Can anyone who has read Stephen King’s new book Lisey’s Story tell me if there is any reason to continue plowing through it if I have become bored and exasperated after 50 pages? My sister-in-law says she once heard someone say, “Stephen King wouldn’t be a bad writer if he had an editor,” and I think that is accurately reflecting my current feelings. He wrote in 50 pages what should have taken 5, and he is really overdoing his parenthetical italics again. But if you tell me it is worth it, or that it picks up soon, I will give it another shot.
Hi! I have been reading for a while, but this is my first time commenting…
I am a BIG Stephen King fan, but I learned a long time ago, when it comes to him, if the book doesn’t have me in 100 pages, I have to put it down. I try to give him at least 100, cause it sometimes takes him that long to get his stride.
Now, that said, I have read Lisey’s Story. It was indeed slow to start, but I found it got better (I don’t remember on what page…sorry) and ended up being a very good book.
Hope that helps…
Lord, he uses 100 words to describe something when 10 will do. I’ve always said you can read the first 20 pages and the last 20 pages of any of his books and know exactly what happened.
The only book not like that, IMO, was “The Shining.”
Sorry, I haven’t read this latest one. I stopped after “Hearts in Atlantis.”
Yeah, the first hundred or so pages of that one are sheer drudgery. It does get better, but if I had it to do again I’m not sure I would have bothered to finish it.
boy, I came to the conclusion when I was about 12, I think that’s pretty good for a kid. I’m not bragging, I’m just so happy to find other people say that because I thought maybe it was just me.
But life’s too short to force yourself to read boring books! You have to go find the books that you stay up all night reading because you can’t put them down!
I’ve taken to listening to King’s books rather than reading them. It’s the only way I got through the Dark Tower series.
I haven’t read Lisey’s story yet, but I’ll listen to it eventually.
I’m a big skimmer when it comes to books, even ones I know I will eventually sit down and read word for word. So with the King novels (which I never read before marriage, but my husband has about every S.K. novel every written, so I had to at least glance at them,) this is my policy: skim around, front to back, determine if the pot is actually interesting, or if there in fact IS a discernable plot, and then make my “to read or not to read” decision based on that.
Er, that’s “plot” not “pot.”
This is the entire reason I couldn’t enjoy or fully read even anything in the Jane Austen/Emily Bronte… Lets describe for hours and hours the inner thought of the mind and the landscape and blah blah blah blah blah… I am well read in more contemporary genres, but I can’t stand slow writing.