Fairy Tale
Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes deep into the well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for their world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink.
Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets Howard Bowditch, a recluse with a big dog in a big house at the top of a big hill. In the backyard is a locked shed from which strange sounds emerge, as if some creature is trying to escape. When Mr. Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie the house, a massive amount of gold, a cassette tape telling a story that is impossible to believe, and a responsibility far too massive for a boy to shoulder.
Because within the shed is a portal to another world—one whose denizens are in peril and whose monstrous leaders may destroy their own world, and ours. In this parallel universe, where two moons race across the sky, and the grand towers of a sprawling palace pierce the clouds, there are exiled princesses and princes who suffer horrific punishments; there are dungeons; there are games in which men and women must fight each other to the death for the amusement of the “Fair One.” And there is a magic sundial that can turn back time.
A story as old as myth, and as startling and iconic as the rest of King’s work, Fairy Tale is about an ordinary guy forced into the hero’s role by circumstance, and it is both spectacularly suspenseful and satisfying.
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dwarner 10 months ago
If you read Stephen King, you know his main characters have a way of speaking. Doesn't match their age at all. The 17 y/o protagonist sounds 45. The last quarter of the book is kind of anticlimactic. Things happen quickly and very easily, kind of makes you wonder why they didn't take the problem out ALOT sooner.
dwarner 10 months ago
I did enjoy the book though. If you like Stephen King, (not neccessarily for just his horror) you'll like this.
Guest 10 months ago
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Guest a year ago
This is Stephen King at his best, writing stories with regular people in fantastical worlds. I love Stephen King but he definitely has good/mediocre books and great ones. This one is close to great in my opinion as it pulls in lots of fantasy from our childhood in a real / scary built world. Another King book I love that I would compare this to is Eye of the Dragon. What I loved about this, besides the characters and the sense of fantastical wonder mixed with reality, is how so often I thought I knew where the story was going and it went somewhere different. Not a plot twist but taking the story in an uncommon direction. I won’t include any examples so this is spoiler free, but this happened on multiple occasions throughout the second half of the book which kept it entertaining. I’ll miss this world and characters which is why I loved it so much.
Guest a year ago
This is Stephen King at his best, writing stories with regular people in fantastical worlds. I love Stephen King but he definitely has good/mediocre books and great ones. This one is close to great in my opinion as it pulls in lots of fantasy from our childhood in a real / scary built world. Another King book I love that I would compare this to is Eye of the Dragon. What I loved about this, besides the characters and the sense of fantastical wonder mixed with reality, is how so often I thought I knew where the story was going and it went somewhere different. Not a plot twist but taking the story in an uncommon direction. I won’t include any examples so this is spoiler free, but this happened on multiple occasions throughout the second half of the book which kept it entertaining. I’ll miss this world and characters which is why I loved it so much.
Guest a year ago
Who doesn't love a good fairy tale? I always do, but in all honesty, had this not been a book by Stephen King, I would probably not have finished it.Six hundred plus pages is a lot, and I found myself at times wondering if I would ever finish. That's not how you want to feel in the midst of a huge tome. It was an interesting story in a weird sort of way. It was certainly intriguing, but, again, the length.
Guest a year ago
Conflicting feelings about this book. Enjoyed reading it, but.. hard to ignore the ugly = bad, beautiful = good, aryan prince, Jewish jeweler. Plus all the references to books he’s read, and movies that he’s watched were boring, and just felt like so much name dropping. Steve King is not my favorite author. He’s not winning me with this one. He needs to do some deeper work on his own ingrained sexual, racial, and religious biases.
Guest a year ago
This was a homage to classic fairy tales - magical land, blonde princess, protagonist prince - imbued with King’s layered characterisation. While it lagged towards the middle, I really enjoyed the first half of the novel as well as the more elderitch aspects of the ending.Write Review:
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