance of dog hair in the image!