I purchased both the kindle book and the audiobook and read and listened to both at the same time, a feature offered by Amazon that I really like. This review is for the Stephen King novel, though the audiobook narration itself is really superb. The actual book though, not so much, not Stephen King’s best.
- The incest part just wasn’t needed and detracted from the enjoyment of the story.
- The recycled part from his novel, “It” felt exactly like just that, unoriginal and recycled, and this was a fairly important part of this novel. Readers of that novel will recognize it immediately. It would have been better if King had come up with a more original idea for this book, rather than import his past writing ideas.
- This book doesn’t belong in the “Hard Case Crime” series. Hard Case Crime conjures a Noir image, with gritty detectives and police officers dealing with difficult to solve crimes, ferreting out hard cases, and putting themselves in danger with worthy criminal adversaries. Authors such as Mickey Spillane, Max Allan Collins, Raymond Chandler, James Ellroy, and similar belong in this genre. This Stephen King short novel is really just a type of ghost story and a mild horror story at that; the crime part of this is just incidental.
- Largely formulaic, somewhat predictable from one scene to the next, no real twists, it just never really gets exciting.
This is a type of ghost story. The protagonist sees dead people, that is established near the beginning, not really a spoiler. So of course it is quite predictable that he will be sought out, on the one hand by police, to solve or prevent crime, and on the other hand by bad guys, to take advantage of him being able to glean information from the dead as well. There are a couple of other plot lines thrown in, but I don’t believe in dropping spoilers like that for people who want to read the book. Overall however, Stephen King has many other good books out there. It is ok to skip this one.
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Customer reviews
This is a horror story.Is it though? Who am I to say what is and isn't horror? There was a recent kerfuffle, yeah I said kerfuffle, where it was said that there cannot be horror in space so what do I know about what defines something as being horror?So, is this a horror story?After thinking about it, yeah Uncle Stevie, or in this case our protagonist Jamie Conklin is right, there are some pretty horrific things that happen in LATER by Stephen King. Now don't get me wrong, it's not on the same level of horror as IT or PET SEMATARY or ‘SALEM’S LOT but that doesn't mean it's not horror, right? Horror can be found at any place and any time, in any shape and any size. Just because something isn't horrifying to one person doesn't mean it won't scare the bejesus out of someone else. So what have we learned after this long tangent?This is a horror story.With that out of the way let's actually talk about the book some shall we? Jamie Conklin is just a kid and he sees dead people. Now that's not a spoiler as you find that out very early on in the book. Think about that for a second. Seeing dead people. That sounds pretty horrific to me, especially as a kid. And I don't mean Jamie sees ghosts. No, he sees full on dead people exactly how they looked the moment they died. So if someone is killed by getting their head smashed in Jamie sees that in all it’s brain leaking gory goodness. It is this secret, this gift (curse?) that Jamie must come to terms with and make a decision on if he will use his ability for right or wrong, for good or evil. Someone once said “With great power comes great responsibility,” wait, that’s a different universe but you catch my meaning.I'm a Stephen King fan so am I a bit biased? Maybe. Probably. But even trying to set that aside this was a good book. A fast paced coming of age crime thriller with great characters and of course bits of the supernatural as the cherry on top. Yeah, this is a Hard Case Crime novel, but it’s also from the mind of King so having supernatural elements is something that we should come to expect by now. I really enjoyed the gritty crime aspects of LATER and the hard connection to one of King’s most popular works. I am a sucker for connected universes and this was a fun tie in that I think raised way more questions for me than it provided answers.Some may complain that King is just rehashing material from his older books, and I can see that viewpoint, but for me this was new and original enough that I didn’t mind if bits felt as if they had been borrowed and incorporated into this story. Something I did feel indifferent about was a revelation that we get about Jamie right at the end of the book. I didn’t hate it, but I also felt that it was introduced so late in the game that it didn’t have any real impact on the story one way or another.I don’t have a fancy blurb to write here at the end of the review like I usually try to do, I mean it is Stephen King for goodness sakes. If the day comes when King needs me to blurb his book I will be living the high life. Just know that I had a lot of fun with LATER and thoroughly enjoyed this quick and grimey ride into the Kingverse. Reading King for me feels like coming home, and yeah I know that sounds cheesy but that’s the best way I can describe it whenever I crack open a book by him that I have yet to read. And once again for all those in the back who may not have heard and missed it...This is a horror story.
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Top reviews from other countries
Cat Lee
Very enjoyable but far too short.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2021
The Cookster
Masterful storytelling in an engaging quick read that makes a very clear nod to "The Sixth Sense".
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2021Over the Moon
LOVED this book, finished it in a sitting!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2021
Over the Moon
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 3, 2021
My only issue with this book is that it is TOO short. I LOVED this book, finished it in a sitting!
Stephen King at it's finest, it remind me so much to the Mr. Mercedes trilogy (my fave!). A crime mystery with hints of supernatural sparked on it, so gripping, I genuinely could not stop reading!
Loved to see THE King in Times Square 😍
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Kevan James
Wonderful Little Offering from Mr King!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2021Shane Brown
Equivalent of a straight-to-video movie.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 14, 2021What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?
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