Misery

Rating:
Summary: Definately not for the faint of heart
Review: It had been many years before I reaqainted myself with Mr. King. I had been a fan of the movie and thought I may as well read the book too. Needlessly to say, I was shocked and completely mesmerized by Paul Sheldon's plight as he finds himself the unwilling "Patient" of a murderous ex-nurse who also happens to be his "number-one" fan. A warning to fans of the movie---you will be shocked. The movie leaves out many details. Grusome and horrifying details. The death of the young state trooper who is investigating Paul's disappearance is one of the most shocking and horrifying scenes I have ever read in a book. Shocking because even though you know Annie isn't playing with a full deck..you either don't believe she could kill someone with such blatant disregard for human life, or that you knew and just didn't want to fess up to the reality. Not to give anything away to those who haven't read it..Paul doesn't have his ankles broken..rather one is the victim of a impromtu "operation'. Still, this novel was compelling in its insights into the mind of the manic-depressive and completely insane. The excerpts of Paul's novel made me wonder if Mr. King wasn't skewering the Romance novel niche...anyone else note that these were obvious parodies of the popular novels? Still...King is a masterful writer and his use of vocabulary is astounding....great read...

Rating:
Summary: Terrifying
Review: Words cannot describe this book, but I will try. To fully appreciate the horror, you must read the book. In it, Paul Sheldon, an author who writes romance novels, crashes in his car and is found and nursed back to health by Annie Wilks, who claims to be his number one fan (She fails to tell anyone that she has found him). Now, the back of the book says she goes fanatic after he kills off her favorite character. This is only part of the story. Annie Wilks is Psychotically and Paranoiacally (SP?) insane in a way that only King could bring her to life. She is pleasant on the skin, but underneath she is a time bomb. She can go from happy to insane with rage. She does some horrible things to Paul. I won't say what, as it would spoil the suspense. But the Scenario is terrifying. Noone knows that you are here.You are all alone with a psychotic madwoman who would torture you if she becomes angry. You are completely dehabilitated. If you are faint of heart, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS BOOK!!!!

I think the quote that best sums up is the quote by Frederick Niche at the beginning of the book:
"When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."

Rating:
Summary: It was a killer....
Review: This book was awesome. It slowly draws you in to where you're attratcted to every word of this gripping novel. I personally would recomend it to anyone ever. Mr.King has this way of writing that can intrige the youngest to oldest of people. This booke is no diffrent from what im talking about. A man picked up by his crazy 'number-one-fan'; he suddenly realizes that this lady was not right. She had been giving him a lethal drug known as Norvil and was threating him with his life to write his best work for her. To see what happens you must by this book and read it.

Rating:
Summary: Beware of Nurses with axes and pills
Review: Great book by Stephan King. Unlike a few of his other books, this gets straight to the point right away, and you don't have to read half of the book before you can't put it down. I would recommend it to anyone who is just starting to read his works. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, horrified and may even scare you. Everything you ever wanted. Where does he come up with this stuff anyway? It's Genius!

Rating:
Summary: An awesome S. King novel.
Review: This was the first King book I read. I grabbed it at the library one day mainly out of curiosity. It was so good, I couldn't put it down. I didn't do anything but read for two days. This book made me a Stephen King fan.
It's thrilling and quite frightening. When I was reading alone at night, I was sincerely scared, it was awesome. One of my favorite books. Read it.

Rating:
Summary: The Title Grabs You, the Rest of the Story Only Gets Better
Review: I believe this to be Stephen King's best book. This book represents a benchmark between King's earlier campy, almost horror movie-like style books (Carrie, etc) and the more psychological, almost surreal thriller type books that characterize his later writing years.
Without giving too much away: the story revolves around two characters. A world-famous writer, physically incapacitated by a car accident, and an insane ex-nurse who loves his books, and has had the strange coincidence of rescuing him from the wreck. The writer is holed up in the nurse's house, and is witness to/victim of her descent into complete insanity.
I am a fan of most Stephen King books but found this one to be most "effective", because it was actually a pretty quick read. Stephen King is a phenomenal story teller but at times his books can get a little slow. I always stick with them because I get a kick out of the bites of factual info that he inevitably inserts in his ramblings. I can see how a reader could get bothered by that though. Misery however is not like that. It has no slow or dull spots at all.
The characters are intense, really strong, and will stay with you for years. The plot is suspenseful and perfectly paced.
Read this one! It is well worth it.

