Book Review Wednesday: Let the Right One In (John Ajvide Lindqvist) 4 Stars

Way better than twilight.

So, this is a story about two adolescent kids who meet each other and fall in love. And one of them is a vampire. No-one sparkles. If Edward was this type of vampire, twilight would be a lot cooler. There’d also be a lot more dead people.

Here’s the blurb:

It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last—revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day.

But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next door—a girl who has never seen a Rubik’s Cube before, but who can solve it at once. There is something wrong with her, though, something odd. And she only comes out at night….

The variety of vampire portrayals in books and media is fascinating.  On the one side you have the overly romanticized vampire of twilight. On the extreme other end of things, you have the kind of vampire from the book series ‘The Strain’ (which is also a TV show that I highly recommend). The Strain vampires have no redeeming features whatsoever. The infected turn into these gross things full of worms, and they shoot this strange stinger like something from their throat (usually at people they love), which drains them of blood. Plus, aside from this killing instinct, most have the brainpower of a particularly bright potato.

Eli (our vampire from this book) is somewhere between the two. They’re scary. Eli could break Edward like a twig. But they’re also capable of thoughts, of fear, and of love. Eli is even more interesting than the rest of their kind, because they were turned as a child, and their body and mind is still very much a child’s.

They like playing games, they don’t like hurting people, they make choices they haven’t thought through (very much like a child). You get to know Eli through Oskar’s eyes, and in many ways Eli is younger than Oskar, and in other ways much older. You come to fear them, and also love them, much as Oskar does.

Now some warnings. While this is a very raw, beautiful book, one of the pov characters is a pedophile and thus has some not beautiful thoughts. It’s an interesting contrast with the much more innocent povs of Oskar and Eli. We don’t see the pedophile guy do anything too icky (apart from once later in the book – but he gets just deserts for that).

If you’re a vampire fan, or a fan of raw feeling books, I think you’ll like this one. The characters are anything but two dimensional. Even the guy who’s a pedophile is really quite decent at times. He strangely enough has a very strong moral code. Oskar who is downright innocent in a lot of ways fantasizes about killing people. Eli who has the power to kill and does kill, gets no pleasure out of it, and seems to regard it as a sad fact of life.

It’s these complex characters in their desolate seeming setting that makes this book grip so strongly. Four stars. It lost a star because the pacing seemed a little off to me, but not disastrously so. I really enjoyed reading it. For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/943402.Let_the_Right_One_In

P.S: There are two films based on this book. They’re pretty much the same except one was made in Sweden, and the other America. Both are awesome. Go watch.

 

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Book Review Wednesday: Four Past Midnight (Stephen King) 4 Stars

Here’s a collection of four novellas around 200 pages each. It’s a nice length. Short enough it’s a quick read, long enough for you to burrow into the story.

First up we have ‘The Langoliers.’ Yet another thing to scare you about flying. Part of this story is working out what the heck is going on, so I’ll leave you to puzzle that mystery with the characters. It’s an interesting idea. One with just enough science to understand the hypothesis the characters come up with, and not a smidgen more. Totally implausible, but somehow still scary.

The characters were two dimensional but serviceable. I did get a bit annoyed with the magic little blind girl. She was a nice person, but really? Does every little child with a disability have to have some kind of special powers? Aren’t they neat enough as they are?

The plot was decent but not something to rave about. The pacing was a little off. A bit slow in places. I’d give this three stars. I did like the ending. It made me wonder what long term effects their trip might cause them. This was my least favorite of the four, and the reason why the whole book didn’t get a five star rating.

Secret Window, Secret Garden:

Four stars.  I watched the movie beforehand, so might’ve found it more entertaining if I hadn’t know the twist. I did like the tense claustrophobic feeling the whole story has. It’s well written, and the twist is a great one. We spend most of our time with one character. He’s got a lot of similarities with most of Stephen King’s characters. A writer. A guy still suffering the aftereffects of a nasty break up. 

He’s trying and failing to write a book, and then a stranger comes and accuses him of stealing a story of his. Things get worse from there. 

I thought on the whole the story was a very good one. It required some suspension of belief as to why the guy doesn’t just call in the police. At first, sure, he can play the nice guy. But then something happened that made the animal lover in me cringe and curl up into a ball of sadness. Nothing would’ve stopped me calling the police after that. Or taking more violent action.

The story manages to stay supernatural free until right at the very end. I’m not sure the supernatural insert was needed. In my opinion the story would’ve been more powerful without it, but that’s just my view.

