Rai

https://www.goodreads.com/hypnoticarmpit

Rai’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (150)
currently-reading‎ (2)
read‎ (1075)
couldn-t-finish‎ (28)
owned‎ (593)
non-fiction‎ (282)
crime-thriller‎ (100)
ebooks‎ (78)

physical-tbr‎ (76)
favorites‎ (71)
books-of-my-childhood‎ (66)
history‎ (65)
classics‎ (54)
beautiful-covers‎ (53)
terrible-books‎ (35)
to-reread‎ (22)

2020-favourites‎ (21)
daphne-du-maurier‎ (21)
2018-favourites‎ (20)
2019-favourites‎ (19)
2021-favourites‎ (19)
priority-2020‎ (18)
2023-favourites‎ (16)
2024-favourites‎ (16)

priority-2019‎ (16)
priority-2021‎ (16)
true-crime‎ (15)
2022-favourites‎ (12)
priority-2024‎ (12)
priority-2022‎ (10)
priority-2023‎ (10)

Stats | More…

Rai is Currently Reading

Rai rated a book it was amazing

Gerald's Game

by Stephen King (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: favorites, owned, currently-reading

Reading for the 3rd time

read in 2008

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Rai said: " “Some nightmares never completely ended.”

Gerald’s Game is, without a doubt, my favourite Stephen King novel. It has been since I first read it 10 years ago and this reread has just confirmed its place at the top of the list.

Sometimes Gerald and Jess “Some nightmares never completely ended.”

Gerald’s Game is, without a doubt, my favourite Stephen King novel. It has been since I first read it 10 years ago and this reread has just confirmed its place at the top of the list.

Sometimes Gerald and Jessie like to play a game, and this time they decided to play it at their secluded cabin in the woods. However Jessie didn't want to play. Lying there, spread-eagled and handcuffed to the bedstead while he'd loomed and drooled over her, she'd felt angry and humiliated. So she'd kicked out hard, aimed to hit him where it hurt.

And now he was dead on the floor, leaving Jessie alone and helpless in a lakeside holiday cabin. Miles from anywhere; no-one to hear her screams. Alone, except for the voices in her head…

“When all the normal patterns and routines of a person’s life fell apart—and with such shocking suddenness—you had to find something you could hold onto, something that was both sane and predictable.”

Gerald’s Game is such a claustrophobic, tense novel; almost the entire book takes place with one character, in one room, but I’ve never known a book to put me on edge as much as this one. It’s a tough book to read – there are some extraordinarily gruesome scenes, including fairly graphic depictions of an incident of child abuse, but if you have a strong stomach, Gerald’s Game contains some of best characterization and atmosphere that Stephen King has ever written.

Jessie Burlingame is one of my favourite fictional characters in all my history of reading. I won’t say she starts the book off as a weak person, because she doesn’t, but she definitely begins she story as a fairly meek, insecure character, and I absolutely love seeing her grow into a confident woman. There is nothing harder than battling the demons in your head, or incidents from your past, but Jessie does it and comes out the other side a better, stronger person. Sure, it was from necessity more than anything else, but the character development King gives us in this novel is fantastic.

Gerald’s Game is also one of the only King novels to genuinely frighten me; the Moonlight Man / Space Cowboy haunts my dreams for weeks every time I read this novel, and the revelation at the end only makes it worse instead of better. I know a lot of readers aren’t a fan of the ending of this book, but I love it, as it only cements how far Jessie has come as a character.

It’s always hard to write a review of one of your favourite books, but Gerald’s Game is an incredible novel. If you have a strong stomach and are a fan of King, I’d definitely recommend it.

5 / 5 ...more "

progress:

(page 318 of 394)
"Really shouldn't be reading this whilst eating lunch." — Oct 22, 2019 06:22AM

Oct 13, 2025 02:04AM · see review

Rai is currently reading

Damnable Tales: A Folk Horror Anthology

by Richard Wells

bookshelves: owned, physical-tbr, currently-reading

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Oct 12, 2025 02:55AM

Rai’s Quotes

“When he died, all things soft and beautiful and bright would be buried with him.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

tags: death, death-of-a-loved-one, love

3919 likes

“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

tags: love

5265 likes

“I would have come for you. And if I couldn't walk, I'd crawl to you, and no matter how broken we were, we'd fight our way out together-knives drawn, pistols blazing. Because that's what we do. We never stop fighting.”
― Leigh Bardugo, Crooked Kingdom

tags: crooked-kingdom, inej-ghafa, kaz-brekker, six-of-crows

8903 likes