Rating: 
Summary: Because it was so much fun...
Review: This is not Stephen King's greatest novel. It doesn't have the depth of Deloris Claiborne, the bone-freezing splendor of The Shining, the (amazingly) non-sentimental bathos of The Green Mile, the scope of The Stand or the touching vulnerability of The Body. However, it's one of his absolutely FUNNEST (word? you know what I mean) books. I felt like a little kid, eating a candy bar that left the book sticky with chocolate fingerprints as I flipped the pages compulsively. Yum! Your imagination just goes wild. After all, this could happen in your town. After all, it DOES. I kept thinking, what would I sell my soul for? And then I remembered that cashmere sweater I saw just the other day at Saks...
Rating: 
Summary: This sure was no Tommyknockers or Misery
Review: Unfortunately, by the time I reached the conclusion of Needful Things, I was pretty much tired of it. The concept of a store fulfilling everyone's desires with a price to pay is not exactly a new one, but I was excited to see what King would do with it. I am a big fan of his books about small towns, and read this right after The Tommyknockers, but was very disappointed. The first problem is that King doesn't make anybody in the town especially likeable. So when enemies confront one another to a usually bloody end (of note was the stomach churning scene involving two women, a butcher knife and a meat cleaver...) the reader just shrugs and keeps on reading. In nis zeal for blood, gore and more imaginative ways to kill characters, King seems to have forgotten his heart. And the elemen of surprise. How can any of us be truly stuinned by any events in a King novel when we know that almost everyone (if not all) will end up dead in the end? It's even harder to care when he makes his residents of this small Maine town about as appealing as Madame deFarge and company. Even the main characters are rather one note, and act out of odd motives. For example, what is exactly so scandalous about the way that Polly Chalmers son died? The only real scene of humanity occurs near the end of the book when Alan Pangborn visits a young 7 year old who is in a hospital bed. That scene alone has real heart to it. Not that King needs to be touchy feely, but his one dimensional characters this time all but wear saigns around their neck saying what they are, "Greedy, embezzling politican," "dimwitted deputy", "Elvis worshipping mama"..what gives? One almost feels that King himself bought the plot for this novel at the title store in exchange for his talent. He even throws in a battle royale between the towns Catholics and Baptists that not only make both groups look like half witted idiots for never verifying any pranks as truly being the responsibility of the other, but further, the cartoonis battle scene, and the animosity between the two groups (and yes, the Baptists sing, "Onward Christian Soldier" and the Catholics are a belligerent, (probably hard drinking) bunch) smacks of something that would have been written about earlier in the century, and not the 1990's. As for my last complaint, it would seem that in almost every book King writes, any type of same sex activty is about molestation, perversion or is caricatured so grotesquely that it would make any self respecting gay person hide. (See my review of It which I read at 15.)Needful Things is no different. In this book, our little small town homos are both, BOTH pedophiles. What are the odds of that happening? (And, as a more irresponsible tactic, King has them both in the educational system of the town. How very thoughtful of Mr. King.) It is characters like that which make me call King to task. I am not syaing he needs to write about gay characters in a positive light, but after the sundry men making passes at Jack in The Talisman, and the two guys in Chapter 2 of IT who are more disgusting than the monster itself, and the weak ineffectual king in the Eyes of the Dragon and now our dear friends, the perverts in Needful Things, maybe King just shouldn't write about gay characters at all, at the risk of alienating a large group of his fans. (And we are many.) If you want a great King read, go to Misery or The Tommyknockers. If you just want not awful, but not great, and are traveling by bus, plane or train... read Needful Things. Then leave it on the seat for the next person. No need to carry it around with you like a precious jewel, because it isn't one.
