Review: Misery

Book: Misery by Stephen King
Finished: May, 2009
Pages: 338
Challenges:
** Spring Reading Thing
** The Genres
** Read and Review
** New Authors
** A-Z Challenge
** 9 for 2009
** Read Your Name

First Sentence: "These sounds: even in the haze."

Well I did it! I read my first King novel and am probably one of the last people to do it-I mean the man has been writing for decades! What is there to say? It was a marvelously constructed novel. The characterizations were amazing--and I must say that Kathy Bates is probably the only actress who could play Annie so well. I didn't remember anything from the movie I had seen years ago except that Bates was incredible.

Was the storyline twisted? Oh yes!
Was it gory? Oh yes!
Was it scary? Oh yes!
Did I have disturbing dreams all week? Oh yes!

I grimaced through parts and was shocked at parts, and yet I also found parts that made me laugh. I was really rooting for Paul Sheldon by the end, and enjoyed some of the conversations he had inside his head.

Did I love it? Oh yes, Oh yes!


That said, I will not be reading more of King's work anytime soon. While I enjoyed it for what it is, I can only take this genre in very small bits. Many people told me I should read The Stand instead--that Misery was a harder read because of the realness of it. But I didn't feel like taking on a 1,000 page book right now and stuck with my plan of reading Misery. The Stand? Maybe someday.....


From Publishers Weekly
King's novel, about a writer held hostage by his self-proclaimed "number-one fan," is unadulterated terrifying. Paul Sheldon, a writer of historical romances, is in a car accident; rescued by nurse Annie Wilkes, he slowly realizes that salvation can be worse than death. Sheldon has killed off Misery Chastain, the popular protagonist of his Misery series and Annie, who has a murderous past, wants her back. Keeping the paralyzed Sheldon prisoner, she forces him to revive the character in a continuation of the series, and she reads each page as it comes out of the typewriter; there is a joyously Dickensian novel within a novel here, and it appears in faded typescript. Studded among the frightening moments are sparkling reflections on the writer and his audience, on the difficulties, joys and responsibilities of being a storyteller, on the nature of the muse, on the differences between "serious" and "popular" writing. Sheldon is a revealingly autobiographical figure; Annie is not merely a monster but is subtly and often touchingly portrayed, allowing hostage and keeper a believable, if twisted, relationship. The best parts of this novel demand that we take King seriously as a writer with a deeply felt understanding of human psychology.