Dow Jones’s Reviews > King Sorrow > Status Update

Arthur sees J&R killed in a drive-in in a brutal way & they all think it’s over. Gwen & Art go to prom & have fun, return home to take her virginity, & Tana calls needing help to get to the hospital as she’s in labor. Gwen says she’s going to study EMT to help people at a different school. Llewelyn falls down steps w/ broken osteoporosis hollowed bones, w/ AIDS, & doesn’t have long to live. Baby is a boy.

The gang jumps J&R & warns them to take off & Colin deceives J into getting Arthur’s mom’s parole granted by taking blame for the shiv. Colin also masterfully breaks into the library planting fake evidence leading to no one so Arthur will be off the hook. What a great group of friends and they’re finally fighting back. Awesome. Tana flips though when J&R bail west & Arthur’s worried she’ll tell Gwen.

Gwen comes over to Arthur and Van’s to have them see if her tattoo is real and Van says he has one too. Their TV dinners overcook in the oven causing smoke everywhere and Arthur sees into Jayne’s eyes when King Sorrow taunts her through the TV. Now he’s having second thoughts since seeing her mental torture but the group still believes J & R should die. They relent though and give Arthur a shot to save them.

The seance was a bit tricky to follow as it’s like a dream of chaos and weed smoke, but Arthur uses his love of language to seal the deal w/ King Sorrow and everyone else agrees to feed him people they want killed. One human sacrifice on Easter every year or one of them dies is how the pact goes I think. Arthur names Jayne & Ronnie as the first victims. The invisible tattoo w/ 2 fingers on the head is a cool summon

The first couple pages took some getting used to Hill’s style, but I’m loving the characters, their dialogue, and all the late 80s references and even The Dead Zone characters being referenced. Tana and Jayne are both awful, I don’t feel too bad for them. Ronnie is a psycho. Poor Arthur just trying to help but gets into the rare book thieving game to pay off Jayne’s debt. Very engaging prose, I’m hooked.