Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Stephan King~Needful Things~

Read: On Kindle
Paid:£4.99
Reason I choose it: Someone at work recommended it after I finished reading The Shinning.

Summary
Castle Rock is a small town in Maine where people make it their business to know almost everything. So when a new shop is opening in town everyone is curious, the phone lines are buzzing and the tongues are wagging  about what might be opening.

Little do they know how much distraction this little shop is going to cause which is owned by what they think is a perfectly kind, caring and somewhat hansom (in their mind) sales man, the only thing they do know is that they don't like being touched by him as it makes their skin crawl, this man is called Leland Gaunt! 

Leland Gaunt has an almost empty shop but even more strange is that the living space within the shop is also empty but the people visiting his shop do not know this and are often drawn in by something that reminds them of their past or that their heart desires and can not leave the shop without it. There is a small price to pay for the items but only if you agree to play a little prank on someone when Gaunt requires it. These little pranks are intended to go out of control but the person doing them, though weary about what they are doing first but  are overcome by the power of what ever Gaunt holds over them to see it through, in some cases he may even blackmail you into thinking that he's going to take your precious item.... some people can't even bare to leave the house and sit with it in their lap all day...

The item purchased by the buyer is not at all what it seems....

My opinion
I absolutely loved the idea of this book and in parts really enjoyed it but it took me nearly all my holidays to read it because it dragged. It should have been half the length as a lot of it was repetitive... Polly's arthritis, Casino Night, some people's possessiveness to their item, 2 different views of the same event, Alan's wives accident, Danforths gambling addiction.....I only need to read it once! There were just too many people to get to know, you got used to one character and then it moved to someone else and it could be a a couple of chapters before you heard about that person again and it was the same thing all over again.

The end of this book was so disappointing too as I imagined that Leland Gaunt would have been taken care of once and for all so he couldn't continue ruining lives the way he was but it wasn't the case, it was a joke the way he left.

Over all though this book just freaked me out, it was so damn creepy, its scenes too graphic in detail that I was cringing and the sexual scenes were.... I can't even describe them. I don't like them in books anyway but these were just odd.... I won't be forgetting this book for a long time.

Rating
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6 comments:

  1. I am not a horror fan at all. I can deal with crime and drama but horror. No thank you!

    The idea sounds good tho, but apparently it wasn't executed very well?

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    1. Stephan Kings horror books I can just about cope with, but this one had me clenching my teeth at the detail more then the fact that it was scary... it was just gross and it was like he'd tried to shove as much of the out there type of thing in. Like you said it sounded good but wasn't well executed.

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  2. Replies
    1. Have you read many of his books? I haven't read enough yet to say if I really like them but this book was the most disappointing of the lot.

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  3. for some reason I boycott King. No logical reason. i don't get the hype about him. I tried to read some of the books but his style bores me to death and I do not like his movies either, so a big no no for me :)

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  4. I guess you just know if a certain style suits you, I have to try authors at least once to make sure I definately don't and I think this will probably be my last book of his anyway as I've got plenty of others I want to read.

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