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Jeffrey Bluhm
, December 31, 2023
(view all comments by Jeffrey Bluhm)
Stephen King is a giant among men when it comes to authorship but maybe that's not a good thing if it leads his editor to, I guess, not edit; at 598 pages in the trade paperback version, this book is about 25% too long. Charlie, our protagonist, is a complex character, honest about both his good and bad attributes, and I'm a fan of a well-developed hero, but it takes just under 200 pages before he makes his first foray into the "portal to another world" promised on the back cover. And then, the story is good, but not particularly original or creative and, again, where three words could do, King uses four or five. Does it enhance the reading experience to know that breakfast was eggs and potatoes, and the host ate a little, and Charlie's dog ate a little, and Charlie ate the rest? No, no it does not. It's hard to make progress and keep some sense of momentum when you're wading upstream against a flood of prose. In the end, the relationship between Charlie and Radar, his dog, is endearing, and the reason for the title becomes evident over the course of the story, but would I read it again or recommend to a friend? No; and maybe, with a clear caveat about the length. I've liked a lot of King's writing; just not this effort.
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