Stephen King Fans discussion
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King books you didn't like?
Well, you've got good instincts- King's said Desperation is one of his own least faves. Funny, Bag of Bones is one of my favorites, just one of those stories that always stays with you. But it WAS a bit too long.
Personally, Tom Gordon is the one I couldn't even finish. I just could not get into it at all, and finally I was like, ah screw it.
Bag of Bones is one of my favorites too, and yes King could have cut it down 100 pages!Insomnia, has to be my least favorite!!! I couldn't get past chapter three without falling asleep.
"Insomnia, has to be my least favorite!!! I couldn't get past chapter three without falling asleep." how ironic...:-D
Gerald's Game. I felt I could have skipped the first 100 pages or so without missing much. The Regulators. Despite the name it was under, this is still a dreadful novel.
My least fave was Danse Macabre simply because it wasn't fiction.
I listened to Tom Gordon when I was doing data entry. Anne Hache(sp?) read it. I really enjoyed it. I might not of liked it as much had I read it instead of listened.
i would have to say desperation as well. that was the first king book i'd written, and it turned me off his writing for years. it wasn't until i was at a library in edinburgh that i came across his nightmares and dreamscapes. i enjoyed it, but still wasn't interested in anything else of his. luckily i got fooled into reading The Long Walk (not knowing it was his). since then, i've been really digging him.
Didn't care much at all for Tommyknockers, nor Dreamcatcher--I blame this, and every subsequent mediocre King project, on the accident.
Wasn't Tommyknockers pre-accident? Actually, I was very VERY impressed with Everything's Eventual, which I believe was written after the accident.
I never liked the Gunslinger series. Didn't really care for his attempt at "fantasy" writing
my least fav would have to be.....Lisey's Story.
The only one I can think of right off the top of my head is Dreamcatcher. It was too much like the monster movies I always avoid - with a very strange monster indeed. I watched the movie to see if perhaps I'd missed something important, but didn't like that either.
Tommyknockers was pre-accident. I think I heard somewhere or read somewhere Mr. King said he was completely coked up through the entire writing of Tommyknockers. Which if true would explain a lot. However, I can't remember where I heard it, so there may not be any truth to that statement.
I know Tommyknockers was pre-accident, but it still was a step backward for him. Everything's Eventual had some good stuff...and some not so good. I hated the one about the "lucky coin", whatever it was called.
"Everything's Eventual had some good stuff" Did anyone ever catch the TV movie vrsn of Riding the Bullet they did a couple of years ago? Oh my lord, I was embarrassed for the guy who directed it. It was awful! That's my fave story (one of them) and they butchered it. They made it take place in the 60s (????), and the guy was some tortured suicidal art student with a hippie girlfriend. Awful, just awful.
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Just found thi club and joined today.anyway he is one of my favorite authors but there are some books I just don't like.I don't care for most of his short stories.I think i really like maybe 4.I did not like Gerald's Game,for the life of me I can't think of the title now.I'm sure it will come to me once i'm in bed.But it came out after It.The one with the writer who suffered from headaches and he had a twin that was inside his head or something like that.The movie was terrible too.
That was The Dark Half. I liked the book but I really didn't like the movie.
Tim, how could you not like the Dark Tower series??? Those are my favorit Stephen King books of all time, right up there with The Stand and Skeleton Crew. Oh well we all have different tastes. As for me i HATED Geralds Game, i couldnt even finish it after trying three different times to read it. I also wasnt a big fan of Insomnia. And to a certain extent would have to agree that his writting has lost something after the accident.
i have not read that book yet.i hope to soon.
buy the way it is snowing here.yuck
a friend
anita
Thanks I always forget the title of that one.Probably because i didn't care for it much.
I didn't like "From a Buick 8" at all. If I wasn't listening to it on tape I don't think I ever would have finished it.
I also listened to From a Buick 8. I had forgotten about that one. I didn't care for it much either. It felt like a really depressing veiw on life.
I think Road Work is the only book of his I've started and not finished. Didn't even get "in to" it, really. I loved Bag of Bones, liked Buick 8, and thought Lisey's Story had some nice moments.
I read the Tommyknockers when I was young and impressionable - the same time I read It, and the Stand. I remember absolutely nothing about that book, while plenty of details from the other two have stuck with me.
I couldn't make myself finish Needful Things. I started reading it and started to realize how things were going to play out with this person thinking that person was the one who did whatever (throw mud on the sheets or something, right?) and I realized I really didn't want to read something like that, it would have made me too tense and not in a good way. Maybe I missed out, I don't know.
I can't even remember if I ever finished Needful Things, so that says something! Gerald's Game still has the bookmark in the first chapter, and the Tommyknockers,not so much...Bag of Bones was best when I heard the audiobook, which Stephen King reads himself. It totally made a difference, it's one of my favorites now.
I reread a bunch of King books recently and realized... I HATE GERALD'S GAME. It's like a writing exercise gone wrong. Hey, let's make every single little movement or thought into a huge extrapolated agony (for the reader)! Really overdid it there, Stephen. Sorry. I also did not like the Dark Half, it was too dated, and Dean Koontz wrote a similar novel (Mr. Murder) which I think I read before Dark Half and it just kindof tainted my reading. They were so alike I hardly can tell them apart.
