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Posts about books (old posts, page 64)

Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)

Cover for Doctor Sleep (The Shining, #2)

Review:

The un­for­tu­nate read King while young, when his books still hold the pow­er of fright. They are un­for­tu­nate be­cause then, when the books lose that pow­er, the next King book they read feels in­com­plete, lack­ing.

The un­for­tu­nate nev­er no­tice that be­low the tales of killing clown­s/­cars/shit­worms lie com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent book­s, about par­ent­hood, and in­ad­e­qua­cy, and try­ing to be good while know­ing you are flawed.

Those in­ner books about the plea­sures (most­ly for­e­ing to me) of rak­ing leaves, shov­el­ing snow, driv­ing cars, hav­ing kid­s, jok­ing with wait­ress­es, and driv­ing while lis­ten­ing to crap­py amer­i­cana on the ra­dio, are the books King want­ed to write, but he feels he has to paint them in gore, to make them "s­cary" be­cause that's what the read­ers wan­t.

No, that's what the un­for­tu­nate wan­t, and the un­for­tu­nates will not get it once they grow up. When you grow, the shin­ing fades from these book­s, and what's left is some­thing in­ter­est­ing and heart­felt, but not, in truth, scary.

And the for­tu­nate see it, and we like it. So, four stars.


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