Painajainen (1975)

Even though King is a proclaimed king of the horror genre, I've never been even tempted to pick up any of his books, even though I knew that he had to have at least one vampire book in his ouvre. If I read Twilight, why the hell did I resist King - clearly whatever he wrote would be at least true to the vampire with not a sparkling twat in sight. I was not disappointed since King did a great job of merging classic horror with the feeling of small-town USA through great characters, carefully drawn out suspense, and a spattering of brutal violence. Surprisingly, the true horror for me wasn't the cunning evil of the vampire Barlow, but the systematic destruction of a small town. Sure, it was well on its way to capital-e Evil and collapse - what with the parents who beat their children, wanton drunkenness, smallminded bigotry, and casual rape - but the arrival of Barlow and his semi-human servant Straker was clearly the death knoll. Maybe there was an innate knowledge of the town's coming death and they only chose to act as the vehicles to finish the job more quickly. ( )

This book definitely has strengths. When the vampires are running amok, there's definitely some really fun scares. But there are barely any vampires until halfway through the book. While I get that there needs to be some character set-up so that we care when they get eaten, barely any of the many characters are interesting. A lot of it is really well-written, but a lot of it also seems like King trying too hard to make it well-written, leading to many pages of purple prose about pointless details of the lives of characters who barely appear in the story at all. It's hard in the midst of all of that for the brain to not glaze over a little and want to skim. There's also a lot of build-up in The Shining before shit gets real, but it works better because King's specifically concentrating on the Torrence family, putting all the energy into making that small cast of characters interesting. Similar to The Stand, considering how much acclaim this book has from people I admire, I feel like I'm missing something by not loving it, but I definitely didn't love it.
( )

An overwhelming amount of characters are introduced.

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I'm getting bored. I choose to listen to a Shel Silverstein audiobook instead of this the other day.

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Almost done. Nice to have it off my bucket list but it's only okay and I'd never recommend it to anyone. One thing I don't like is how I don't fully understand how the people are changed into vampires. It's not the traditional manner so it seems some time should be spent making me understand the transformation. Danny's transformation I understand but the others seemed to turn as easily as zombies are made. The other issue and perhaps it's due to the fact that I'm listening to the story and can't read the names and have them stick, is the characters aren't really standing out to me as individuals. The main characters I got but the secondary characters are getting mixed up in my head. The woman who beat her baby and the husband who raped his wife, are they the same people?

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I'm done. 2.5*. He's a master author but I had problems enjoying the story. The Prologue is best enjoyed at the end of the story IMO. I was overwhelmed with all the names before the story even started. When I heard them again I had to tell myself that anything important will be repeated instead of obsessing over who they were. Maybe that was a bad strategy because I really never fully knew who most of them were. For a book with so many words and for me to not understand clearly the vampire world nor remember the secondary characters, it makes me feel stupid.

My favorite parts are the Introduction by Stephen King which I feel is better enjoyed at the end of the story. And, how Cody the Doctor died.

Narrator did an okay job. Loved his Maine accent he used on the Sheriff best of all. ( )

I read this book because my parents got it for me at a nearby walmart while I was at summer camp. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. It's like a pulp fiction vampire thing it was scary partly because I was in the middle of the woods with no wifi while reading it but mostly because his writing is really detailed. The book only begins to get good in the middle of it which is what I didn't like because I felt like I was losing interest in reading it. This book is definitely something you'd have to read twice to fully grasp and understand because it's all over the place in the beginning. The ending of the book seemed unfinished and was the entire let down. Ironic since the ending is the finish line. It was a good book overall. Definitely not one of this best but close up there. ( )

I liked it - I didn't hate it or love it - I thought that the last 1/4 of the book was amazing, the middle was good and beginning was just super confusing for me - but it was an interesting fun read in the end ( )