Thursday, April 21, 2011

Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (CBR-III #17)

Series: The Dark Tower Book IV
Cannonball Read III: Book #17/52
Published: 1997
Pages: 752 (6,959 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

**I'm going to include a spoiler warning just because this is a book in a series and it's almost impossible to talk about it without any spoilers if you haven't read any of the previous books.

Well, this definitely wasn't my favorite book of the series so far. It starts out interesting enough: continuing with the travels of Roland and his friends. Then we have to drudge through hundreds of pages of Roland's past. I've said before that I wasn't a fan of reading Roland's backstory in The Gunslinger and I'm still not a fan. The odd thing is, it's hard for me to grasp WHY I'm so disinterested. Usually backstory on a character is a GOOD thing.

Probably one of the main reasons I didn't care for it was because it was like reading a Twilight novel (although better written) with sex. Lots of teenage sex. That's right, people. Roland's entire backstory was one big romance novel with some shooting thrown in for good measure. Not really my cup of tea. Especially when you realize that he was FOURTEEN. Fourteen year olds in love isn't really romantic unless you are actually a teenager.

Basically, I think this book was overly long and had an unnecessary full length novel thrown in the center of the real story, which I actually wanted to get back to. However, the end loops back around to our regular travelers and regains my interest enough to make me excited for the next book.