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What am I doing?

Being a true Mainer, while my mother was pregnant with me, she was reading a book by Stephen King. Specifically she was reading The Dark Half by Stephen King. In that book there is a character named Shayla and that is where my name came from. Growing up in Maine already gives you a sense of closeness with Mr. King but having him be the reason for my namesake always drew me even closer to him. In fact, for my 23rd birthday I was gifted with Stephen King’s personal copy of The Dark Half that he signed for me.  I grew up watching many Stephen King shows and movies and read a few books. My favorite book of all time being The Long Walk by Stephen King, himself. All in all, however, I’ve only read about 5 of Mr. King’s books in total. I feel like this weird connection and fascination I have with him has ultimately only led me to one place. And that place is right here, preparing to read all his books. With all honesty, I get crazy ideas like this all the time but only seldom do I see ...
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Sleeping Beauties (2017)

Before reading: This book was written alongside Owen King, Stephen's son. I have not read any of Owen's work but I do know that Joe is the more prolific son. I have heard some not so great things about this one but I have also heard people say they really enjoy it. The biggest complaint I've seen is that it is much too long, and that is usually a negative for me. As far as the content goes, I have absolutely no idea what this one is about. Let's find out. After reading: I want to start by saying that I did like this book. I legitimately think this was a good book. I had a couple qualms that I will get into in a moment, but I want to start off with why I think other people don't like this one. This was a very pro-women and almost anti-men book. I've mentioned before that I have noticed that typically when people say they don't like a Stephen King book...it usually has a female main character. As soon as I opened this book and saw the dedication was for Sandra...

Gwendy's Button Box (2017)

Before reading: I feel like I know a lot about this one but also nothing about it. I know nothing about the content and am going in completely blind. What I do know is that this is the first book in a trilogy. Additionally, this was co-authored by Richard Chizmar. This is only the second time we are getting a co-authored book so I am interested to see how it compares. Now what is slightly annoying about this trilogy is that King only worked on the first and third book. The second book is solely by Chizmar. That means for the purposes of this blog, I will only be writing about the first and third. However, I will still need to read the second one. That being said, I will include some brief thoughts of the second in my next blog. Luckily, this past year they released all three books together in one binding so at least it will be a little easier to read that way. Anyway, this is a short book and I've probably taken more time writing this than it'll take me to read so I'm going...

End of Watch (2016)

Before reading: I am so excited. This is the final book in the Bill Hodges trilogy. I'm expecting good things plus this one delves into the supernatural so I'm excited to see how that ties inn. Let's go! After reading: I felt like that was a great end to this trilogy and a great beginning to Holly's story. I don't have too much to say about it and I definitely don't have much to complain about. This was a super solid trilogy. I gave each book four stars. I thought each one was really great and had its own unique story while keeping everything tied together really well. We don't get many trilogies (or even sequels) from King so this is a bit of a treat. I thought the story was very well done and captivating. It kept the original stories going while not just being a copy of them. It dipped its toe into the supernatural in a way that kept the serious tone but opened up doors for Holly's upcoming adventures. The ending was expecting but I thought it did what...

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams (2015)

Before reading: If you want to know my thoughts on short stories, please refer to my previous posts. I don't have high hopes but I'm not completely put off anymore. Per usual, I will be discussing each individual story and then the collection as a whole.  After reading: Well. That was definitely a short story collection. Here are my thoughts... Mile 81: This took me forever to get through. And somehow, King had it in him to write yet another evil car story. It was well-written, it had good characters, but it was so boring. It also literally referenced Christine  like...we get it.  Premium Harmony: Meh. (I start a lot of these with 'meh' for the record). This one was set in Castle Rock which was fun-ish. This was specifically styled after an author that I am personally unfamiliar with so it didn't really click for me. It was super short but basically pointless. This one also managed to call every woman character 'fat' about a hundred times each.  Batman and R...

Finders Keepers (2015)

Before reading:  This is the second book in the Bill Hodges trilogy following Mr. Mercedes. I'm very pleased we get to read these so close together. I enjoyed the first one and am looking forward to reading this one. I know that "Finders Keepers" is the name of their business since this was mentioned in The Outsider  but other than that I have no clue what the plot is. Let's get to it then! After reading: I found this to be a really nice sequel to the first book. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting because we do not meet up with our characters from Mr. Mercedes until well over one hundred pages. At first this annoyed me, I was ready to get back into this series and back to familiar characters. However, this annoyance left quickly as I really enjoyed the new characters and story that was unfolding. Similar to the first book in the trilogy, the story went back and forth between the protagonist and antagonist POV which I enjoy. I think King does a great job at giv...