Sunday, January 30, 2011

Full Dark, No Stars

I have a love/hate relationship with Stephen King.  I especially loved his earlier stuff.  I can still remember reading Carrie when it first came out when King was an unknown.  And The Stand is one of my all-time favorites.  Later I tried to read Needful Things and Cell but just couldn't get into them.  So, I'm always a little leery when buying one of his books.  I took a chance on this one and am glad I did.

This book contains four novellas.  I loved two of them and liked the other two.  The ones I loved didn't have any supernatural elements and I think that's what made them better.

In the first one, a farmer in 1922 gets his son to help him murder his wife because she won't give him the 100 acres she inherited.  She wants to sell it and move to the city.  He loves being a farmer and wants nothing to do with the city.  The aftermath of the murder is the stuff of nightmares.  This was one I liked.

The second story is about a writer who gets abducted and raped on her way home from a speaking engagement.  How she deals with it and gets retribution had me cheering!  This was one of the ones I loved.

The third story has a bit of magic in it and I enjoyed it but...again, that supernatural stuff gets old and I guess I'm just tired of it.  In this one, a man has cancer and not long to live.  He meets another man who promises him life if he gives him a percentage of his wages for the rest of his career.  He agrees, but the kicker is that someone else has to suffer for it.

The last story is one I loved.  A woman finds out after 27 years of marriage and two kids that her husband has a secret life and was never the person she thought he was.  Her solution is great!

So, this Stephen King book goes into the love pile.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it continues!

5 comments:

Literary Feline said...

I haven't read too much by Stephen King but I find he's one of those authors who I am not really interested in reading his entire backlist--just some of his books.

I've heard great things about Full Dark, No Stars and am so glad you enjoyed it.

zetor said...

Haven't read any of these books , but they do sound good!

Jessica said...

Thanks for the recommendation! I find I usually like his shorter works for some reason.

readlearnwrite said...

I also have not spent much time with King aside from his writing book "On Writing," I think it was called.

I really enjoyed reading your blog and thoughts on him though. I may have to give that on a try.

Anonymous said...

I love Stephen King, he's one of my favorites. Books and Movies. My favorite pass time is reading. As of now, I'm reading Intense Fear. I found it on LuLu.com. You can purchase it on download it. Its really good so far. Its a sort of mystery/suspense, and really makes you think about life. It has its own twist to it. I love it so far.