It had been over 20 years since I had read a Stephen King book. I used to love horror and love his books. I really, really did. That changed and I don’t like horror at all now. I like scary, suspenseful stories-just not horror. I think I had convinced myself that surely there wouldn’t be that much horror because he put so much of his wife/marriage into the story. I guess there probably wasn’t as much as in his other books, but it was still too much for me.
Stephen King had said that he wrote this after considering what could happen to his wife if he had died in the car accident that he had. I do think he put quite a bit of himself and her into this story. I liked the beginning of the book very much, but then in the middle there was a little too much of the horror element for me. Lisey’s husband Scott flashes back to a horror-full childhood. There were some crazy things that happen to Lisey as well that bothered me because I kept thinking, “How can he think of these things happening to his wife?”
Anyway, it was a good book for the R.I.P Challenge, but I don’t think I’ll be reading another King book for awhile. If you know of one that is very tame, I might try it. Otherwise, there’s just too much horror in King for this wimpy woman.
2006, 509 pp.
Rating: 3.5
Also reviewed by The Bookworm
I had the same problem. I could not take the flashbacks to Scott’s childhood. I wasn’t even able to finish it so I am a wimpy woman too.
[...] Lisey’s Story by Stephen King FINISHED 2. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde 3. Gossamer by Lois Lowry [...]
[...] Aboulela *Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert *Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie *Lisey’s Story by Stephen [...]
[...] Lisey’s Story by Stephen King 2. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury 3. Gossamer by Lois Lowry 4. Evenings on a [...]
[...] White Stag by Kate Seredy (Newbery 1938) 10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Pulitzer) FINISHED 11. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (Bram Stoker 2007) 12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Orange [...]
[...] Giraffe)14. SmallWorld (Girl With the Pearl Earring)15. Staci at Writing and Living (Cranford)16. 3M (Lisey’s Story)17. 3M (The Halloween Tree)18. Barbara H. (Spirit of the Rainforest: A Yanomamo Shaman’s [...]
[...] 9. The White Stag by Kate Seredy (Newbery 1938) 10. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (Pulitzer) 11. Lisey’s Story by Stephen King (Bram Stoker 2007) 12. Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Orange [...]