Books I Loathed discussion

I know there are many out there who just fawn over the horror of Stephen King, but I find his books to be laughable.

I liked Needful Things (interesting concept) on audio for the most part - like many readers on here, I tend to listen to audiobooks of works I wouldn't read in hard copy - but I don't understand the hype surrounding The Stand or It (which both were on the Top 100 for the Modern Library picks).

His movies are terrible (Dreamcatcher anyone?), with the exception of The Shining and Misery. Both of these were really brought to life with the amazing talents of Jack Nickleson and Kathy Bates.

Still questioning my loathing? He uses more similes and metaphors in his work than any author I have experienced, and that just doesn't fly with me for something that is supposed to be scary. Check it out - you'll see. This will make you laugh on audiobook when you start listening for them.

Any die-hard fans of his on here? Can anyone change their mind with a solid King recommendation? ;)

Try Misery; or Salem's Lot; or Rose Madder; or the horrid one about bondage, can't remember the title. Those were pretty good, I thought. I don't much care for his other works, though. Actually, several of his other works would qualify for my "worst books" list. Don't judge an author by his movies...different skills are needed for each, I think.

I like (or liked, I haven't read one in a while) King's shorter works, like THE SHINING, MISERY, DOLORES CLAIBORNE, CHRISTINE, PET SEMATARY. They're good tight books.

Unfortunately, King starts to over-reach, I think, with stuff like THE STAND and IT and that DARK TOWER thing. Page after page after page, these vast multi-character sagas that just go on and on and on, and get more and more pretentious.

What Stephen King needs, in my not so humble opinion, is a good editor. This books would be good if someone took half of the extraneous bs out. Carrie was good. Carrie was cohesive. I can't muddle through anymore. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw that he wrote a book on writing. Puh-leeze.

I also loathe him. I've read the gunslinger and I forced myself to finish. I tried reading the second book in the series, so far I've only read about 12 pages. I started reading it over two years ago. I never read a worse piece of writing before in my life. The plot actually has great potential, but the writing style and the countless dribble on information that is not necessary for the story destroys that. He's one of the only authors that I can't understand how others can like as much as they do. I want to read the green mile, but Im not sure if it will be worth my time.

Ugh, THE STAND is one of his very worst books. Go for THE SHINING or MISERY or PET SEMATARY.

Ugh, THE STAND, ugh...

You can always use THE STAND as kindling.

Or a door stop.

How is The Wind Up Bird Chronicles? It is on my book club's reading list right now.

Shameless plug here: Busy as a Bee Book Lists.

I'm not a Stephen King fan. I read "Firestarter" because we somehow ended up with a copy on the bookshelf and I really liked it. I think I liked "The Shining" and "Carrie" but it's entirely possible that I never read either and am just thinking of the movies. I started to read "The Stand" and only made it a few chapters in. It just didn't grab me.

"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" is very good, if you're in the mood for something really weird, dense and different. I call it Japanese Gothic because it kind of reminds me of Faulkner with a Japanese sensitivity.

Hey Tom, there used to be a fun thread about the most creative ways that you've desecrated books you loathed (or wanted to). Got any good ones?

Kate, what a great idea. Alas, I've never really been able to desecrate a book. My Dad instilled in me a respect for books bordering on fetishization, so defilement of a book I dislike is impossible.

I have memories of gleefully tearing up a copy of WUTHERING HEIGHTS on the last day of high school, though.

Probably the only way I can defile a book is to dump it in a book donation pile.

King is not for everyone.
I tried to read his Dark Tower books, but I kept falling asleep. I figured it would get better and I continued to plow through it for about a week.

The Stand is not my fav book, but I thought it was interesting reading for my summer before college. Definetly a massive work to process. I was amazed a few years latter when it was rereleased as an even longer version.

Ive always been curious why King chose Boulder Colorado as the setting for the new craddle of civilization?
For some reason, Boulder keeps getting picked, in novels as the place where humanity picks up the pieces after a holocaust.

Was this a really really strange coincidence or an inside joke from King?

I agree, the movies other than The Shining all suck. I think his best work is The Stand. It's not scary in the traditional sense which is why I think it works.

I hated The Gunslinger but loved the rest of that series. I don't know what possessed me to continue after The Gunslinger but I'm glad I did.

i'm a king fan, i have to admit (although not so much with his latest books... for some reason i like the ones he wrote when he was on the sauce... carrie, pet semetary, cujo. maybe because he didn't try so hard to be deep and to SAY something, and just wrote what came into his head).

anyway, my big problem with king in always in the last 20 or so pages of just about EVERY SINGLE book he's ever written. it's like he gets lost and doesn't know how to end it, so he just slaps some crap on the page and hopes no one notices that all of his endings are lame.

So funny that this should come up in a Stephen King conversation. I, too, would never desecrate a book. As children we weren't even allow to dog-ear the pages. So when I realized (with no small embarrassment) that I had been taken in by "Diary of Ellen Rimbauer" (bought on the recommendation of someone who HADN'T read it) I gave my daughter permission to destroy it. Was she ever gleeful! Sort of made up for the tragedy. I DID have my suspicions by page 11, I would like to report.