The Library Policeman:

Five stars. This one and the next one were my favorites of this collection. 

This one revolves around a man roped into writing a last minute speech. Being the diligent guy he is, he checks out a couple of books from the library to help. Only, he loses the books and can’t return them. He soon finds this is a bigger deal than he’d thought. 

Scary book. Heavy on the supernatural which worked well. It also has an interesting creature I haven’t come across before. It makes a frightening idea.

I found the plot worked well. The pacing kept me interested. The last showdown was pretty cool, and the conclusion was satisfying. A good story.

The Sun Dog:

A boy gets a camera for his birthday. Only, no matter what he points the camera at, the picture comes out showing a dog. And with every picture the dog gets closer. 

Five stars. It’s close, but if I had to choose between this one and the previous one, Sun Dog would win. This story had great everything. The tension stayed high. The pacing was great. When the action happened, it was thrilling enough to have me on the edge of my seat. 

I liked the characters more than the previous story which is what pushed this one into the winning spot. The boy is one of those genuinely nice, respectful kids. Mature for his age, but still enough of a kid not to seem unnatural. The other characters were varied and interesting. The father turned out to be a lot deeper of a character than the son makes out at the start. Plus he has a back-story that makes his interactions with our ‘bad guy’ interesting.

Our ‘bad guy’ is another we spend a lot of time with. He’s not really bad, just invested and ambitious. Not a nice guy, but not a terrible one. He’s the hero of his own story. 

Great story with a satisfying ending, and a tiny little extra twist that adds to the whole creepy feel. 

For more reviews on this collection go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/133266.Four_Past_Midnight

Book Review Wednesday: Skeleton Crew (Stephen King) 5 Stars

Yup, still making my way through Stephen King. It’s taking a while, but I’m enjoying it.

Skeleton Crew is a collection. One novella, and twenty-one short stories. I think this is my favorite short story collection of his I’ve read. Not every short story is five stars, some are just OK, others are amazing.

The star of the book for me was the novella: The Mist. You may have watched the film based on it. This is about a father and son trapped with a group of people in a grocery store when a mysterious mist closes around them. And of course, since this is Stephen King, it’s no ordinary mist. There are things inside it, and they aren’t friendly.

One thing I really loved about this is we never find out for sure what caused the mist. There are several very strong hints, but the mystery is soon tossed aside to focus on what’s important: how to survive. There are strange monsters here, but the majority of this book is about surviving the even stranger monsters human beings turn into when they’re frightened and desperate.

There are so many good short stories in the bunch, it’s hard to pick favorites, but here goes nothing:

The Reach: This is the story you turn to after The Mist leaves you feeling desolate and hopeless. It’s about an old woman who’s never left the tiny island she lives on. For Stephen King this is really rather a sweet story. Sure there’s death (it’s Stephen King), but it’s the kind of death made up of old friends, and arms ready to fold you up and comfort you. More of a literary short story than a horror. A nice contrast to the heebie jeebies the rest of the book has in spades.

The Jaunt: Rather a straight forward short story with some neat imagined science, and an ultra creepy twist ending.

Nona: Creepy, creepy. About a boy, a girl he meets, and the horrible things that happen as consequence of meeting her. With a twist.

The Word Processor of the Gods: A decent ‘monkey paw’ type story with a happy ending! Bookmark this one to read after some of the many others with far from happy endings.

Survivor Type: One of the most disgusting and horrific short stories of his I’ve read. It’s (slight) plausibility makes it all the more scary. This will stick with you. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

Gramma: starts slow, but mega creepy ending.

The Monkey: Not as scary as some of the others, but still worthy of this list.

The Raft: If I’m going to be inserted into a story (I’m hoping for a superhero story that lets me have awesome powers) this one is at the bottom of my list. No thank you. No way. I will not be going on that raft. In short: SCARY.

The rest of the stories were decent, but the milkman stories? I have no clue what’s going on in those ones. Am I missing something?

Anyways, good collection filled with a lot of gems. It’s worth reading for The Mist alone, but short stories like The Jaunt make it doubly worth it.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13440.Skeleton_Crew

Book Review Wednesday: The Plant (Stephen King) 3 Stars

Be warned, this is not a finished story. It’s a serial novel, and it looks like we might never see how it ends.

Having said that, it has its interesting parts. This is about an editor in a publishing house who gets a letter from a very strange aspiring (and possibly crazy) author. The author sends a manuscript about magic, and some very scary photographs. Our responsible editor sends said photographs to the police and doesn’t publish the manuscript. Needless to say, our aspiring author doesn’t like that one bit, and he sends a strange plant to the office.

