Monday, September 21, 2009

Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key by Stephen King
Pages: 769 (Paperback)


I don’t have a problem with long books, I’ve read some pretty good ones, but “Duma Key” gave me a headache. It started off promising, where we see the Edgar Freemantle’s hardship of losing his arm and his marriage and his attempt to work through it. However, the book has trouble getting started and revving up. There was some promising action that looked like it was going to escalate into something amazing, but it never came to pass. The action dragged for 501 pages, on page 502 (paperback) something happens, and then the story picks up.

There are smaller chapters in between the larger ones. These are entitled “How to Paint a Picture”. I found them very interesting, especially the ones toward the end of the book. These chapters talk about an event that occurred in the 1920s, that has to do with the story as a whole. They were straight forward and riveting. King should have made this a story, it would have made a delightful and horrific novella.

There is very little suspense outside of the “How to Paint a Picture” chapters.

This is a sober, post-accident book so I was prepared to be not blown away, although another sober, post-accident book “Dreamcatcher”, was not as bad as this. That story may have been out there, but stuff happened within the first 100 pages.

This is the first Stephen King book that I finished, that I did not enjoy. It is a psychological thriller, but I am less than thrilled.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

this is about the 7th stephen king book i have read and its among my favorites, i loved it.