When it comes to Stephen King there are as many different opinions as there are readers. My favourite was IT, I quite liked The Stand, The Shining and Misery and thought Bag of Bones, Salem's Lot and Carrie were waste of pages.

Erica, I would never desecrate a book either. Yesterday I saw a perfect stranger not just dog-earing a page, but literally folding the page in half to save his page. I had to bite my lip not to scream at him to treat the book properly! ;)

I'm sort of a Steven King fan, i dont think i have read enough of his books to actually call myself a true fan though.

As for his movies being terrible, have you not seen the Shawshank Redemption, or The Green mile?

Hmm i hadn't noticed the similes and metaphors before, maybe you should try a book by him that isn't meant to be scary, i would suggest The Green Mile. The book and the movie are really good.
Just my opinion though, hope it helps you.

The Green Mile was great, and I enjoyed his novelettes in Four Past Midnight, though The Secret Window was better as a movie. But other than that I can't really say that I like him very much. The man cannot end a book to save his life (Green Mile is the exception) and that really annoys me. If the story is only going to be ok then it should at least have a good ending to make up for it. And most of his books that I've read aren't even very scary. I would say they are ok beach or summer reads, but not great literature.
Also, Rose Madder was terrible.

I thought "Misery" was his best, since it's the rare King novel that has no supernatural happenings in it, just an author held prisoner by a crazed fan. I thought "Needful Things" was okay, and I enjoyed "The Shining", but "It" was just awful, even though I read the whole thing. If you read more than one King novel, you'll notice that he often resorts to having a character discover an old scrapbook to fill in background. You'd think his editors would have caught that.

I'm not a big King fan, but I remember I did enjoy Carrie and Christine when I was in high school. (Carrie more than Christine). As an adult, I liked Delores Claiborne. I didn't really like Rose Madder or The Green Mile. I don't think I've read many others. I'm not a big horror fan, so there's not much of a draw for me.

I do disagree that all of his movies are bad. I liked both The Secret Window and The Shawshank Redemption. Needful Things wasn't too bad either.

the picture window secret based in the book is very good, remember me the tale of poe: william wilson, fantastic.

Stephanie wrote: "I know there are many out there who just fawn over the horror of Stephen King, but I find his books to be laughable.

I liked Needful Things (interesting concept) on audio for the most part - li..."

I think you should read and watch Dolores Claiborne. It's one of my favorite movies. I love Paybacks!

I haven't read that many of his books, but the only ones I liked were the shorter ones, like Shawshank Redemption. I can't stand the way he works in the lyrics of popular songs. I've started a couple of the more recent books and I just can't read them. And they're soooo long.

With the exception of "Carrie," I can't tolerate Stephen King. His prose is ham-handed, his plots are slapdash, and his admitted propensity for the gross-out is disgusting.

Nevertheless, he does have a talent.

A little background: Ayn Rand once defined drama as opposed to melodrama. She said if you have a conflict between a man and another man, or between a man and nature, you have melodrama. If you have a conflict between a man and himself, you have drama. By this definition, King has a talent for drama.

This is what made Carrie so powerful. Carrie didn't want to kill all those people. She wanted to be left alone. But when the bucket came down, part of her was torn off and acted the way it acted.

Or take the movie, Firestarter. That was a tedious piece of crap all the way through, but when you get to the end, every character on the screen is in conflict with himself. That girl's father didn't want to send her out to fight with the cops, but he had to. She didn't want to blow people up, but she had to. The cops didn't want to shoot at a little girl, but they had to.

I was standing right straight up.

Fiona wrote: "Hehe, I've just bought The Stand. I feel I should try to read a Stephen King. I kinda want to try horror, only now I read a few reviews and they say it isn't horror. Oh well.

I wonder if I'll like..."

trust me, hes great. there are so amny books that are good...if one doesnt work ill bet u different one will

I would not classify myself as a Stephen King fan, but I felt that his novel the Dead Zone worked quite well. I felt it did manage to convey a sense of loss and a sense of tragedy. to a certain extent it conveyed the idea of what it is to be considered a "monster".

*His movies are terrible (Dreamcatcher anyone?)*

I happen to like SK so I'll stay out of this--each to his own as they say--but I simply must address this comment by protesting that they aren't "his" movies, they are a screenwriter's interpretation of his books, and I really don't think SK can be blamed entirely for the fact that 99% of the movie versions do, in fact, suck the big hairy one. Though I am sure that SK had to have had some sort of artistic input so shame on him. He should JUST SAY NO to Hollywood IMO.

I thought that The Secret Window was actually better as a movie. That book of novellas (Four Past Midnight) actually creeped me out a little. I really liked the first novella.

I usually don't think is stuff is scary. I read it because it is pretty funny. Now I hated Dreamcatcher, but one of my favorite quotes comes from it..."I'm hot! I'm tasty! And I'm waiting!!"

