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Book Review: The Outsider by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
the-outsider-stephen-king-book-cover
View on Amazon.co.uk
 How can a man be in two places at once? When a child is raped and murdered, this is a question Detective Ralph Anderson must find an answer to.

Terry Maitland is a pillar of the community and is accused. There’s eye witnesses placing him at the scene. His fingerprints and DNA evidence found on the victim’s body. But Terry has a airtight alibi.

The Outsider is a perfect investigatory and suspense novel, complete with King’s usual supernatural edge.

The plot is full of intrigue and written in a way that fills the readers head with theories and questions. It includes plenty of utterly gripping action scenes.

The Outsider is written in third person perspective. But it has some great transcripts of witness interviews and emails spattered throughout the beginning and middle sections of the book.

The pacing of The Outsider is quick and builds suspense brilliantly.

All of the characters feel completely real; all have different personalities, flaws and have different ways of handling the situations they find themselves in.

Characters include:

  • Ralph Anderson – The tall, logical and realistic Detective.
  • Jeanette Anderson – Ralph’s wife and confidant.
  • Terry Maitland – Suspect & English Teacher.
  • Marcy Maitland – Terry’s wife and mother to two children.
  • The Peterson Family – Frank is the child raped and murdered. The impact of the tragedy on the family is shown along with the subsequent tragedies that follow.
  • Yunel Sablo – Lieutenant in the Police Department, he assists in the investigation.
  • William Samuels – The District Attorney with unruly hair.
  • Howie Gold – Maitland’s Lawyer.
  • Alec Pelley – A retired state Police Detective who works for lawyers defending criminal cases.
  • Holly Gibney – A woman who runs a company called Finders Keepers. Holly mostly does repossessions, retrievals, bail-jumpers and finding of lost pets. But there’s a hidden depths to Holly including her past experience with the seemingly inexplicable. Holly is a character of mystery and one the reader will yearn to learn more about.
  • Jack Hoskins – A troubled Detective in the Police Department.
  • Claude Bolton – Claude is a recovered drug addict and former criminal. He works in a strip club as a Bouncer. He’s kept himself clean and out of trouble. But trouble could be finding him.
  • Lovie Bolton – Claude’s adorable old mum, even more vulnerable due to her COPD and oxygen requirement.

The Outsider is totally addictive, I couldn’t put it down and read it in a few sittings. The Outsider is available to buy on Amazon and at all good book shops.

Review soon,

Antony

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Tuesday 4 September 2018

Book Review: It by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
It-Stephen-King-Book-Cover
View on Amazon.co.uk
 In Derry a dark force has awoken, named It.

Seven children battled It twenty seven years before and almost beat it. This monster wakes every twenty seven years and murder, dismember and feed on children. It has the ability to change its form, to become the things that individual children fear and likes to take the form of Pennywise the clown.

Then following a big event were It reaches its peak of activity, then the monster sleeps. This cycle has been repeating since before records began, but nobody likes to talk about it or write about it. It’s like all the citizens of Derry have willful blindness.

It tells the story of Bill (Big Bill), Eddie, Richie, Bev, Ben, Stan and Mike. Their battle with It as children and their return to Derry as adults to face It again.

As adults will they have the same magic that they had as children to beat It? And this time, will they be able to finish what they started twenty seven years ago?

This book is way too long. It has 1,166 pages and the reader will find themselves counting down the pages. The plot is simple, most of the book is character development, rather than storytelling. Whole sections of this book could be cut without any interfering with the plot and would still have give the reader a good sense of each individual character. The description was overly wordy at times.

There are some iconic horror scenes that will stay with the reader long after they have read the book. These scenes would lend themselves brilliantly to film, which is why it is no surprise that it was recently made into a film.

Overall what made It mildly enjoyable was getting to know the characters. The plot lacked any captivating moments, twists or turns. This story could easily have been told in a standard novel size, rather than this massive book. Inadequate editing and seemingly no harsh cutting let this book down.