The most interesting part of this book is that it takes the format of letters, memos, and diary entries. That worked better than I thought it might. Usually I find those kind of things get boring after a while. Not all of them, but if you aren’t careful it can be difficult to keep the tension high.

The tension stayed pretty high throughout this story, so yay. The characters were interesting enough. Not particularly fascinating or deep, but I did like the range of different personalities. It made for good chemistry between them. Our main character and his boss were my favorites in that respect.

The plot is good, but not great. I was interested enough to keep reading, but it’s not something that will stick with me. While it is unfinished, it does come to an ending of sorts, so hopefully you won’t leave completely unsatisfied. The world wasn’t fascinating, but had a reassuring normality to it. The office with cooky co-workers, and the nice friendship between our main character and his boss.

Then in the middle of this normality, there’s this plant. And you’re wondering what it’s going to do. Whether it’s good or evil. It all has a classic Stephen King feel to it. Not his best work. The plot is a bit too loose for that. Still, entertaining enough if you like Stephen King, and feel the need to read through all his work like I’m doing.

If you’re looking for a good Stephen King horror, and don’t have the obsessive need to devour everything he writes, then go read one of his other works. There’s a lot better than this one. ‘It’ is great if you’re looking for a long read. ‘The girl who loved Tom Gordon’ or ‘The Mist’ are great short ones. ‘Cujo’ is great if you’re looking for more tension and less deaths. ‘The Pet Sematary’ is one that stuck with me for long afterward. ‘The Green Mile’ is a much better serial novel of his.

And I’m probably missing some great ones I’ve read. Search this site for Stephen King, I’ve reviewed a lot of them. In short, there’s tons of Stephen King out there better than this one. But if you’re a fan and have read all the good ones, or if you have this book lying around for some reason, then it’s not a bad read. Just an ok one.

Three stars from me. For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13609593-the-plant

 

 

Book Review Wednesday: The Shining (Stephen King) 5 stars

Most people have heard this book mentioned somewhere. For those not in the know, it’s about a five year old called Danny with a gift called the shine. Basically he’s psychic. He hears and sees snatches of people’s thoughts, and he can see beyond things to events that might happen, and events that have happened.

Cue his deeply flawed, but loving father getting a job as caretaker for a remote hotel with a deeply bloody past. With the weather coming they’re going to be trapped up there for the whole winter. Not a problem, except of course this is stephen king, so there is a problem. The hotel starts coming alive, and dead things come to say hello, not just to Danny but to his parents too.

I’ve gone through quite a bit of stephen king by now, but this one is up there with the favorites. The characters are interesting. Danny’s pov was interesting. I do like how stephen king writes children. Danny’s thought patterns are childish at times, but he doesn’t come across as stupid like some writers portray children. He comes across as a very bright kid with unique access to knowledge about the world around him, which with his gifts he would be.

The father was one of the most interesting characters. He was oh so deeply flawed, but he loved his family. He knew he hadn’t always been good to them, and he wanted to do better. The mother was ok, but a bit more two dimensional than the male characters.

For those that have watched the film, there are some major changes compared to the book. I’m not sure which version I liked better.

There was plenty of tension in this book. Lots of chilling moments I’ve come to expect from this author. More than that, there was one moment near the end that was genuinely heartbreaking. That was more unexpected. His books always have tension, always elements of horror, but while you usually connect with the characters on some level, it’s not always so deep.

So definite five stars from me. Good story. Good characters. Good horror. Unexpected but excellent heartbreak bonus.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11588.The_Shining

Book Review Wednesday: Pet Sematary (Stephen King) 4 stars

This was one of the better Stephen King books. Not my absolute favourite, but getting there. Here’s the blurb:

Sometimes dead is better….When the Creeds move into a beautiful old house in rural Maine, it all seems too good to be true: physician father, beautiful wife, charming little daughter, adorable infant son — and now an idyllic home. As a family, they’ve got it all…right down to the friendly cat.But the nearby woods hide a blood-chilling truth — more terrifying than death itself…and hideously more powerful.

There’s less meandering in this book than there can be in a Stephen King book. The characters were agreeable enough. The female characters were less developed than the male, but they had enough flesh on them to get some idea what they were like.

Things were slow to start, but held my interest enough. I don’t read Stephen King for the action, I read it for the creeping horror that he writes so well. As with a few of his book I’ve come across, this was essentially one man’s slow decent into madness. You can understand why, and I can’t say for sure I wouldn’t do anything different were I in his place.

