The Green Mile by Stephen King (CBR-V #47)

Cannonball Read V: Book #47/52
Published: 1996
Pages: 548

Genre: Mystery

Having read most of Stephen King's books, I'm not sure how I managed to never pick up The Green Mile. I've also never seen the movie (yet...working on that), so I went into this book only knowing the basic plot: It takes place on death row and there's a giant guy who may or may not have done the crime that landed him there. 

Paul Edgecomb is the narrator who is in a nursing home type place writing down this story that happened when he was a prison warden in the 1930s. He saw a lot of people die while working on death row, but John Coffey stood out to him. He was brought to the prison after being convicted of raping and murdering two little twin girls (but did he actually do it?). He's a strange man - absolutely huge, but gentle and soft-spoken and seems to never stop weeping tears. Turns out, John Coffey has some special healing abilities as well. 

I really liked this book. It was originally released as a serial in several parts, so I think that's what made the pacing so good. The characters were great and I loved how King humanized the death row inmates. The wardens weren't always the good guys and the inmates weren't always the scum. I never thought I'd start liking some of these people who were imprisoned for doing awful things. Delacroix, for example. He and his pet mouse almost made you forget the fact that he was a murderer. Then King would remind you what they did just to throw you off. 


This is a great Stephen King book for people who may not be into some of his more horror or supernatural themed books. It has a touch of the supernatural, but it's mostly a character- and emotion- driven novel. 

Duma Key by Stephen King (CBR-V #46)

Cannonball Read V: Book #46/52
Published: 2008
Pages: 700

Genre: Horror/Fantasy

Another brick of a Stephen King book. Some are completely worth wading through 1000 pages (The Stand, Under the Dome...shut up, I liked that one) and some aren't (Insomnia, The Tommyknockers). Duma Key was pretty middle of the road. Good enough to actually finish (can't say the same for those last two I mentioned up there), but not crazy good. 

Edgar decides to move to Florida after he has a bad accident at work and his wife leaves him. He made a pretty good fortune on his business, so he settles down for a nice early retirement on Duma Key. Edgar is lonely and he's still dealing with the divorce and recovering from his accident (he lost an arm and had a pretty bad head injury). He hires a young college-age kid to run his errands for him and he befriends an old lady and her caretaker down the beach. Edgar also finds out that he has a knack for painting. Then, of course, weird stuff starts happening that has to do with some traumatic stuff that happened on the island in the past. 

I liked that there were very few characters in this book. King is amazing at character development, but sometimes it seems like you need a concordance to keep up with everyone. With so few characters, you really got to know each of them. I also really liked the location. Usually King's stories are set in Maine, but I connected a little more with Florida since I lived there for a few years (and I've never been to Maine). 


I debated between 3 and 4 stars for this book (it's probably more like 3.5), but the ending got a little bogged down and stretched out at times. This probably could have been a 500 pages book vs. a 700 page book.

The Dark Half by Stephen King (CBR-V #45)

Cannonball Read V: Book #45/52
Published: 1989
Pages: 469

Genre: Crime/Horror

Thad is a writer who didn't have much success until he wrote a series under a pseudonym, George Stark. After his success with the George Stark books, Thad decided to "kill" Stark and try his luck once again under his own name. Then people connected to Thad start getting murdered by someone who looks and acts suspiciously like the fictional George Stark. Is Stark a real person or just a figment of Thad's imagination? 

The Dark Half is more of a crime/mystery type book than Stephen King's usual horror. He does throw in some of his trademark supernatural elements though. As usual, King is great at creating characters, but I just couldn't get into this storyline as much as most of his books. It sort of dragged on in parts and the whole thing with the sparrows was just sort of bizarre. 


There's only a handful of Stephen King books that I haven't read yet and this was one of them. I can finally check it off my list, but it definitely wasn't my favorite. 

Under the Dome by Stephen King (CBR-V #29)

Cannonball Read V: Book #29/52
Published: 2009
Pages: 1092
Genre: Science Fiction

Under the Dome is a monster of a novel, clocking in at almost 1100 pages. I'm kind of a sucker for long, epic novels, so I decided to tackle this book for a second time. I read this book when it was first released in 2009 and loved it. I wanted to re-read it before I watched the TV show that just came out based on it. 

The basic premise is pretty simple: An impenetrable dome falls over the town of Chester's Mill, Maine. No one knows what it is or where it came from. The outside world is just as baffled as the people inside the dome. 

