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Misery

Rating:
Author: Stephen King
Published: 1978
Review by: CL5 JD

Well, people, this is an oooold one from 1978. Yeah, y'know, when paperbacks only cost four bucks. Anyway, even back then, King's name was bigger than the title of the book, which usually makes me leery. It has "Hoping the author's name will sell it" written all over it, and, well, I was really expecting 338 pages of garbage. Lucky me, only about 50 pages of garbage, and those were excerpts. Ain't I just special? Anyway, read on, my dears, read on.

Paul Sheldon's a best-selling author, known mainly for his Misery-series of romance novels, which he hates with a passion. He's just finished a non-Misery novel, and he's thrilled to death about it. After drinking a wee bit too much, and driving a little too fast (ironically, the title of his new novel's Fast Cars), he's in a serious car wreck in the armpit of nowhere. Luckily (or unluckily) he's found by a local woman named Annie Wilkes, who just happens to be a retired nurse. She is Sheldon's "biggest fan" and discovers him later that night.

Rather than taking Sheldon to the hospital, she takes him to her rather secluded home....and things get kinda freaky. After reading Paul's new Misery novel (which was to be his last), Wilkes locks up a crippled Paul Sheldon and forces him to write a novel depicting Misery's return, just for his number one fan. Just in case he gets discouraged, she has a few things to spur him on. Blow Torches, axes and drugs immediately come to mind. If all that doesn't work, then she can get REALLY mean.

Well, the JD's never read anything by Stephen King before this (Yes, I know, that means I'm a heathen from Saturn...or something) so he doesn't really have anything to compare this to. All in all, 's a pretty decent book. The end seems to get a little bit confusing, but, well, I'm an idiot. I give it four ARRGGHH's.

8/14/04