Review: Gerald's Game

Gerald's Game by Stephen King
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Honestly? Not one of his best.

This felt like it was trying to do Misery but failed.

The premise is interesting - a woman ends up half-naked, handcuffed to a bed in a quiet lakehouse where no one can hear her scream.

Ok, cool.

But then we get an agonisingly slow account of her weekend, as she thinks a lot of thoughts, reflects on her life's traumas and hallucinates a bunch.

It was sooooooo slooooooooow.

I love Stephen King's writing and he's excellent at turning boring, mundane things into tense moments but he was really just trying too hard here.

Then finally towards the last 20 or so pages of the book things get hectic?? New ideas are introduced??? And while it was captivating it was just too little, too late. I appreciated it in a curious sort of manner, but since I'd already experienced the rest of the book it didn't really mean a lot to me.

So a long slog for not a lot of payoff.

This is probably the first King book that I've rated this low, but it really was my worst experience of his work I think.

View all my reviews