As with most of Stephen King's longer novels, there are a LOT of characters to wade through. Fortunately, you have plenty of time to sort everyone out with 1100 pages. One of the main characters is a guy named Dale Barbara, or Barbie. He's an ex-military guy who was a cook at a local restaurant. He was trying to leave town when the dome fell and trapped him inside. He was leaving town due to a pretty nasty, unfair fight with a guy named Junior over a girl. Junior is a sociopath who didn't fall far from the tree. His father, "Big Jim" Rennie is a local used car salesman who uses the dome to his advantage as he tries to take over the town. Big Jim is involved in a bunch of unethical things (with one of the town pastors, no less) while hiding behind the facade of being religious. 


There are tons of other characters and plot points that would take forever to go into, but I still really enjoyed this book. The second reading was a little slower due to already knowing the somewhat disappointing ending, but the interesting characters and story arcs make the journey worth it even if the ending wasn't great. 

The Dead Zone by Stephen King (CBR-V #2)

Cannonball Read V: Book #2/52
Published: 1980
Pages: 402
Genre: Fiction/Thriller

I've read just about every Stephen King book that he's written, so now I'm reading some of the few that I never managed to pick up. Which means these are the ones I found least interesting when I read the blurbs on the back. The plot of The Dead Zone never really jumped out at me. It follows a man named John Smith (creative, huh?) as a 20-something with a nice girlfriend who gets into a bad car accident and ends up in a coma. He surprises everyone when he wakes up almost five years later. Of course by then everyone else has moved on. His girlfriend is now married to someone else and his mom lost it and started getting into some weird religious cults.

Johnny's changed too. He gets flashes of the future sometimes when he touches people or objects. Eventually the press hears about it and makes a huge deal and then eventually prints that he's a fraud. He tries to live a quiet life but he keeps freaking people out when he tries to help them after seeing a flash. He even helps solve a serial killer case that the police are baffled by. 

I thought the serial killer part would be more central to the story than it was. It was a fairly small part while most of the book was centered around a politician that Johnny shook hands with once and saw a flash of a future war. Sigh. I seem to be picking all the political books this month for some reason.

This definitely wasn't my favorite King book. It was okay (and probably good for people who like King's novels that are less "horror"), but pretty forgettable. 

The Dark Tower by Stephen King (CBR-III #20)

Series: The Dark Tower Book VII
Cannonball Read III: Book #20/52
Published: 2004
Pages: 1072 (9,551 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

I finally finished the series! It was a little rocky in some parts, but am I glad I finished? Yes. Will I ever read this series again? Probably not. I'm going to review the final book first, then do a brief review of the entire series as a whole.

So, I was not a huge fan of the last couple books in this series. However, the final book in The Dark Tower series was what I wished the entire series had been. It flowed well and King didn't go off on hundred page tangents that had little to do with the central story. With each book, I just wanted Roland and his group to continue their journey to the Dark Tower without taking detours that took up entire books, such as the whole fighting with the wolves in The Wolves of the Calla or Rolands 600 page backstory. They covered more ground in this final book than I think half the other books combined.

One thing I love about Stephen King is his ability to bring his characters to life. Even if these weren't my favorite books ever, I really fell in love with the characters.

***SPOILERS! THE NEXT TWO PARAGRAPHS CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SERIES***

Okay, so we have to talk about the ending. First of all, I love when authors aren't afraid to kill of main characters. It's dramatic and emotional. However, I HATED how Susannah just randomly left right before they got to the tower. She went all that way and sacrificed everything (including Eddie!) and then just leaves to go back to her world hours before they reach their goal? I'm not even going to comment on the stupid "afterward" with Susannah in NYC.

As for the very, very end: I kind of liked it. It was TOTALLY unexpected and yes, it might have been a total cop-out ending, but in a way it kind of worked. It did feel a little rushed and anti-climactic (really? He can just literally erase the bad guy at the end?), but it was completely unexpected if nothing else.

***END OF SPOILERS***

Okay, I already apologize for this being so long. What did I think of the entire series?

Honestly, it felt a little disjointed. Probably due to the fact that it took King something like 35 years to write the whole thing. I probably would have liked it better if it stayed more focused and cut out a lot of unneeded tangents. I rushed through a lot of that just to get back to the central story of the actual journey to the Dark Tower because that was the story I was invested in and wanted to read.

The series had it's ups and downs for me, but overall it's a decent read if for nothing else than to tell people you made it through the whole thing. I do hope they end up making the movies/tv series that's been rumored because I think this would be awesome on the screen.

Song of Susannah by Stephen King (CBR-III #19)

Series: The Dark Tower Book VI
Cannonball Read III: Book #19/52
Published: 2004
Pages: 560 (8,479 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

**Possible spoilers if you haven't read the previous books in the series.**

Six down, one to go! This is the next-to-last book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series which continues with Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake on the path to the Dark Tower.

