About the book
Blurb from Exclusive Books
Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher – for their world or ours.
Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a hit-and-run accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself – and his dad. Then, when Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her ageing master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it. Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.
King’s storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale about another world than ours, in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy – and his dog – must lead the battle.
My Thoughts
My ThoughtsThis is my first “monster” Stephen King book in a while. And if I say “monster” I am referring to the sheer number of pages – this is a hefty one at around six hundred pages – not necessarily the subject matter. Although….
“I was insubstantial, and I remember thinking that we all are, really, just ghosts on the face of the earth trying to believe we have weight and a place in the world.”
“Fairy Tale” reminded me very much of the Stephen King classics. He is a wordsmith of note, an expert at building suspense and tension. It is an epic adventure, like “The Stand”, and “IT”, but is very much horror-adjacent (i.e. not the classic horror that he originally became known for) and much more fantasy driven.
“it’s the stories of our childhood that make the deepest impressions and last the longest.”
This author has got a very typical written style, weaving very involved stories, plots, and characters, and if this is your first Stephen King book, you may find the pace too slow and the book too wordy. Even as a devout fan, it took me much longer to read than I originally thought it would. I will blame year-end fatigue! Charlie and Radar’s relationship kept me going though. Oh, and the illustrations on each chapter page.
“A brave man helps. A coward just gives presents.”
“Fairy Tale” is dark and mysterious, packed with characters you really feel invested in. The first 1/3 of the book sets you up for an epic adventure and is, in my view, some of SK’s best writing yet. The fantasy world-building is brilliant, and the references to childhood fairy tales (more Grimm than Disney) had me hooked and physically smiling at the pages as I was reading it. The ultimate fight of good vs evil, in a tense and creepy “other” world was utterly enchanting.
“There’s a dark well in everyone, I think, and it never goes dry. But you drink from it at your peril. That water is poison.”
What I enjoyed:
- Radar – written by a true dog lover, as SK’s numerous social posts of Molly a.k.a The Thing of Evil prove
- Lovecraftian world
- Good vs Evil
- Ordinary hero
- Reminded of earlier work
“I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it.”
As usual, the film rights have already been sold, so let’s see what happens next. I would love to see how it translates to the big screen. Or the small screen, for that matter.
“You get used to the amazing, that’s all. Mermaids and IMAX, giants and cell phones. If it’s in your world, you go with it. It’s wonderful, right? Only look at it another way, and it’s sort of awful. Think Gogmagog is scary? Our world is sitting on a potentially world-ending supply of nuclear weapons, and if that’s not black magic, I don’t know what is.”
Well, seeing that I have two senior doggy’s, let me be off the search for that sundial!
“I think tempus est umbra in mente is a better one. Roughly translated, it means time is a shadow in the mind.”
RRR (Roelia Reads Rating) 4/5
Thank you to Exclusive Books for the opportunity to read this book. Be sure to check out their website for all your bookish needs!
The details
PUBLISHED BY: Hodder & Stoughton / Locally (South Africa) Jonathan Ball Publishers
DATE PUBLISHED: 06 September 2022
PAGES:592
GENRE: Fantasy