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

Review soon,

Antony

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Saturday 7 July 2018

A List of Things I’ve Done on a Week of Annual Leave

By Amazon, Books & Authors, Friends & Family, Games, Gay, Happiness & Joy, Health, Life2 Comments

I’ve just been off work for a week on much needed annual leave. I’ve had a great week off, the weather has been warm, but with intermittent sun and showers. Here’s a list of things I’ve done:

  • Had plenty of rest and relaxation – including some naps here and there.
  • Finished reading Carrie by Stephen King and reviewed it.
  • Attended Wigan Pride (gay pride event), organised by BYOU+. It was a great event which included: a parade led by the legendary Sir Ian Mckellen (better known to some as Gandalf or X-Men’s Magneto), a stage with local performers performing (also opened by Mckellen) and a marketplace of information stalls. BYOU+ and the residence of Wigan did Wigan proud and it is an event that I shall look forward to attending again in the future. Here are some photos from the day:
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Wigan Pride Parade (1)
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Wigan Pride Parade (2)
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Wigan Pride Parade (3)
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Wigan Pride Parade (4)
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Wigan Pride Parade (5)
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The closest I could get to Sir Ian Mckellen (under the rainbow brolly).
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Wigan Pride Main Stage
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Sir Ian Mckellen opening the main stage (1)
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Sir Ian Mckellen opening the main stage (2)

rainbow-photo-from-bedroom-window-August-2017

A photo of a rainbow from my bedroom window.

Blog soon,

Antony

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Saturday 19 August 2017

Book Review: Carrie by Stephen King

By Amazon, Books & Authors, ReviewsNo Comments
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View on Amazon.co.uk
 Carrie was Stephen King’s first jaunt into novel writing, originally published in 1974.

Carrie is a brilliant thriller, featuring an essentially damaged teenage girl with telekinetic (the ability to move objects with the mind) abilities.

Carrie White is the outsider at school. She’s always the butt of the joke.

Carrie’s home life isn’t much better with her Christian Fundamentalist mother. Her mother is physically and emotionally abusive, she thinks practically everything is sin. She regularly locks Carrie in a closet, the closet is designed to terrify and torment with effigies of sinners. To encourage Carrie to recognise her many sins and repent.

One day things change for Carrie. She is sixteen, in the communal showers at school after Physical Education, when she begins to bleed. She stands there, thinking that she must be dying.

Nobody has ever told her about menstruation. Unfortunately the other girls are less than sympathetic, in fact they are the polar opposite. They are cruel. They taunt her. They throw sanitary towels and tampons at her, telling her to plug it up. This traumatic event during puberty triggers something within Carrie and she starts to slowly realise that she can move and manipulate objects with her mind.

But what will she do with the power? Then popular boy Tommy Ross invites Carrie to The Spring Ball. What somebody intends as a kindness to Carrie leads to devastating consequences.

In Carrie the description is good, but some of it has become dated over time – including references to things. This is something that King recognises in the introduction to the story. However the reader can still mostly imagine what’s happening.

The story is told from various perspectives and using various formats (including quotes from imaginary books published about The White incident, interview Q&A from The White Commission, articles from News Papers, AP tickers and direct first person accounts). This variety in formatting made a refreshing change, although it did give some of the plot away at times. However it did add an retrospective analysis to events.

Carrie was a character that the reader quickly develops empathy for. All the other characters were strong and a few words of dialogue or internal thinking was all that was needed for them to come to life.

The plot was captivating and the pacing moved along at an appropriate speed. As Carrie was King’s first book, it is much shorter than some of his other books. This shortness actually made the book more enjoyable than some of King’s tomb-sized books.

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

Review soon,

Antony

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I aim for posts on this blog to be informative, educational and entertaining. If you have found this post useful or enjoyable, please consider making a contribution by Paypal:


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Friday 11 August 2017
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