Again, I found this book to be very dull. It was mostly filler so not much really happens. After leaving Calla Bryn Sturgis in The Wolves of the Calla, our heroes are transported back to New York City. However, Susannah and Jake end up in the year 1999 while Eddie and Roland arrive in 1977.

Basically, the whole book is everyone wandering around New York. Susannah is trying to keep her demon baby from being born while the others are searching for her. The only halfway interesting part was when Roland and Eddie meet up with Stephen King in 1977.

Thankfully, King kept this book to reasonable 500 pages (it's sad how short that sounds after reading this series) so it went quickly, but it was still very, very dull. Here's to hoping the final book is more interesting than the last few.

Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (CBR-III #18)

Series: The Dark Tower Book V
Cannonball Read III: Book #18/52
Published: 2003
Pages: 960 (7,919 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

Wolves of the Calla is the fifth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It continues to story of Roland and his "ka-tet" (Eddie, Susannah, and Jake) as they journey to the Dark Tower.

They didn't really journey anywhere in this book since it all took place in Calla Bryn Sturgis (a town in Mid-world). The town has been plagued once per generation with a visit from "the Wolves". Calla Bryn Sturgis has an unusually high birthrate for twins (singles are very rare) and the Wolves come once every twenty or so years to steal one out of each set of twins and send them back later "roont" or mentally and physically damaged. Roland and the other gunslingers decide to help the town fight back against the Wolves - and to find out what they really are.

I'm sorry, but this book bored me to tears. It took me weeks to finish it because half the time I couldn't even bring myself to pick it back up. The whole battle with the wolves only lasted about ten pages out of the almost 1000 page book. Unfortunately, that was about the only interesting part to the book.

I guess now I'm moving on to the sixth book in the series. Here's to hoping the sixth and seventh are much more entertaining than these last two.

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...moreWell, 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.

The Waste Lands by Stephen King (CBR-III #16)

Series: The Dark Tower Book III
Cannonball Read III: Book #16/52
Published: 1991
Pages: 608 (6,207 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

This is the third book in the Dark Tower series and I'm definitely glad I kept reading after being not so impressed with The Gunslinger. I loved the second book and this one was good as well. I did find it a bit slow at times, but it really picks up during the last third and keeps going until the cliffhanger ending.

***I'm going to try and keep out any major spoilers, but if you haven't read the first two books in the series, there could possibly be spoilers ahead***

The Waste Lands follows Roland and his companions as they cross the country following "the beam" to the Dark Tower. I think if Tolkien was on LSD, this is how he would have written Lord of the Rings. Seriously, this book is insane, but in a good way. For instance, we begin with a giant parasite-infested cyborg bear who has a satellite dish on his head and we end with a cranky, talking monorail. Very, very strange stuff.

I'm a little confused as to why it's called The Waste Lands when they don't actually get to the waste lands until almost the very end. But like I said, the last third of the book gets intense and then it ends on a cliffhanger that makes you immediately want to pick up the next book.

I'd give it 4/5 stars. Definitely pick up this series if you're at all interested in the fantasy genre.

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King (CBR-III #15)

Series: The Dark Tower Book II
Cannonball Read III: Book #15/52
Published: 1987
Pages: 480 (5,599 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

This is the second book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series and I have to say I liked it much better than the first. The story flowed a little better and we added a few much-needed characters to keep the mystery of Roland from becoming too dull.

This book continues right where The Gunslinger ended. Roland wakes up on the beach and immediately enters a battle with these giant lobster-like creatures that results in him losing a couple of fingers and toes. After defeating the creatures, he continues his journey up the coast until he finds a door standing upright in the sand.

The door is labeled "The Prisoner" and enables Roland to enter the mind of a heroin addict named Eddie Dean. Eddie is in a completely different world and time than Roland - 1980's New York City. Roland must convince Eddie to join him in Roland's world and go with him on his journey to the Dark Tower.

There are also two other doors placed in intervals down the beach. The second enters into the mind of a schizophrenic woman in 1960's New York. Sometimes she's the calm, mild-mannered rich woman named Odetta Holmes and other times she's the crazy, white-person hating woman named Odetta Walker. Through the third door, Roland enters into serial killer (or "pusher" as he calls himself) Jack's head.