Another book I did not like (I am a diehard King fan but never let it be said I follow him mindlessly!) was Christine. It was just... sooo boring. Maybe I just don't like cars (Although I loved From a Buick 8, so maybe I just don't like the book)
wow, actually Christine is the one that really sticks with me- maybe it's nostalgia, since it's the first King novel I ever read. I wasn't too crazy about Carrie though- I mean it was a good read, but it was more like an RL Stine novel to me- didn't have the depth of King's later work (he admits this himself in On Writing- "a writer would have to be a lot crazier than me to think Carrie is anyone's intellectual treat").
It's funny about Gerald's Game. I have heard so many people say they couldn't stand that one but then I was at a friend's house and two of their friends were going on and on about Gerald's Game saying how great it was and how it's so underrated. Knowing what it's about, I can see how the book could get pretty tortuous but I have to admit that I'm curious about it now that they were raving about it. I'm going to have to check it out from the library one day soon.
Hi everyone. Just joined the site and this group. I would have to say that the only King book I have not liked up to this point is From a Buick 8. It seemed uninspired to me. That was the last one before he "retired" and it seemed almost mailed in. Although, since then I thought Lisey's story was one of his best. I really liked the lead character and the development of the story.
The only book that I really could not stand was Hearts in Atlantis. Other than that each book hadthings that i did not care for, but in the end I never regreted reading any of them.
Jennifer, I'm with you on Hearts in Atlantis - truly hated it. Didn't care much for Bag of Bones either. But I have to admit, I did enjoy Gerald's Game! Lisey's Story took me a few tries, but once it got rolling it was worth the effort.
hi guys,New here, so bear with me. I've read King since jr high and I think I've read them all. There are some great ones (the stand) and there are some stinkers. I agree that the writing hasnt been as good post accident. My least favorite, however, is Gerald's Game. Just absolutely freaked me out! Any man mentions handcuffs to me and he is out the door! haha
I didn't like the Dreamcatcher - it was one of the most tedious books I have ever read by King. I found it hard to get into and I'm one of these people who have to finish a book no matter how much I don't like it.
Tommyknockers is the one I had the hardest time finishing. From the very start I hated it, but I can't really remember why. I think I didn't like the ending either. I read it years ago, so I'm very fuzzy on what happened.I agreee with you 100% on 'It'.
*It spoilers ahead!*
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It lost me with the sex in the sewers thing, too. How old were they? 12?
(Hi, I'm new here)
uummm i got sssoo much books that i'm reding right now i have no time to tell which is my favs and hates
There's been talk about a Talisman movie for ages, Spielberg being the most interested Hollywood hotshot.
Needful Things was terible I thought..the book and the movie. Lisey's Story was pretty good imho.
Blaze is probably my least favorite...too mice and men-ish.
Jenny---RE SPOILER ABOVE...It had something to do with a need for a primal, mystical connection for the group to achieve in order for them to defeat IT. As morally weird as it was, it was more than just sex involved with it, I would venture. Some of us are re-reading IT now...perhaps bringing this up in the Let's Revisit IT thread can elicit some intelligent answers to this from other folks.
RE: IT SPOILER... I guess got the reasoning behind it to a certain degree, but I just didn't really buy it. It kind of jerked me out of the story and I couldn't get back into it. Maybe I should give it another try some time.
"Nicholas Sparks" should be a dirty word! I have only read one book by him. It was 'A Walk To Remember' and I wish I could forget. ;)It was a free book someone had left in a hospital waiting room. If I had remembered to bring a book with me, I never would have finished it.
Tommyknockers was one of the only ones I disliked. I could never seem to get into the characters...
The Tommyknockers, Insomnia and Dreamcatchers. All bad.
I didn't like Hearts In Atlantis. Since the book was divided into parts, I admit that I liked the part one, but after that it just went downhill for me.And it was a trial to finish the last three books of the Dark Tower series. Wolves of the Calla about done me in on my resolve to finish the series. I just felt that King rambled far too much and the whole inserting himself as a character in the story just seemed lame to me.
I really don't like the Dark Tower series. Can't explain why though. I also wasn't too fond of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. My all time favorite is The Talisman and the one with the little bald men. I thought that Rose Madder was awesome and I was very impressed with Lisey's Story and Duma Key.
When I said the one with the little bald men, I meant Insomnia!
I loved the part in the Dark Tower series where Stephen King wrote himself into the story! I thought that was great! It was like he wasn't making this story up, and that these characters actually existed in another dimension, kind of a thing. I thought it was pretty cool to think that he wouldn't have survived his accident if Jake and Roland hadn't saved him!
Kathy, I liked SK writing himself into it, too, even if had been done time and again by many other writers. I think he brought a whole dimension to the practice by not making himself the all-knowing, all-powerful mouthpiece that other authors had done with this technique.
Jeralds Game. I just hated this book. I finished it because I have to finish books. It was the story I didn't like not the writing.
Desperation. The whole book just grinded on my nerves. I am not even completely sure why. I felt it droned on a bit, but again it was mostly the story not the writing that I didn't like.
There are 2 more that had 1 aspect I didn't like in an over all good book.
IT... *Spoiler!*
Why oh why did they have to all have sex with the girl after the monster was already defeated in order to get out of the sewer? As if the monster fight didn't take away enough of their inosence. Keep in mind I loved the book other then that. It is the only book to ever give me nightmares. I read it more then a decade ago and still don't look at clowns the same.
Bag of Bones. I loved the story when it finaly got moving. I think the first 5 chapters needed to be edited. It felt like listening to someones running thoughts. It just went on and on with out much purpose.