I can’t say too much without giving it away, but I think the scariest thing about this book is that every decision the main character makes is understandable. He’s protecting his kids, emotionally and physically. You can’t fault a guy for doing that. You could argue that he could’ve talked to his wife, and gotten her help with things. He definitely could’ve used it.

Other than that, this is just a series of decisions that most parents would make given the same circumstances. That makes the conclusion so much more terrible, because there was little way around it. There are moments right at the end that broke my heart. I usually enjoy a good Stephen King, but most of his work doesn’t have the same emotional clobber for me as this one did.

For more reviews on this book go to: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10583.Pet_Sematary

Book Review Wednesday: Dreamcatcher (Stephen King) 3.5 stars

I watched the film of this book with my dad, and he gave up part way through and walked out. I saw why. While it still had a grip over me like most Stephen King does, it was WEIRD.

People poop out scary weasel-snake things with dozens of sharp little teeth. Weird. Also very gross. One of the main characters spends a lot of time hiding in his head from an alien, also in his head. The film was a muddled bunch of different storylines. You had our guy hiding in his head, another guy doing mostly unmemorable stuff, and flashbacks from when the men were kids and met another kid who seems to have some kind of gift.

The book still had all of these things, but it had a lot more room to wind them together into a cohesive and understandable storyline. So if you like Stephen King but couldn’t get your head around the film, try the book. It makes a lot more sense and I found it a lot more enjoyable. I’m even considering going back to the film now I’ve read the book to see if I understand it better.

Having said that, this isn’t one of his best books. I don’t think it’s terrible like some think. I found it enjoyable enough, but it was only a decent read, not a brilliant one. If you like most Stephen King like I do, then you might want to give this a go. If you’re relatively new to Stephen King and looking for a book to see if you like his work then DON’T choose this one. I’d recommend the book IT to a first time reader used to reading mammoth books, or if you’re looking for something shorter maybe take a look at ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon,’ ‘Firestarter,’ ‘The Dead Zone’ or ‘Carrie.’ ‘Cujo’ is also one of my favorites of his, but not a lot of people agree with me about that one.

Back to this book. The characters were interesting, but didn’t seem as developed as other books of his. The plot was readable, but in no way mind blowing. All in all I’d call this a decent book if you love all things Stephen King, but don’t expect brilliance. It’s not one that I regret reading though. I enjoyed it, and there were moments that I really liked, such as the flashbacks. The boy’s friendship with Duddits was heart warming. The clash between the aliens and the military raised interesting questions as to what might actually happen in that situation.

Overall 3.5 stars. For more reviews on this book check out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11570.Dreamcatcher

 

Book Review Wednesday: The Stand (Stephen King) 4 stars

I read this 1100+ page beast about a man-made virus decimating the human race right in the height of the Ebola hysteria. That made things….interesting.

There’s something almost cathartic about books that show what happens after the human race gets brought to its knees and society falls. I mean, for the most part I’m happy with the way things are now. I live in a first world country. I get health care, have laws covering most of my human rights. I’m fed, housed, and have time and money for leisure. But society is far from perfect.

Society is like living in a house. It has four walls and the roof keeps the rain out, but there are giant holes that let the rats in, the electrical system keeps shorting out, and the walls must be cardboard for all the good they do keeping the cold out in winter. You like having a house, and wouldn’t want to be without one. But sometimes you think: I bet if I tore the whole thing down I could make something a lot better.

This book does a good job exploring that, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of starting again, and looking at what might happen if we had to. Sure there’s the peace and quiet, and freedom from the idea that we have to work ourselves to death to have worth, but this book brought home to me that I really don’t want to tear things down.

For one thing it took us a long time to build this society in the first place. There are good things I’d miss; like medicine, and the protection laws provide. For another, we may be starting again, but not from scratch. We’ll start with scared people clinging to their broken capitalist system, and they’ll build things up again from what they remember. I hadn’t considered that before, so this book gave me a lot to think about. Chances are in the couple hundred or so years it takes to build things up again, your house will look around the same as before.

This book has two main parts. In the first, our patient zero travels across america and infects a group of people, then things spread from there. There’s not a whole load of attention paid to the world outside america, but I assume everyone else got taken down too. The second takes place after most people are dead, and follows our select group of lucky survivors. The first part is horrible, but not supernatural. In the second part, supernatural comes into play.