The purpose of this book is pretty much to set up the main characters for the remainder of the series. King introduces us to some pretty interesting (and unconventional) characters and I'm excited to read the rest of the series now. I wasn't so sure about it after the first book, but this one definitely got me hooked.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King (CBR-III #14)

Series: The Dark Tower Book I
Cannonball Read III: Book #14/52
Published: 1982
Pages: 264 (5,119 total so far)
Genre: Fantasy/Adventure

I actually tried reading The Gunslinger years ago, but never finished it. I really want to try and make it through the entire Dark Tower series, so I decided to try again. Hey, even Stephen King himself in the forward says that you need to get through the first three books before you can really get into the story.

Roland is the last gunslinger (he's possibly very old - this book seems to be very vague on a lot of things) and has been following The Man in Black for a long time. The Man in Black has information that Roland needs in order to find The Dark Tower. Again, it's very vague as to why Roland wants/needs to find the Tower, but I'm assuming that's what the other six books are for.

Along the way, Roland wipes out an entire town, meets a strange man who lives in the desert with his corn patch and pet bird, and rescues a boy who has vague memories of living - and dying - in New York City before he was deposited at an old coach station in the middle of the desert. The boy joins Roland in the rest of his journey to catch up to The Man in Black.

The Gunslinger is different than most King books (I should know - I've read most of them!). It's an adventure story, but I found this first book to really drag in places. Luckily, it's a short book or I probably would have abandoned it again. I really enjoyed the actual adventure parts and wish it would have focused more on Roland's travels or on some of the things he encountered such as the mutants or the Subway ruins.

Again, I found parts of the book slow or hard to follow because you weren't given a lot of information to go on, although I do understand that this is basically an introduction to the series. Hopefully everything will make more sense as the books go along because the core story is pretty interesting, but I don't know if I can read one of the 800 page ones in the series if it's only 50% adventure, 30% rambling, and 20% vagueness.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

Full Dark, No Stars
Cannonball Read 2011 #4
384 pages

Full Dark, No Stars is Stephen King's newest anthology. It contains four novellas called 1922, Big Driver, Fair Extension, and A Good Marriage. They were kind of hit or miss for me as I only enjoyed two of the four. I'm a pretty big Stephen King fan, but there are some of his books and stories that I just have a harder time getting into.

My favorites were definitely Big Driver and A Good Marriage, with Big Driver probably being my favorite overall. It was about a female writer who takes a shortcut home from a book signing where she gets raped and almost murdered. She opts to get revenge herself rather than go to the police. It starts a little slow for a shorter story, but once the action gets going, it's a pretty intense ride.

A Good Marriage is about a woman who finds out that her husband is an infamous serial killer who has alluded the police for years. King says that his inspiration for this story was the BTK killer, who had a normal life with a wife who supposedly had no idea that he tortured and killed women on the side. I thought this story had good pacing as well.

As for 1922, it was probably my least favorite. Unfortunately, it was also the first and the longest novella in the book. It is about a man in the 1920s who decides to murder his wife with the help of his son. The two are fighting over some land she inherited from her parents - she wants to sell and he wants to keep it. The story is well-written, but I just found it too drawn out and slow at times.

Fair Extension was fairly forgettable. It is about a man with cancer who makes a deal with the devil for his health. Of course dealing with the devil always has consequences, so in order to prolong his life, he must cut someone else's short. The story wasn't bad, but it just wasn't that memorable either. It also seems vaguely familiar, like I've read or seen something similar that I just can't put my finger on.

Overall, it's a pretty solid read from King. He's a phenomenal writer, but different people tend to like different things from him. I tend to like his ones like Carrie and Misery. This one might be more suited towards fans of slower moving, less horror stories like Bag of Bones.

Bag of Bones by Stephen King

I love Stephen King. But there is a reason that this is one of the very few books of his that I have never read. It's boring. It seriously took me more than a month to finish because I just didn't want to pick it back up. I can't ever just quit a book in the middle, so I toughed it out. But it was rough.

Basically, it's a ghost story. An author (King likes to use authors as characters a lot, doesn't he?) is grieving his wife who died unexpectedly while she was pregnant with their child. He moves into their vacation house on a lake in Maine and learns that he's not the only one living there.

I liked:

-I honestly can't think of anything that I really liked. Mostly it was just meh...

I didn't like:

-I HATED the name of the lake house: Sara Laughs. That is a terrible name for a house and it just made me cringe when I had to read it.

-I was so bored. This was not one of my favorite King books at all.

-The ending was stupid and I felt like I just read the longest novelization ever of an episode of "Supernatural".

-He and his wife thought it would be a good and "original" idea to name their kid "Kia". Like the crappy cars. At least most people that name their kids after cars go for "Mercedes" or "Bentley".

I'd give it 2/5 stars. King is an amazing writer, but I just didn't get into this story for some reason.