Usually, Stephen King has a really nice set up and a bad ending, but this time around, Cujo has the reverse problem. A good two thirds of the book is Usually, Stephen King has a really nice set up and a bad ending, but this time around, Cujo has the reverse problem. A good two thirds of the book is spent on developing characters and subplots that are either super boring or super unlikeable.
The anti-vaxer hillbillies who go on vacation and leave Cujo behind? I didn't need the subplot of their vacation.
The ad-man and the cereal campaign? Less than zero fucks given.
The wife who cheats on the ad man with a junkie? Her annoying kid? Yes, they're important to the story, but I was rooting for the dog.
The rabid dog was the only character I felt any kind of sympathy for. The only one I could empathize. The three stars are for him. The entire thing is so idiotic and contrived it's actually a little disappointing he didn't kill more people......more
I don't like the story all that much. The humour is a bit forced at times. Genocide jokes hit different in 2025. But the audiobook was really well donI don't like the story all that much. The humour is a bit forced at times. Genocide jokes hit different in 2025. But the audiobook was really well done and I'd feel bad giving it anything less than 4 stars. The audiobook direction and narration were really good and did all the heavy lifting throughout all the parts where this would have become a DNF for me. ...more
And this is the book where it fully becomes a slice of life, where the MC becomes an OP dragon-slayer. It's a fast-paced slice of life so it's not harAnd this is the book where it fully becomes a slice of life, where the MC becomes an OP dragon-slayer. It's a fast-paced slice of life so it's not hard to read at all but very little happens other than the MC becomes better at everything. There's very little genuine conflict. Things that I was looking forward to never happened. The characters who could have presented a source of conflict are barely an inconvenience to kill off....more
Four stars given for the potential that it had. I liked the introduction of the drakes and wyverns, and the addition of new characters.
There wasn't aFour stars given for the potential that it had. I liked the introduction of the drakes and wyverns, and the addition of new characters.
There wasn't a lot of conflict going on in the first book but the sequel added the potential for conflict. Up until a certain point in the end (view spoiler)[when Eryk starts killing dragons with one move (hide spoiler)] I was fully expecting a big showdown between multiple people. For truths to be revealed and for all the setup to pay off with lines being drawn in the sand and some serious fights and worldbuilding.
It didn't happen, but it was well paced and the momentum carried me through the massive disappointment at the end which would have been a DNF point for me otherwise....more
There are regular Isekai characters who end up in a different world and have strong feelings about it, and then there's Eryk who ends up in a differenThere are regular Isekai characters who end up in a different world and have strong feelings about it, and then there's Eryk who ends up in a different world and somehow becomes a grifter/klepto.
It's refreshing in the sense that he's not out to save a dying parent and he's not trying to rescue a younger sibling. This guy is the definition of going with the flow and rolling with the punches....more
That awkward moment when you realise your entire life is a checklist of symptoms nobody noticed... [image]
An entire audiobook over ten hours long thatThat awkward moment when you realise your entire life is a checklist of symptoms nobody noticed... [image]
An entire audiobook over ten hours long that covers everything. From being the weird child at school who threw up on other students because the rice wasn't the correct temperature to being a grown-ass adult who still trips over their own feet...
I feel like I either need to become an activist or a serial killer with a manifesto at this point. No middle ground....more
There is one timeline where the old lady retells her story. She's about 80 years old, but she wanted to be a novelist soA melodramatic waste of time.
There is one timeline where the old lady retells her story. She's about 80 years old, but she wanted to be a novelist so instead of telling her story efficiently, we get an 80-year-old telling a YA handyman romance.
And then there's the other line where the nurse reads the notes. And then she thinks about them. And then she discusses them with someone else. And then the old lady reacts to the nurse's interpretation of the story and updates the knowledge pool... And this goes on over and over and over in a loop. Infinite regurgitation.
Truly mind-numbing. I don't know how anyone can like this because of the plot twists. This is pretty standard soap opera melodrama. An episode ends with one ounce of plot, and then the entire cast has to react to it, and then another ounce of plot...
The writing is so bad... It's a first-person POV where characters talk about the depths of their despair and the betrayal rushing through them and every single cliche turn of phrase. There's so much gasping and shuddering and surging rages. Worse, the audiobook narrator actually tries to follow the stage cues, so honestly it's like listening to a telenovela. And not just a regular telenovela but a parody of a telenovela. It's dumb and over-the-top in an Indian soap opera way.
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Except the author isn't doing it for laughs. And that was sad and scary. I spent a lot of time thinking about a man writing these horrible, one-dimensional female characters, and just felt sad, tbh. You can feel how much effort he's putting into this one dimension... So much effort that the male characters are reduced to semi-dimensional, single-thought shadows of an idea.
This audiobook is thirteen or fourteen hours of gasping and "As a caregiver..." and probably 10 minutes of actual plot and character development.
Not even going to comment on the two plot twists at the end. M. Night Shyamalan really broke a lot of people's brains. If it wasn't for him, a publishing company would have read this and just told Riley Sager, "Dude, no. WTF?" I'm not even going to count the gay reveal as a plot twist, because no....more
I want to leave one star, but I'll give it two because it had potential. The problem is that all the potential for a good horror novel was thrown awayI want to leave one star, but I'll give it two because it had potential. The problem is that all the potential for a good horror novel was thrown away for a quirky comedy.
And what's with all the good old racist characters? There was a racist neighbor in Hidden Pictures that I just finished and now a racist grandmother... My whole goal in reading some horror novels not written by Stephen King was to escape this standard character, but nope. At least when King does it, it adds to the plot in some way usually, but here it's like it's just sprinkled in for extra spice to give the protagonist the opportunity to declare out loud that they're not racist (1st person pov again.)