People start getting dreams that lead them either to our big bad guy Randall Flagg, or mother Abigail who leads the good guys. Only, it goes deeper than that which I loved. It seems that most of the bad guys head toward Flagg, and most of the good toward mother Abigail, but there’s a lot of overlap. Most of it seems to come down to choice more than character, and a lot seems to be down to nothing more than luck.

There are a lot of themes and questions that Stephen King explored through his characters in this book. This deep thinking was one of my favorite parts of the story. My other favorite part was the characters.

There are quite a lot of characters. They are set at various positions on the line between good and evil, and most sit firmly in the gray area. Nick was my favorite, partly because he’s deaf and dumb and I love reading portrayals of characters with differences, but mostly because he’s one of those rock solid morally driven guys. He’ll make the right choice, even if doing so costs him. There were so many others as well. Stuart who started off so badly and made the choice to be a better man. Nadine who starts so brilliantly, then makes the choice to listen to darker thoughts.

This fell short of five stars for me partly because the two parts were so different to each other. I was enjoying the surviving the end of the world plot, then things started getting supernatural which was a bit of a shock (but not too much of one since this is Stephen King.) The second part of the story was good, but I enjoyed the realism of the first part so much that some of me spent the rest of the book mourning its loss.

There were also some twists and turns in the tale that seemed not quite to fit the rest of the story. They were just there, and felt clumsy when there seemed to be no reason for them.

Overall this was a good book. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the other giant book I’ve read of his: It. When I reached the end of It I felt like I’d been on a fantastic journey, and everything slotted together at the end. I didn’t get that feeling with The Stand. I just felt like I’d read a good book, but didn’t feel personally connected to it like I had with It.

For more reviews of this book check out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/149267.The_Stand

 

Book Review Wednesday: Carrie by Stephen King (4 stars)

This one is the book that gave Stephen King his big break, so I’ve been wanting to read it for a while. Most literate adults, and quite a few illiterate ones have heard of Carrie. My first introduction to Carrie was watching the film as a teenager. There was a lot I didn’t like about that movie, but what resonated with me was the plight of Carrie herself. Too many of us have been that abused pushed aside child , treated as less than human just because they’re different.

And I know with me, when I’m really really angry I expect things to happen. I expect doors to slam, people to fly across rooms, light bulbs to smash. It just seems wrong to have so much chaos burning you apart inside, and none of it to show on the outside world. (I connected with Firestarter – my first Stephen King novel for that very reason.)

For Carrie, what she feels inside starts to show outside through developing telekinesis. This is beautiful, but also horrible. I think the greatest tragedy in all adaptions of this story is Carrie’s lost potential. She could’ve been someone really great. And she gets so close. She starts standing up to her abusive mother, making friends, believing she could be worth something. Then in one terrible prank she loses it and it all goes away.

Before I go any further here’s the blurb:

The story of misfit high-school girl, Carrie White, who gradually discovers that she has telekinetic powers. Repressed by a domineering, ultra-religious mother and tormented by her peers at school, her efforts to fit in lead to a dramatic confrontation during the senior prom.

In my honest opinion the recent remake of the film was brilliant, and a lot truer to the book than the last film, but it’s still the book that puts across this loss of potential most. There’s a heartbreaking piece from the point of view of a woman (a teen at the time) who witnessed three year old Carrie’s mother emotionally and verbally abusing her – and it’s hinted physically abusing her.  She talks about wanting to pick her up and run away with her to save her from the life she’d be about to lead with her mother. And it makes you wonder what would’ve happened differently if she had been separated from her mother at that point. Maybe she wouldn’t even develop telekinesis, but if she did then could she have used it as a force of good instead of evil?

Another big potential turning point happens when Sue, feeling guilty for joining in a bullying incident on Carrie, persuades her boyfriend to bring Carrie to the prom to make up for it. I always wonder why she didn’t go up to Carrie, apologize and determine to become friends with her. Sure, Tommy Ross was a great character. A perfect gentleman to Carrie, and he instantly knew as soon as Sue said what she’d done that she’d been wrong to bully her. But I think Carrie would’ve been happier going with Tommy if Sue gave her blessing, and maybe tried to articulate her reasons why she wanted her to go with him. And more than that, Carrie needed a friend – as many friends as she could get. Maybe if Sue had spent time with her before the prom, given her some good memories and shown there were people out there who cared about her, things might’ve gone differently.

That’s what’s so heartbreaking about Carrie. It didn’t need to end up the way it did.