Anyone read The Colorado Kid? Not even near scary. Not even funny...depressing.

Actually, I really liked On Writing. He does talk about his overuse of similes a bit, so it's pretty amusing. The biggest theme in the book is about how important being a reader is to writing. So he talks a lot about what and how he reads.

i find him very boring but I did finish and like some of his easier-to-read books like FIRESTARTER and the EYE OF THE DRAGON. the others, i just wikipedia the summary

When it comes to Stephen King books I either love them or can't even get through them there is no in between with him. I actually do like The Stand, but I couldn't even get through IT.

I agree that he does need a better editor, I think the books that I didn't like are mostly because of how wordy they are. He sometimes rambles around so much with the description that you lose the storyline and it really ruins the book.

Rosemary wrote: "I am a King fan and have to say that there are some that are just amazing and some that are terrible. I really loved Dreamcatcher as a book (the movie was aweful) and his new one 11/22/63. Others ..."

Agree on Dreamcatcher. I was actually surprised how much I liked the book. The ending wasn't great but the ending in the movie was just terrible.

I don't mind King. Now before anyone says anything, I don't think every one of his books is genius and I do think he could benefit from an editor, but when he's good, he does do a good job of marrying the fantastic with the everyday. Plus, I've read his book about writing and based on this and other interviews, he's remarkably unpretentious. He knows he's a "popular" or "genre" writer and has no problem with it; plus he does have good nuts and bolts advice about writing.


My personal fave of his is Misery.

I loved Misery and It was also great. Plodding along in The Stand

I loved a novella of his called Apt Pupil, and the movie was also great, with Ian McKellen playing an old Nazi whose identity is found out by a young boy. The novella and the movie have different endings, but both were good, I thought. The novella is in Different Seasons.

I am still scared of It...I know that sounds silly and really lame but I am.

Im a huge Stephen King fan. I think the movies don't make justice to him. Except well, for those you just mentioned. Pet Sematary is good too. About the books, you should read Bag of bones, scared the crap out of me, or even Misery, I FREAKING LOVE THAT BOOK. And uhm... Duma Key is pretty good too.

This guy is so hit and miss I swear he's on crack or has split personality disorder. Misery was beyond epic and Thinner still has me scared of gypsies a decade and a half after reading. I could probably list 10 others I really enjoyed but aside from that I think the publisher is raiding the trashcan next to King's typewriter.

And the movies... who would sign off creative control and let so many horrible movies be made from their work?

Regarding his movies, I think after Maximum Overdrive, Stephen King has lost all right to complain about how badly directors botch his works given that King directed Maximum Overdrive and managed to prove that he can't direct.

Gail wrote: "Try Misery; or Salem's Lot; or Rose Madder; or the horrid one about bondage, can't remember the title. Those were pretty good, I thought. I don't much care for his other works, though. Actually, se..."

The "horrid one about bondage" was titled "Gerald's Game" just FYI.

She-ra's wrote: "This guy is so hit and miss I swear he's on crack or has split personality disorder. Misery was beyond epic and Thinner still has me scared of gypsies a decade and a half after reading. I could pro..."

Well, from the late 1970s up until just before "Misery", I believe, King did have issues with drugs, coke (cocaine) and alcohol and chain smoking, I believe. Most of the issues the character Jack Torrance suffered from in "The Shining" were things King himself had struggled with at the time. Except the going off his rocker and slaughtering his family, of course.

I started reading King as a teenager. I've read everything he's written. I think that kind of loyalty stems from having read the author over two and a half decade. I'm not saying everything he writes is prize winning. But he's like an old friend. I visit whenever I can. :)

I've read most of King's stuff, and the newer ones just don't grab me. The Dark Tower series was mind-numbing, Cell disappointing, and one of them, I can't remember which now, was so bad I kept falling asleep while reading. I've never been able to like Carrie either. Ah well, different strokes for different folks, as my Nana says :-)

I'm an avid horror reader and reviewer. I love King's older books like Carrie, Misery, Cujo and IT but his new stuff is terrible! I gave up on Mr Mercedes and won't read his new stuff. My theory is he used to write as an alcoholic and when drunk (told in interviews) and as not drinking like that anymore the books waffle and are not as dark. Much better horror writers out there like Adam Nevill, Josh Malerman, John Saul and John D. Taff.

IMO, he hasn't written anything good since the mid-1990s.

I've only read 3 of his books so far, Misery, IT, & the shining, In that order . IT was the BEST book of his by far, Misery was really good too, and the shining was kinda shit. I totally recommend Misery first if you want a shorter read, but if you don't mind the length, IT is AMAZING.

I hate Stephen king

I dislike horror, I really didn't like the Gunslinger, and I think his books are designed to make you feel like shit, which I believe to be the worst kind of writing.
But most-most-most of all I dislike his writing on writing. I feel really disgusted when writers try to treat his "advises" like a "writing Bible". It's baffling.