Rating:
Summary: 2 stars...on the KING scale
Review: This book may be better than just 2 stars...but the problem is how do you give it more than that, when books like Salem's Lot, The Shinning, Pet Semetary can only get 5? I have been reading King's books for 15 years...and this one didnt do it for me. I liked the story line building around people's paranoia and insecurities...but in the end, the book fell short.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best
Review: I didn't have half the faith I should have when I started reading this. Most of the negative criticism on this page (at least of the thoughful sort) is complaining about some of the same stuff I loved about it. The vast canvas of characters, the definitive Good vs. Evil motif, and the (very necessary, in my opinion) great length of the novel all make it great. The recurrence of Alan Pangborn is great...but when Ace Merrill (I always picture Keifer Sutherland in Stand By Me) showed up, I was elated. Farewell Castle Rock, and hello to the best novel (to date at the time of it's release)following The Drawing of the Three.(Excluding the expanded version of The Stand, which for all intents and purposes outdates both)...
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, chilling novel
Review: Among Stephen King's many talents is his ability to showcase the depths of his characters; i.e., how low they can be simply to justify their needs and desires. In this novel, Leland Gaunt, a small-town shop owner, barters with the townspeople of Castle Rock, but the price that they pay for their most desired items leads to terror. King is a master at writing this types of stories, and his fans love that he does it so well.
Rating:
Summary: King's best in years.
Review: Since I started reading Stephen King six years ago, I have never read a book that topped Salem's Lot. Needful Things doesn't, but it's not for lack of trying. King has invited us in to his favorite roost one last time to let us get a real good look at its inhabitants. King took a dozen different stories, which could have been novels of their own, and brilliantly spliced them together. This is one to read again and again.
Rating:
Summary: A strong example of King's storytelling ability!
Review: This is one those books by King that people either like a lot or not much at all. I love it, putting it only behind IT as my favorite King novel. The story is carefully woven together to culminate in the destruction of one of my favorite settings in any of King's novels, Castle Rock. The book is billed as the final Castle Rock story, but I hope King reconsiders and chooses to continue the Castle Rock saga. People who read King for gore or sheer terror probably won't like Needful Things; however, those who like the way he developes characters should find it a very enjoyable read.
Rating:
Summary: Not one of his epics, but still a brilliant read
Review: There are three types of King books: the really long epics, the reasonably long tales-about-a-town, and the shorter individual stories about individual people. "Needful Things" fits into the middle category, and boy is it good. OK, it starts quite slowly, but the likeable characters make you want to read on and find out what happens. By the time you're halfway through the plot itself begins to pick up momentum, and the final chapters steamroll by in a flash. Castle Rock is one of the better and more likeable communities King's created--Polly Chalmers, Alan Pangborn and Norris Ridgwick are all enjoyable heroes (and heroine), and Leland Gaunt is a really creepy old demon, one of King's really memorable villans. OK, you might still be a little unclear as to exactly what HAPPENED once you finish the book, but the characters are so good and the finale to spectacular that you won't really care. Great stuff--perhaps a bit too fantastical for some, but if you enjoyed "Insomnia" you'll enjoy this.
Rating: 
Summary: DEFINITELY NOT UP TO KING'S USUAL STANDARDS...
Review: About the best thing I can say about "Needful Things" is that I only paid 12.5 cents for it at a second hand bookstore because that's all it's worth(maybe). My problems with this novel are many, but I think some of the biggest shortcomings include no definition of what or who Gaunt is. I kept waiting for him to be fleshed out, but the book just kept droning on with endless vingettes of "pranks". There were also way too many characters and for some reason King was unable to do what he does best: namely develop three dimensional, living, breathing people we can relate to, then put them in mortal jeopardy so the reader can feel like they are in their head, the fear being almost palpable. Also, I would like to know where this crap with the fake snake in the nut can somehow coming alive and the paper flowers turning into some kind of blazing torch came from. It screams of a very weak premise and an even weaker way to deal with it. I guess I should just be thankful he can still turn out good quality like "Bag of Bones".
Rating: 
Summary: A good read if you're bored
Review: The beggining of the book was boring and had me asleep but you have to be patient. The ending was pretty good.
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