Deep sigh.
This is to horror novels what The Lion King is to nature documentaries on Discovery. Only a horror in the loosest most generous terms. I saw the rating but thought the blurb sounded good...
This is genuinely a 1-star horror, but the audiobook narrator did her best with the voices and I don't think anyone could have done better with all the forced quirkiness. She tried.
If this style of forced, quirky-but-unfunny comedy was a living breathing person, I'd murder it with my bare hands. I hate it so much and I don't know why you'd pick this voice for a horror novel, but that said, it's pretty decent if you don't want a horror novel. It's like if Drew Barrymore or Jennifer Aniston etc wanted to write an Evil Dead book but without all that horror stuff. Not for me, but hey, some like it hot, some like it cold....more
Not sure what this is or what it's supposed to be, just shocked that it won awards.
It's allegedly a horror novel, written in 1st person POV, and thatNot sure what this is or what it's supposed to be, just shocked that it won awards.
It's allegedly a horror novel, written in 1st person POV, and that was a big red flag off the bat, but I persevered. Waiting for the horror to kick in.
The horror never kicked in, though. It's a mystery-crime novel in which the protagonist accepts that ghosts are real about 30% in. She then tries to work along with the ghost to solve a murder mystery—the murder having occurred 80 years ago. (Very boring.)
I kept going, hoping there'd be a plot twist of some sort... And the plot twist was that the protagonist was solving the wrong murder mystery. (Somehow even more boring. Impossibly boring.)
There are a lot of reviewers giving this one star for racism, transphobia, fatphobia... All of that is arguable. I don't know what kind of point the author was trying to make, if they wanted to highlight the stigma against substance abuse, the pressure on young people to achieve excellence in academics or sport, the damage done by delinquent parents vs helicopter parents... All of that is irrelevant because this is objectively a poorly constructed horror novel.
It is structurally unsound. Readable, but there's no substance to it unless you're looking for stories about addicts beating their demons. It gets one star for that, but I'm not reading horror novels for Christian inspiration. At the very least, I need full Christian warfare against demonic forces, not some racist-next-door with a Ouijia board. It is 2024. Enough with the Ouija boards.
"Identity fraud + ghosts" is not something that needed to be converted into a 10-hour novel. That's a Scooby-Doo twenty-minute cartoon at best.
Imagine a 10-hour episode of Scooby-Doo with zero red herrings, no comic relief, no talking dog, just Fred and Daphnie but Daphnie is a recovering addict. That's what this book is....more
One of those books where you can't quite tell if the author is writing about racism or if they're just racist.
The plot: A bored, middle-aged (36) but One of those books where you can't quite tell if the author is writing about racism or if they're just racist.
The plot: A bored, middle-aged (36) but still strikingly beautiful, intelligent white woman who is tired of her perfect life, leaves her husband and son, takes a mandingo lover, and solves the mystery of a dead, golddigger/prostitute, black single mother of two boys with two deadbeat baby daddies.
Very simple white feminism plot, but it somehow takes the author ten hours and a thousand POVs to tell it. It is exactly as meandering and meaningless as it sounds. So boring I decided to use it as a lullaby, but the stereotypes were so aggravating it kept me awake.
I kept reading because of the reviews that mentioned a twist... Sigh. The twist is as mundane as the rest of the story and honestly, it's on me for not DNFing this novel because it's not like it had a good part or that it started strong... There was a POV by a psychic at 56% and there was no good reason for me to keep reading at that point, so shame on me....more
I don't know if it's the Disney propaganda or what, but sometimes you really forget exactly how racist America was just a couple years ago. InstitutioI don't know if it's the Disney propaganda or what, but sometimes you really forget exactly how racist America was just a couple years ago. Institutionally, I mean. You don't think of it in the same terms as Australia, Apartheid South Africa, Canada, Nazi Germany, Israel, etc... But yeah, Dennis Lehane decided with this novel to just really remind you, so we have this story that's a murder mystery set in Boston during the years when they were de-segregating the schools.
The protagonist is deeply unlikeable... Her daughter is also deeply unlikeable.
You can empathise, but it's also a case of "How invested am I in this story of a racist vs racist pedophiles and racist drug dealers over the death of her daughter last seen committing hate crimes?" It's had to muster up sympathy for the dead girl, hard to get on board with her mother trying to avenge her... It's like you want to feel bad for her since she's the victim of a pedophile, but then it's like, if the pedophile was black she would've probably killed him like a dog in the street or rallied the entire neighborhood to do a lynching so how sorry am I supposed to feel for her? Why do I care?
It's well-written though. Aside from the heavy n-word usage. Tarantino is somewhere reading this and saying, "This is too much..." But then again, it feels authentic to the 70s and 80s when grown adults decided to form angry mobs to harass black children who just wanted an education.
I like the writing though. The author isn't trying to do a lot of poetic prose. The style is just really dry and the pacing is good. And even when you don't like any of the characters at all and don't much care for the mystery, it's still an easy read that keeps you going from one chapter to the next....more
I watched the movie first, so I guess I spoiled it for myself, but it's still a good read. Excellent pacing. Excellent narration in the audiobook. So I watched the movie first, so I guess I spoiled it for myself, but it's still a good read. Excellent pacing. Excellent narration in the audiobook. So much so, I want to give some other Dennis Lehane books a try and see how it goes. No fancy prose, but excellent storytelling.
Haunting. I think I cried at one point. Not from anything in the plot per se. Just for the state of mental health and how it goes. We haven't actually come a long way from the lobotomy days or the crazy farm days. It's just sad, really....more
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