Rating:
Summary: That Would be Misery
Review: Paul Sheldon is a writer of the famously popular Misery novels. They seem to be old romance (old gothic) or the such. Everyone wants more and more and that's the opposite of what he wants. So he kills of the lead character Misery Chastain, to end the books so he can write something new. He writes a manuscript and heads back to the city in a snowstorm, but he never makes it. He's involved in a one man car accident and finds himself in some woman's house in a bed with broken legs and all tore up. He;s in the home of Annie Wilkes his "#1 Fan."

This is when all hell breaks loose. She's obsessive and insane. She looses it when she reads the new Misery book and finds out he killed off her favourite book. She forces him to right a new one, or die and she has him destroy his new manuscript.

During this time he is subjected to various tortures: fingers cut off for complaining about broken typerwriter keys. Feet cut off for trying to escape. And she wants to kill him and then herself once the story is finally finished, in a weird suicide love pact. She loves him. He hates her. I won't reveal the ending, but it is pretty satisfying.

The movie was extremely good as well. Gos read this and then watch the movie. Very good stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Terrifying, Perfect King
Review: "umber whunnnn
yerrrnnn umber whunnnn
fayunnnn
These sounds: even in the haze."

This is the mysterious first "chapter" of Stephen King's amazing bestseller, Misery. It tells the tale of a man named Paul Sheldon, creator of Misery, a four-book clichéd Harlequin series. He is a very successful writer who, ironically, hates his best-selling Misery series. So, he decides to kill off Misery Chastain, the main character of the Misery novels.

After this, he decides to start writing other things. His most recent manuscript after Misery is called Fast Cars. But one night, right after finishing the first draft of Fast Cars, he breaks both his legs in an automobile accident. The next thing he knows, he is lying in a bed in a woman named Annie Wilkes's house. It comes into his knowledge that she is his "number one fan". This isn't anything out of the ordinary; a lot of people sign their letters to him as his "number one fan". But when Wilkes goes ballistic after she finds out that Misery has been killed off, he finds out that this is no ordinary woman.

This is the story of Paul Sheldon, as told by Stephen King. In this tale dubbed by the Boston Globe as "full of twists and turns and mounting suspense", strange things occur in this little nowhere house in the Middle of Nowhere, Colorado. Annie Wilkes takes advantage of his crippled state, threatening him with all sorts of different awful implements of torture, that she will use on him if she doesn't write a new Misery novel, just for her. This novel is to be named "Misery's Return", and must bring Misery back to life, but in Wilkes's words, without cheating.

This is definitely one of King's better works, which I was able to finish in essentially less than a day. I was completely hooked on this book, only being able to set it down for an hour at a time at most. Among the many unforgettable things in this book is the "Annie Wilkes Lexicon", which is what Sheldon dubs her often hilarious way of "swearing", such as calling "bad" people "dirty birdies", as well as calling objects "cockadoodie" and "oogy". Misery shows you exactly the strain and struggle Sheldon goes through to write the new Misery's Return, without invoking the wrath of Annie.

Of course, sometimes this doesn't work too well. Annie has plenty of methods of bringing inspiration to him. First it's burning his one and only manuscript of Fast Cars, next, a hypodermic needle, and even a gruesome scene in which she attacks him with an axe. As much as I loved this book, it is definitely not for the people who cannot take King's... err...rather more colorful than average descriptions.

Be forewarned that the plot involves a lot of emotional and physical trauma, as Sheldon recuperates from the car accident, plus the many beatings he must sustain from Annie Wilkes. It also involves a lot of swearing, although not as much as most King stories, and an Annie-inflicted dope addiction that drives Sheldon to sometimes-insane lengths. And the gruesome descriptions of the bloody tortures that Annie inflicts on anybody who makes her mad, because, as she puts it, she is not herself when she's angry.

I may not like most stories with only one main character, a few examples of this kind of writing would be "Hatchet", by Gary Paulsen, or even the Horror Master himself's very own "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon", which I hated. This, somehow, was different. He was not being tormented by something unseen, although you could definitely say that. He was being tormented by something REAL. The whole thing was REAL. The book was REAL. That's what I liked about Misery. This book compared to even The Stand (although I have yet to read a novel that surpasses THAT, even Misery wasn't that good).

This novel was critically acclaimed by such papers and newsgroups as the Boston Globe, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Seattle Times, the Houston Chronicle, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly, as one of the best King books ever to be written. I honestly couldn't put it down. The analogies in the book are excellent, as Sheldon starts thinking of himself as a modern-day Scheherazade, story-telling (excuse me, story-WRITING) for his life. Five stars (and if it was out of 10, I would give it a 10 out of 10). Highly, highly, highly recommended.