The only thing that stopped this from being five stars for me, is I think Stephen King went a bit overboard toward the end. I was totally with Carrie until somewhere in the gym when she turned completely psychotic and wanted to kill everyone in sight. She then goes on a rampage through town killing everyone she can, and ends the book by killing Sue’s unborn child, even after she’d seen that Sue had tried to help her.

This is one of the things the recent film did a lot better than the book, and the previous film. (If you haven’t seen it, go see it.) In the film, Carrie was never a psychopath. She was a victim. She killed people in the gym, but only as a response to what’d happened. There was a great moment when she almost lost it and killed the gym teacher who’d helped her, and tossed her to safety at the last moment. Then she went out and killed the people who’d just killed Tommy. In the film you could understand her actions.

In the movie, her last act is to save Sue by using her telekinesis to push her out when the house collapses. I felt this was a more believable, sympathetic Carrie than the book where her last act is to kill an unborn child of two people who’d tried to help her. In the book Carrie slipped quickly from victim to monster, and her thoughts and actions were that of a monster. The film understood better that you don’t have to be a monster to do monstrous things, and I wish Stephen King had shown that a bit better in that part of the book.

My verdict: If you’re a horror fan, and maybe even if you aren’t this is a classic. Read it, but also watch the latest film adaption for it. Unusually for a movie adaption of a book, the movie actually does better in some areas than the book itself.

For more reviews on this book check out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10592.Carrie

Book Review Wednesday: The Green Mile – Stephen King (5 stars)

I’ve read some really good Stephen King books lately. I think my favorite is a draw between this one and ‘The Long Walk,’ though my answer will probably change the next time I think on it. There’s just so much feeling in this book! Every time I thought it might be over, things started up again. Poor John Coffey. Poor all the nice guards.

Before I go any further, here’s the blurb:

At Cold Mountain Penitentiary, along the lonely stretch of cells known as the Green Mile, killers are depraved as the psychopathic “Billy the Kid” Wharton and the possessed Eduard Delacroix await death strapped in “Old Sparky.” Here guards as decent as Paul Edgecombe and as sadistic as Percy Wetmore watch over them. But good or evil, innocent or guilty, none have ever seen the brutal likes of the new prisoner, John Coffey, sentenced to death for raping and murdering two young girls. Is Coffey a devil in human form? Or is he a far, far different kind of being?

Now, my major issue with Stephen King is that he has a tendency to put in something supernatural when something less fantastical would do (and might in some cases make even more of an impact.) He can also have the tendency to make his evil folks too evil so they stop seeming human. I think he did a good job staying away from those issues in this book.

This whole book seemed to ask the question ‘what is evil?’ Our narrator Paul Edgecombe takes pains to say that not all the prisoners he came across on death row fit into the category we see as evil. We see the dignity ‘The Chief’ carries himself with on the way to the chair, and the sweetness and caring of Eduard Delacroix as he dotes over his pet mouse. We see John Coffey crying all the time and his childlike fear of the dark.

Then there’s Billy the Kid. I wouldn’t hesitate to call him evil, but King doesn’t leave it at that. He seems like a spoiled kid who views the whole world as his playground, and the people in it as his toys. You know that kind of kid you met when you were little who snatches up the other kids toys and breaks them because he thinks it’s his right to. I can’t name a single nice thing about the character, but he’s not a faceless evil villain. I understand him and see him as human – a horrible human, but a human none the less.

Percy Wetmore is similarly a nasty guy. He doesn’t delight in chaos as much as Billy the Kid. Percy holds grudges. He believes he’s special, like Billy the Kid does, but unlike the Kid he uses threats instead of violence to get his way. He’s content carrying on as a normal human would, as long as he’s not asked to do much, or feels that his high status brought by his relative’s important job is in question. He wants people to respect him, and it’s when he thinks this respect is in question that he gets dangerous.

In some ways he’s more dangerous than Billy the Kid, because Billy doesn’t care about getting in trouble, Percy does. So he’ll go after the weak who can’t fight back, or use his connections to threaten someone’s job, or target a beloved pet mouse.

Both are evil, and maybe even Delacroix is evil for the crimes he committed before coming to the green mile. Maybe even the nice guards could be considered evil for what they’re forced to do near the end of this book. I won’t give away the ending, except to say that it is beyond sad. Everyone was crying, I was near tears. But the impact of what they’ve done doesn’t really hit until years later when Paul loses his wife. That was the biggest impact for me, because you realize how many lives John Coffey could’ve changed for the better if he was still able to.

In short this is a powerful book, and I recommend it to everyone. Seriously, go read it.

For more reviews on this book check out: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11566.The_Green_Mile