Fairy Tale

I don't know how Stephen King--or even a team of Stephen King clones--can write so many good books at such a remarkable rate. He knocked it out of the ballpark again with Fairy Tail. The world and characters he created are believable and compelling, and the story is even more so. It's a long book, but I never felt bored. Just wanted more.

This book gripped me like no other in recent years. I had not read King for a while and thought I might find the plot predictable but it wasn't and King has a way in which he creates several story lines and works them together, so the reader learns about the characters, and relate to them and understand their motivation for actions. The reader is drawn in not just to the world of the main character, but in this case, to the lives of several people, each going through a different path and so much of this touches on reality,… show more.

This book left me utterly speechless; words alone cannot capture the depth of my admiration and love for it. As a long-time fan of Stephen King’s work, I had stopped reading his recent novels because I felt they didn't measure up to his earlier masterpieces. However, when my daughter recommended it to me, insisting I would love it, she was absolutely right.

I devoured all 598 pages over a single weekend. The story captivated me from start to finish, rekindling my appreciation for King's unparalleled storytelling. I was especially drawn to the characters Charlie and Radar, the dog, whose journey… show more.

One of my favorite writers revisits a common trope from his own books—a mysterious portal conveying our hero to another land/time/dimension. King has used this before in books such as From a Buick 8, 11/22/63, and, indeed, his magnum opus, The Dark Tower, but here he sets the story in a fantasy, fairy-tale world.

I enjoyed his use of common fairy tale themes—the pot of gold, the evil dungeon, talking horses, the old crone—though these are woven into the storyline with his usual deftness in such a way that they don’t seem clunky or contrived.

Of course, one… show more.

I love fantasy worlds. Fairy Tale took me to unimaginable places with characters so bizarrely unique that each new encounter left me amused and astonished! And who wouldn’t love a story about a boy wanting to save an old dog?

This Stephen King book is unlike any of his others, so don’t expect to be horrified. Expect, instead, to be carried along on a challenging adventure that never quits. Yes, there are monsters, but the focus is on how Charlie is able to meet them all and somehow remain alive—and changed—by the end of the story.

King brings old fairy… show more.

I’m a big fan of Stephen King so when I saw he was writing what I nicknamed Narnia for grown-ups I was very excited and this book did not disappoint. 

King is a master of the slow-burn character build up, and when the time came, I was almost disappointed to be leaving his version of the ‘real world’ in favor of exploring the fantastical. The relationship between our main characters was is well crafted and I was so invested that it wasn’t until Charlie started getting curious about the Shed and the Money that I even remembered we were building… show more.

I’ve always been a fan of King’s work, and the title of this intrigued me. When I began reading it, I was hooked.

It is the story of Charlie, a teenager with a bad past who yearns to be a better person. This really spoke to me and mirrors my own life to an extent. Charlie finds his chance when he saves Howard Bowditch from a fall and encounters the man’s pet dog, Radar, who is also old and failing with only limited time left.

Radar’s plight, the love Charlie and others who know Radar feel for him, actually made… show more.

Stephen King is a master storyteller. I’ve always loved his work, and this was no exception. It was another of those books that kept me reading a long past bedtime.

It’s a simple story: a teenage boy helps a grumpy old man out and is rewarded with lots more work and an epic adventure to save a dog. I must stress that the dog is a very good girl. The old man and the teen both have varying levels of goodness, depending on circumstance.

I don’t want to give too much away, but I love the world-building in this story… show more.

I don’t just want to pick this for the sake of it, but I found the first half of the book engrossing as it takes place in our world, and the second half quite dull in places as though the author was on unfamiliar territory with fantasy and just wanted it over with.

The fantasy otherworld I felt wasn’t handled anywhere near as well as Clive Barker would have done which, given King’s amazing ability of describing real scenes and people, became very apparent in his lack of ability to describe things that don’t exist. I enjoyed the book overall… show more.

When most people think of Stephen King, they think of horror. And while he’s very much known for his tales of ghosts and ghouls, he writes a lot more than that. Fairy Tale is one such example. It hits the ground running with a shocking opening, but then it subtly shifts gears into, really, what it says right there on the cover of the book: a fairy tale. 

In his dedication, King notes that he wrote it thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and Robert E. Howard. I also saw strong influences by L. Frank Baum, and C.S. