"The Outsider" - Book Review -

“The Outsider”

Written by Stephen King

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

The Outsider is a recent novel by the renowned horror and supernatural writer, Stephen King. The story begins with the finding of the body of young eleven-year-old boy, Frank Anderson. The murder itself was extremely gruesome; Frank was sodomized and then killed by bites to his many organs and then a lethal one to his neck. Fingers point at Terry Maitland, Frank’s baseball beloved baseball coach. The murder envelops the town in a dark shadow, with parents and children in an uproar, thinking they trusted Terry.

To continue, I enjoyed how the story developed, introducing many appealing characters. The main detective, Ralph, of the police department is wise and pleasant. We see him often, interacting with other detectives, his wife, and investigators. Ralph was such a happy surprise, since many of King’s police characters have been brash, crude, and just downright offensive. Ralph and his wife become embroiled in the investigation. Over time, we are introduced to a great investigator character, who hails from the Mr. Mercedes series, Holly.

The first third of The Outsider had me thoroughly invested, stuck in suspended animation, as I waited for more clues to be revealed. A major shock involving Terry was so well-executed, I was gob smacked. Unfortunately, the detectives begin to notice that Terry could not have been involved in Frank’s murder, because how could he be in two places at once? Hoping this to continue in an Agatha Christie-like mystery, I was excited. Sadly, it becomes apparent that the monster who committed the murder is supernatural, rather than human.

Personally, the scariest moments and characters in King’s work incorporate evil humans, rather than evil beings and entities. The Green Mile, Children of the Corn, The Shining, Carrie, 1922, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, and Under the Dome have evil characters. Although there are some supernatural baddies or evil influence from beings in these favorites of mine, the majority of the malevolence manifests in the humans. I have never been frightened in It, Pet Sematary, ‘Salem’s Lot, Bag of Bones, and The Stand. I would have loved this book if we just had a murder mystery, with a wicked serial killer walking around Flint City.

The villain, the “outsider”, was a completely different character to what I would have liked. A Mexican folklore villain who imitates the appearance and voice of others, who feasts on the fear of children? Did we need another Pennywise monster?

Lastly, my final disappointment was the audiobook. I have enjoyed Will Patton’s audiobook reading before, but his dark and gruff voice made the narration seem underwhelming, as he seems to overact each sentence. Less is more, in audiobooks for me. I stopped listening to the audiobook and switched to a print copy, because I was unhappy with his cadence and tone.

I recommend this book if you find King’s monsters to be scarier, but I do not recommend if you like evil humans to be scariest. I will not be keeping this book in my collection, nor watching the television adaptation of the novel.

I rated this novel at three of five stars, because King still delivers an interesting plot with great characters, but I would have hoped for so much more.

"Sleeping Beauties"

Sleeping Beauties

Written by Owen King and Stephen King

Review written by Diana Iozzia

The famous and infamous Stephen King and his son, Owen, wrote Sleeping Beauties in 2017, but I feel that its premise rings true in 2020 and will be relevant for years to come. This science fiction novel from the two of them asks the question, “What will happen to the men of Earth if women died or vanished?” The Kings create a bit of interesting satire in their cautionary tale about men and women. In today’s society and in the past, we have always seen a divide between men and women. Women, like myself, often ask when angry with their husbands, “where would you be without me?” Sleeping Beauties answers that question, by portraying chaos, insanity, and crime.

In Sleeping Beauties, Eve Black is an ethereal and mystical being, who has chosen, with the elements of nature, to cause all females, women and children, to enter a cocoon once they fall asleep. This phenomenon is named “Aurora”. As the females attempt to stay awake as long as possible, using drugs and coffee, the men being to panic. We are introduced to an ensemble of characters throughout the small Appalachian town, Dooling. The characters span from plain old citizens, news reporters, police, and especially the prisoners and guards from the town prison. Great and caring men hide the cocoons, once realizing that attempting to break the women out of the cocoons cause them to react like wild and rabid animals and murder their ‘prince’. Horrible and evil men burn the cocoons, killing the women. A burst of moths appears and vanish when each woman was killed. Moths also often appear whenever Eve is using her ‘magical powers’, as well as rats.

The plot continues in a fun and interesting way, as in Part 2, we see the women wake up in an alternate reality of their own town. The men are absent and so are their bodies. The women begin lives of purity and more simple ways of living. We see a favorite character, Tiffany, ride wild horses as she believes she can finally be happy. Two of the more prominent characters are Lila and Clint Norcross. In the other world, called Our World by the women, Lila becomes one of the leaders and attempts to help the other women return to a life of normalcy. In the true world, Clint attempts to protect the women and stop the ones who are causing pandemonium. Frank Geary is a caring father but a hothead and possibly abusive husband, who spends his time keeping his daughter, Nana, safe. He also, with other characters, plan to attack the prison to get to Eve.

The climax and the conclusion of the story feel similar to Needful Things by Stephen King. The characters descent into “good vs. bad” as they allow their true intentions to come to the surface. We have many showdowns and murders, as the good characters protect Eve and the tree entrance back into the new world, while the bad characters attempt to destroy the tree and hurt Eve. We readers draw lines, based on our own opinions, to decide who we agree with, which the Kings use to show us our own morality through this lens.

In conclusion, I personally believed this to be one of the better Stephen King books, and I loved Owen’s contribution. In the later years, I feel Stephen’s work to have mellowed, using less violence and cruelty towards women. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in trying a King book. I felt this wasn’t gruesome, and it could not even be considered horror. The only scenes I felt particularly scary were the ones in which women awoke from their cocoons.

Unfortunately, I believe that readers should carefully consider the format of which they choose to read this book. I do feel that with my listening to the audiobook, I felt that I easily lost track of certain characters and needed to remind myself who each were. I felt that I also became bored, due to the long listening time of 22 hours, when I know I would have accomplished the reading faster on paper. However, Marin Ireland proved to be an incredible narrator, with many voices and accents that brought each character to life in a way that a print copy wouldn’t. I hope that Owen and Stephen create more work together, because I was highly impressed. This is definitely a bestseller that deserves its praise.

"Full Throttle"

“Full Throttle”

Written by Joe Hill

Reviewed by Diana Iozzia

As an occasional fan of Stephen King, I became gradually interested in reading works by his son. I was curious to see how the two prolific writers would be similar and how aspects of their works would contrast. Personally, I was astounded to see how much I enjoyed Hill’s short story collection, “Full Throttle”. I was happily surprised to notice less harsh and brutal sequences, less foul language, and less sexual content, compared to King’s work.

Hill’s short stories have very creative horror themes, as well as his father’s. However, I find that Hill does the technique of “showing” more than “telling”, while King provides far too much detail often. Hill’s work was very intriguing, depicting very realistic characters in an accurate and appealing portrayal. I chose to read this book by listening to the audiobook, which was a longer process, but I felt that I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the different actors and actresses and hearing how they would bring the stories to life. There are many memorable narrators, but I was especially excited to listen to Kate Mulgrew, Zachary Quinto, and Neil Gaiman. I found myself enjoying the other lesser known narrators far more, and I hope to find more audio work by these narrators. I’d like to share my thoughts on each individual story.

The first story in this collection, “Throttle”, is about a maniacal truck driver who brutally attacks motorcyclists on a tough road. Unfortunately, I strongly disliked this story. I felt it was a strange story to open on and especially to be the story that the collection was titled after.

“Dark Carousel” is one of my favorites from this collection. A group of four teens goes to a New Jersey boardwalk, which you may know is a favorite place to be. The teens dumbly and drunkenly mess with the carousel animals and the ride’s operator. As they begin to leave, the teens notice that the animals have come to life, to wreak their vengeance on behalf of their owner. Although the premise sounds a tad ridiculous, I can assure you that the execution of the story is so well-created that the story plays off like a horror movie, akin to the great “The Twilight Zone” or Alfred Hitchcock’s work. The second act of this story was absolutely spine-tingling. The conclusion of this story truly showed madness in its most human and animal forms.

“Wolverton Station” follows a businessman, whose career involves running small businesses into the ground, to make way for new locations of Jim Coffee, a fun reference to “The Green Mile” by King. The main character of this story sits on a train, awaiting transportation to the next step in his journey, when he notices deadly and horrifying wolfmen in business clothing. This story is a tad more political but not quite absurd in its content. The audiobook narrator creates a great atmosphere with his diction and acting abilities.

“By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain” was a more unusual story, with a far too irritating narration by the great Kate Mulgrew. The story bites off more than it can chew, with a family who owns robots, of which the children find a mysterious dinosaur fossil in the woods. The children and their friends turn on each other when deciding what to do with the fossil.

“Faun” is a truly bizarre but well-rounded story. This follows two boys, Peter and Christian, who are brought on an illegal hunting expedition, in which the boys and rich men hunt elusive and endangered animals. The game changes and increases in bewildering ways, when the boys are shown magical and other-worldly creatures to hunt, that must be found in a magical parallel world. Zachary Quinto’s narration adds such delight to this story.

“Late Returns” is absolutely my favorite story of this collection and may have become my new favorite short story of all time. This splendid tale of sadness, love, grief, and death encompasses so many important themes. Our main character has begun a job, in which he drives and maintains a mobile library that’s contained in a large van.  The main character has been told by his boss that many previous drivers have encountered some strange sights. One driver had been so confused, he thought he had been trapped in a different decade. One driver believed he was seeing ghosts. The story continues in a fantastic direction. Our new driver begins the operation but comes to the realization that the people who come onto the van to return books past their due date are ghosts. They are not yet dead ghosts, but they have traveled to this bookmobile to return their late books and read a new one. There are many different characters that come aboard the bookmobile, with many different types of backgrounds and elements that add wondrously to this story. I found myself listening to this story during a night of insomnia. The story was so heartbreaking yet warming, and I found myself crying twice. “Late Returns” is a story that I will find myself talking about for the rest of my life and also perhaps hope that it might come true.

“All I Care About is You” was a strange story, and I am still not quite sure of my enjoyment level. In this, a woman named Iris uses tokens to have the assistance of a ‘clockwork’ named Chip. Iris develops an uncomfortable and obsessive relationship with the piece of machinery, that has been programmed to detect emotions, to cater to the user’s needs, and to provide conversation.

“Thumbprint” is a gritty and gruesome story about a military crew who tortures an Arab man for information. Our main character from the crew has been finding thumbprints, first delivered to her by mailbox, then inside her house, and then on her mirror. This story was very uncomfortable to listen to, and due to the material, I was not interested.

“The Devil on the Staircase” follows a man who is in love with his cousin. After killing her lover on a beautiful, ornate staircase, he becomes haunted by madness. This feels like an ode to the great Edgar Allan Poe, in its atmospheric nature and insanity.

“Mums” follows our main character, Jack, who lives in a very unhappy family. His mother attempts to escape her manipulative husband, but she is accidentally killed. By his father? Hmm. Jack must learn to survive his childhood, but he slowly loses his mind. The true kicker hits when he starts to see mums that he planted by his mother’s grave take on the countenance of his mother. The mums scream to him, begging to eat flesh. This absurd but deliciously gripping story was great, especially when narrated by a fantastic voice actor. This story reminds me of “1922” by King, one of my favorite novellas by him.

I had previously watched “In the Tall Grass” about two weeks prior to reading its short story origin. Although my anticipation for the film did not pay off, I still wanted to listen to the source material. “In the Tall Grass” follows a few different characters but primarily Cal and his pregnant sister, Becky, who have wandered into a grassy field, when they have heard a child calling for help. The grassy field starts morphing around them, which cause Becky and Cal to be trapped and separated. The grass changes the space between the characters rapidly, letting them think they are closer when they are much further apart. The two meet the Humboldt family, who have also been trapped in the woods. Father Russ, mother Natalie, and son Tobin have been running around searching for each other, but something is off about Russ. And the massive enchanting rock in the middle of the field. In reading the source material, some of the aspects I did not enjoy from the film had been taken out, but I felt that the source material also lacked a bit of charm that the film created.

“You Are Released” was a bit of a confusing and sad story. On an airplane, the story chronicles specific passengers, the flight attendants, and the captain’s crew as they all discover that Guam has been hit by a nuclear bomb, sent only by North Korea. The third world war is breaking out, which causes a certain level of terror at twenty-thousand feet.

Moreover, a great part of most short story collections is the afterword, in which the authors provide a bit of background on each story or share the inspiration behind it. Although Hill’s notes were not very fulfilling, I am glad he incorporated them. He mentioned that his main goal with assembling a short story collection is making the stories seem coherent, as if they are all connected in some ways.

In conclusion, I am so thrilled that I chose to read this collection of short stories. I do not read collections as often as I would like, so I appreciate that I took the time. I plan to continue reading Hill’s work at my next opportunity. I wholeheartedly recommend these, as well as King’s collections. I truly recommend listening to “Full Throttle” as an audiobook. It was such a worthy experience.

"Nightmares and Dreamscapes"

“Nightmares and Dreamscapes”

Written by Stephen King

Review written by Diana Iozzia

            “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” is a collection of short stories written by the beloved author, Stephen King. There are 23 in the collection, and I was pretty pleased with the stories. As with most of Stephen King’s work, there is a very large range of types of stories and who would enjoy the stories most. I have always said that his stories fit a shotgun effect for me, I have to read a few before I find one that I really enjoy. I loved reading the introduction and the “Notes” sections. His introductions aren’t that amusing or funny to me usually, but I enjoyed this one. The “Notes” section always includes little explanations or inspirations for each story.

             I don’t particularly enjoy his short stories about revenge, so I didn’t like “Dolan’s Cadillac” and its theme, but the quality of the story was intriguing. A man whose wife was killed by this horrible man seeks revenge after years gone by.

            In “The End of the Whole Mess”, we learn of two brothers. One brother, Bobby, is a child genius and prodigy, while his brother, the narrator, Howard, was smart, but lesser in comparison. Bobby is a flighty person, spending many of his years on his own, learning interesting things about the world and conducting experiments. One day, he shows up on Howard’s porch, explaining his new discovery. His discovery is a form of medicinal chemical that is supposed to stop a volcano from devastating the south of Earth. When this chemical does not work, many people begin to die. We read Howard’s narration after he’s put his brother down and is slowly dying by suicide. This was really sad, but very interesting. I always enjoy a good science-fiction, alternate future story.

            “Suffer the Little Children” follows Miss Sidley, a boarding school teacher, whose students start to creep up on her and drive her paranoid. The results of her paranoia and insanity are heartbreaking. As with most good science fiction / horror stories, this ends off on a cliffhanger, a strange future to come after the story ends. I enjoyed this, “Crouch End”, “Home Delivery”, and “The End of the Whole Mess” best out of the stories in this collection.

            “The Night Flier” is a sort of noir detective story where a man becomes obsessed with following and finding a mysterious serial killer who drains his victim’s blood during night flights. This was weird and creepy, but I liked it.

            “Popsy” is a creepy, kidnapping story, where you read through the perspective of the pedophile, which was uncomfortable. King always has a fantastic habit of making readers feel very unsettled. Not to spoil the ending, but the characteristics of the person who rescues the little boy, his Popsy, was an interesting twist.

            “It Grows on You” is a depressing epilogue to King’s “Needful Things”, my least favorite book by him so far. Needless (no pun intended) to say, I didn’t want to read or enjoy this story. Spoiler alert, I didn’t enjoy it.

            “Chattery Teeth” was a hitchhiker story gone wrong. I tend to like King’s hitchhiker stories. This was odd, but enjoyable.

            “Dedication” was about a woman whose son dedicated a story to her. We learn of her not-very-interesting backstory of her first husband, and then her second husband. Domestic abuse stories aren’t interesting to me.

            “The Moving Finger” came across as a campfire scary story for adults. A man is haunted by a little finger that pops up in his bathroom. He’s driven insane by this little finger. It’s comical and also slightly disturbing. I also enjoyed the characters as well as the story. A strange, but enjoyable read.

            “Sneakers” is about a man who sees a specific pair of sneakers at work, in the bathroom, and in other places in public. I didn’t understand this story, and I don’t think I’m missing out.

            “You Know They Got a Hell of a Band” is a great. My father is a collector and big music fan, so imagining my father finding himself in a rock-and-roll hell was an amusing time. Probably the worst version of Hell for him, so it was funny to read a story like that. A couple finds themselves trapped in a small town that turns out to have evil versions of Janis Joplin, Buddy Holly, and Roy Orbison. This read like a “Goosebumps” story / “Twilight Zone” story combined. I thoroughly enjoyed this funny but spooky read.

            “Home Delivery” is a really cool zombie story, but it doesn’t feel at all like a “Walking Dead” type story. I really enjoyed this science fiction, zombie horror story for many of its elements. Our narrator, Maddie, is pregnant. We learn of her horrific, abusive marriage. Maddie lives on a little fishing island, and we start to learn how on the mainland across the United States, corpses are coming back to life. We have a mini version of an epic story, where we witness the stopping of the corpses, her husband come back to life, and we resolve with Maddie becoming ready for her child to come, in a home delivery of course. This was great.

            “Rainy Season” follows a couple who find themselves on vacation in a strange town where every seven years, killer toads rain down from the sky. Weird, but pleasant story.

            I didn’t understand the story, “My Pretty Pony”. It first sounded like a predatory grandpa telling his grandson about life. I have no idea what happened in it.

            “Sorry, Right Number” is a creepy and twisty screenplay, where a mother Katie thinks she is receiving phone calls from her daughter, who seemingly is perfectly fine and not in danger.

            “The Ten O’Clock People” was my least favorite short story I’ve ever read by King. A man discovers that people around him are like secret alien / lizard creatures.

            “Crouch End” follows a team of London cops who try to help a woman find her husband who has disappeared. We read the story in two parts, the cops trying to find the husband and her story that she tells to the police. I really liked this, but I don’t want to reveal anymore, because there are great twists and turns.

            “The House on Maple Street” follows the children in a family explore their summer home and also find a way to seek revenge on their disliked stepfather. This was strange, but I enjoyed it. It reminded me a little of the books by Lemony Snicket.

            “The Doctor’s Case” is a story written through the perspective of Dr. John Watson, following a case in which Watson works with Sherlock Holmes. I liked Sherlock Holmes when I was younger, but this was a trip down memory lane. It was written in the same melodic style as Arthur Conan Doyle.

            In “The Fifth Quarter”, Jerry Tarkanian seeks revenge for his friend who died. He shows up to make a deal with Barney’s killers.

            “Umney’s Last Case” follows a private investigator who meets his last client, the author who created him. Then, Umney finds himself in a worse situation than he began.

            I didn’t read “Heads Down”. It chronicles his son’s baseball season and is practically a diary. “Brooklyn August” is a poem that coincides.

            “The Beggar and the Diamond” is a re-written Hindu teaching. It was similar to a cautionary tale.

            

"Needful Things"

“Needful Things”
Book written by Stephen King
Review written by Diana Iozzia

Be prepared, because this review of “Needful Things” is going to be a very honest, very long, and kind of mean one. “Needful Things” by Stephen King had a lot of promise in my mind. I was really hoping to like this, because if I had to pick a favorite author, I’d pick Stephen. Can I call him Mister King? Can I call him Stephen?

The plot follows the small town of Castle Rock, the infamous Castle Rock that appears in a large percentage of his books (I can’t be bothered to look up the exact percentage). Castle Rock is famous for being a small, little strange town created by King. The characters are numerous, some have appeared in “Needful Things” when they have appeared elsewhere. For example, we are reintroduced to Alan Pangborn from “The Dark Half” and Ace Merrill from “Stand by Me”. With a book having at least 20 characters to remember, you can imagine that it might be hard to keep track of certain characters. Alan, Polly, Leland Gaunt, Brian Rust, Lettie, and a few others are most memorable, but it becomes difficult in Part Two of the book to remember many of them. Part 3 is absolutely atrocious for mentioning characters. The main ones were easy to remember, but I lost track of certain plot lines.

Mr. Leland Gaunt, a peculiar fellow, opens a shop called Needful Things. He begins selling items to townsfolk that could be an item they’ve always lusted over or an item that symbolizes their main desires. From baseball cards to fox tails to a framed picture of Elvis, they are not ordinary objects that you’d imagine people would be driven insane over. Mr. Gaunt accepts money, but he also creates an agreement with the customer to do him favors and “pranks”. These favors and pranks eventually pit the citizens of Castle Rock against each other, ensuing in crimes, violence, and different types of murder.

This was a fantastic premise, but the book could have done well with having 50 percent of its material cut. The copy I have has about 500 pages in very small print. This took me a month to struggle through. The first part was great. It set up an interesting plot, that became less interesting the less I read.

I think this book reminds me of “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street”, an episode of the television show, “The Twilight Zone” where aliens pit neighbors against each other and cause havoc on one small street. Stephen King seems to “take inspiration” from many different stories, but this one felt eerily familiar.

I’m glad I read this book, because I had wanted to read it for some time. But I’m much gladder that I finished it. I could say I recommend it, but I can also say that you should steer very clear. Proceed with caution. I still can’t tell how I actually view this book, if in a positive light or negative light. I have heard that the short story “It Growns on You” in King’s book, “Nightmares and Dreamscapes” is a sort of epilogue to “Needful Things”, so perhaps I can find some closure there.

The aspects I liked:

Polly Chalmers and Alan Pangborn were great main characters.
The feud between Wilma Jerzyck and Nettie Cobb was a great storyline.
The climax and resolution.
“Answered Prayers”
Leland Gaunt’s Faustian personality.

The aspects I didn’t like:

Ace Merrill, terribly rotten in personality and plot line.
About 75 percent of the book. It was very descriptive to a fault.
Too many characters to keep track of.

The aspects I’m not sure on:

Danforth Keeton
The Rust Family

"The Tommyknockers"

“The Tommyknockers” by Stephen King

Review Written by Diana Iozzia

            I can tell you right now that Stephen King is my favorite author. He writes horror fiction, which is one of my favorite genres, and he’s damn good at it. Everyone either despises him or worships him. “The Tommyknockers” was one of the only books I’ve read by him that I despised. You read about a very uninteresting and depressed protagonist named Bobbi Anderson. Bobbi is walking in her backyard with her old dog, when she finds a hunk of metal protruding from the ground.

            There are many ways to spoil this book, but I’d rather not completely ruin it for you. It’s very reminiscent of an episode from The Twilight Zone, or at least the beginning is. In many of King’s books, he writes of his inspirations and his connections, but sometimes, they feel so much more coincidental and slightly like he rips off some of his stories.

            I love Mr. King, but this was a very skippable book. It’s absolutely gigantic, and I just could not finish this with my sanity full intact. I was tired and bored of it by the first three chapters. Perhaps, I’ll re-read it in ten years and see if my thoughts have changed. Unfortunately, for now, I wouldn’t recommend this book. If I had a heart, it'd be broken by this book.