Review: Misery

Misery by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bruhhh this sh*t was INSANE.

That Annie Wilkes lady is CRAZY.

Every time I read a Stephen King novel I have a similar reaction: 'THIS is why they call him The King'.

The man truly is a master at creating atmosphere.

Plot: Paul Sheldon, writer, is rescued from a car accident by his Number One Fan. She's going to look after him HER way, and being a Stephen King novel you know that way is not going to be a whole lot of fun for Paul Sheldon.

Describing this story to another person just simply doesn't do it justice. The horror is in the small moments and the pauses in between. The storytelling does all the work here and it is GOOD work.

I was captivated from start to finish, visibly cringing in places and even knowing what was coming (I've seen snippets of the film) didn't help soften the blow when it came.

There's not much to say that hasn't already been said so I must just agree that this is one of Stephen King's best, crafted masterfully to evoke spine tingling and bone chilling.

Highly recommend for horror fans, but also to writers wanting to develop their craft.

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Review: The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel

The Raven Boys: The Graphic Novel by Stephanie Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read the books years ago and, while I enjoyed it, it didn't quite live up to the hype for me. I liked the characters for the most part but the story was confusing and kinda messy.

Sadly, I felt very much the same about this graphic novel adaptation - if even more confused.

There's no time taken to build the setting or the characters, so what we get is mostly a mess of things happening. I've read the story before and I STILL found it hard to follow.

On that note, I don't know how well this will be read by those who haven't read the books. This very much strikes me as fan service; it banks on the popularity of the books rather than trying to build a story that will grab new readers.

The artwork, while cute, didn't reflect my interpretation of the characters, and some parts of the action were too muddled to follow. Some interesting techniques used but it really didn't work for me - the style strikes me as childish and more frivolous than the tone of the story calls for.

I think, sadly, the graphic novel just doesn't hold up to the novel. There's too much nuance in the book that gets missed in this format, and for grahpic novel fans that have no experience of the book, I think this one is just too 'out there'.

I wouldn't recommend it to the uninitiated, but fans of The Raven Boys should be happy just to have more, and to see characters they love brought to life.

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Review: Wolf Hall

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Such mixed feelings!

It felt brilliant but contrived, slow yet action-packed, dull yet fascinating.

It's a lot of words, and a lot of deeds.

The writing is convoluted and the kind of style where you want to give yourself a gold star every time you figure out what its saying.

When I paused around the 400-page mark to read some other stuff, I didn't really want to pick it back up. But when I forced myself to I didn't want to put it back down???

What a mystery.

In general, the story follows the mechanations and manipulations of Thomas Cromwell, a man who began life as a blacksmith's son and eventually rose to become the king's righthand man.

There's a whole mess of characters that are hard to keep track of - particularly as everyone seems to have multiple names/titles - but there is a list at the front of the book to refer back to.

There's definitely plenty in this book that I didn't follow - it's a lot, and the writing is such that the author goes out of her way to make us work for it. But the general gist of what's going on gets easier as it goes along and we finally start to figure out who is who.

There's also no real goal - it's a portrait in time, following the big players of the English court during the early 1500s. Cromwell has his own status and power which continues to grow, but there's no real goal stated. I found it difficult to follow along at first with no purpose, but then I also found that I never wanted to put it down. Somewhow this mess of characters had sucked me in.

It was a strange experience for me - I was desperate to be done with it because it was such a tough slog, but at the same time I never wanted to leave it unfinished. I still found I wanted to know what would happen, and now I'm keen to move on to the sequel (after a well-earned break!)

This is not an easy read by any means, but fans of historical fiction will be well-rewarded if they persevere.

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