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Book Review: 11.22.63 by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 In 11.22.63 by Stephen King Jake Epping an English Teacher is recruited by Al an Diner Owner to step back in time from 2011 to 1958.

Al has a rabbit hole – a bubble in time, in the pantry of his Diner that people can step through to go back in time to Tuesday 9th September 1958.

Al first sends Jake on a trip to explore because seeing is believing. Jake spends a few hours in 1958 and when he gets back to 2011, he finds that only two minutes have passed. Al says it’s always the same. No matter how long you stay in the past, even months or years, you have only ever been gone for 2 minutes.

Then Al, who is dying of lung cancer, tells Jake what he would like him to do. Al wants Jake to go back in time and stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy (JFK). Al has it all planned out. He would go back and do it himself, but he fears he doesn’t have the time.

Al gives Jake a pseudonym, George Amberson, along with ID, thousands of dollars (Al made by betting on sporting events) and extensive notes he made about the assassination. Jake tells Al the truth: he’s worried he’ll mess up.

Al reassures Jake can (mostly) reset the past by stepping back through the rabbit hole into 2011. It is then that Jake realises two things:
1) That if he is successful, he’ll have to stay and live out his life in the past.
2) That he may have to do some very bad things to achieve his mission (although he doesn’t actively acknowledge it at this point).

The plot idea of 11.22.63 was mildly interesting for a Brit and probably more intriguing for an American. The mammoth-sized book totals 740 pages. The pacing was reasonable at times and at other times excruciatingly slow.

Reading 11.22.63 felt like hard work, unlike any of the other Stephen King books I’ve read. Parts of the book were significantly over written and the last quarter of the book significantly underwritten. The ending was flat, lacking any depth or satisfactory conclusion.

However the description in 11.22.63 was exceptional. Whether this was from good research or Stephen King’s personal experience, I couldn’t tell.

Jake (George) is a good man that ends up doing terrible things including murder, with the intention of making a better future. He is a very redemptive character and the story is written from his perspective. By Stephen King writing the story from Jake’s first person perspective, it helped me develop some positive regard for the man.

Al was interesting but is removed far too early from the story. The other characters were all two dimensional. It would have been great to have more than one main character, as Jake’s voice did become tiresome about half way through the book.

I wanted to enjoy 11.22.63 as much as I’ve enjoyed all of the other Stephen King books that I’ve read. But it just didn’t happen.

11.22.63 is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 22 July 2017

Book Review: The Dead Zone by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 In The Dead Zone John Smith wakes up from a 4 year coma with the ability to see the past and the future of the people he touches.

Some people see this ability as a gift from God. But for John, he sees it as a curse.

It all started 4 years ago when John, a Teacher, took his date Sarah, also a Teacher, to the Fair.

John is also known as Johnny in The Dead Zone and these names will be used interchangeably throughout this review.

All was going well until John tried his luck on The Wheel of Fortune. The first time he wins. Then the second and third time to. Again and again he wins. He just can’t loose, despite his head feeling like somebody is going at it with a jack hammer.

Continued below…

Meanwhile Sarah has become ill and is being violently sick after eating a bad hot dog. Johnny takes Sarah home and then calls a taxi.

Johnny’s taxi journey home is where it all goes wrong. A car driving on the wrong side of the road crashes into the taxi at speed, causing the deaths of the boy driving the car on the wrong side of the road and the taxi driver. John is propelled out of the taxi through the windshield and goes into a coma.

When Johnny wakes up, he discovers that everything has changed. His body is weak, despite being exercised with physiotherapy while he was comatose. His mind has a Dead Zone, a microscopic part of his brain that has been damaged. This Dead Zone causes him not to be able to imagine certain things and is perhaps also causing his new found ability to see people’s past and future by touching them.

John’s father seems to have dramatically aged much more than the 4 years that has passed. His mother who was always a religious woman, has become fervent religionist. Sarah is now married to another man and has a child.

As Johnny works hard to recover and rebuild his life. As he does so, he makes some startlingly accurate predictions including: finding the location of his Doctor’s lost mother, preventing a fire from becoming serious in his Physiotherapists house, telling Sarah where her lost wedding ring is, identifying a serial murderer and predicting a serious fire caused by lightening. Johnny soon makes news with his predictions and rides out the media storms the best he can.

Johnny doesn’t really want any of this. He just wants a normal life and more importantly the normal life the car accident robbed him of. But he knows that this is not possible. Too much has changed.

Johnny does various bits of work and creates a little hobby of shaking politician’s hands to see the future of election results. That is until he shake that hand of Greg Stillson. John sees Stillson becoming President and what a dangerous one he’ll be.

John becomes obsessed with Stillson and starts getting head-splitting headaches. John finds himself debating whether he would kill Hitler if time travel was possible. He decides that he would and that the same action needs to be taken to prevent Stillson from ever becoming President.

Every element of The Dead Zone was excellent and enjoyable. The description pulls the reader into the story from the beginning and until the end. The characters were charming, cunning and crafty. Johnny was particularly appealing and interesting, with the reader feeling for and relating to this character from the start of the book.

The plot was intriguing, fascinating and full of unpredictable, but perfectly pleasant twists and turns. The pacing was perfect at all times and felt like a car with cruise control doing 70MPH on the motorway.

The only tiny criticism of The Dead Zone was John’s name. John Smith. The story makes clear from the outset that John is an average guy, who happens to have something that’s both bad and brilliant happen to him. So using such a common place name to represent that he’s an average guy was not required. It stuck me as either lazy or uninventive on King’s behalf.

The Dead Zone is without any doubt a King classic. The Dead Zone is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Sunday 16 April 2017

Book Review: Insomnia by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 Insomnia is the story of Ralph, an old man who starts suffering with insomnia after the death of his wife.

Each morning Ralph wakes up earlier and earlier. Then he starts seeing the world in more vivid colour than he ever thought was possible – as he begins to see auras. For Ralph seeing auras can be beautiful and enlightening, but it can be awful and even grotesque.

Ralph thinks he is alone in his suffering with insomnia and his sensing of auras. That is until he confides in his friend Lois. Lois discloses that she has been experiencing the same. Ralph and Lois work out that when they see the auras they are going up to a higher plane of existence.

While Ralph is on this higher plane he sees a little odd alien-looking man wearing a white coat and with a scalpel in his hand. The man is after street dog. Ralph interferes and the man calls Ralph a short-timer and threatens him. This man turns out to be working for the higher power of Random.

Ralph and Lois then meet two other little odd alien-looking men wearing white coats, one carrying a pair of scissors in his hand. These men are working for the higher power of Purpose. The men recruit Ralph and Lois to save the life of a child, as the child will be important in the future. Ralph and Lois agree to help the men, as they maybe able to save the lives of thousands of people, including that of their friend Helen and her daughter Natalie.

But Random have recruited Helen’s husband Ed, well before Ralph and Lois became involved.

Both of the higher powers of Random and Purpose are fighting for their own causes, with their own bigger pictures in mind and the stakes are high. But these reasons are unknown and perhaps incomprehensible to Ralph and Lois as short-timers.

The description in Insomnia is exquisitely and perfectly crafted. It allows the reader imagine everything that Ralph and Lois sees, hears, touches, tastes and smells (in all senses of the words).

The plot is endlessly inventive, expertly executed, riveting and dealing with life and death and everything in-between.

The pacing is much slower than any of King’s books that I have previously read. At times during the reading it felt as though the pacing slowed to a belly crawl. But the slower pace did suit main character Ralph, an Old Age Pensioner (OAP) and one that is severely deprived of sleep.

Insomnia is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 15 April 2017

Book Review: A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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 A Street Cat Named Bob is the uplifting and inspirational story about James, a man who is vulnerably housed and a recovering drug addict who discovers a rather remarkable cat.

The ginger tom, which James names Bob, is in a sorry state when he finds him. Bob has bald patches, is thin and has an infected abscess on his back leg.

As James nurses Bob back to health (with a little help) they develop a close relationship, becoming dependent upon one another. Readers will fall in love with Bob and James in equal measure.

James assumes that once Bob is well, he will leave. But Bob doesn’t. In fact he does quite the opposite.

James is working the streets of London. First busking and later selling The Big Issue magazines. Bob starts following him to work in the mornings, crossing busy roads and jumping on buses. So James ends up buying him a lead. But Bob often prefers to travel on James’ shoulder.

Bob is smart, inquisitive and a good judge of people. Many people take a liking to Bob and that helps to humanise James to them. James also learns to trust other people because of Bob. But the streets of London can be tough at times and not everyone acts out of kindness or compassion. In A Street Cat Named Bob Bowen tells the story of the tribulations and triumphs Bob and he face on the streets.

Astute readers will be left with some concern for Bowen when they finish reading A Street Cat Named Bob. Bowen values his friendship with Bob greatly. It comes across as the only significant relationship Bowen has. But the average indoor cat only lives for around 15 years (human years). So how is Bowen going to respond to the eventual death of his close friend? And will he be at risk of relapsing on to drugs or alcohol to manage his feelings of grief? I sincerely hope not.

A Street Cat Named Bob is a easy and enjoyable read, made so by Bowen’s warm and friendly tone. It’s a relatively short book at just 279 pages. It will leave readers feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside. It is a must read for any animal lovers or anyone into sociology.

A Street Cat Named Bob is available to buy on Amazon and at all good bookshops. A Street Cat Named Bob has also been made into a film and is out on DVD now, available to buy on Amazon and at other good retailers.

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 25 March 2017
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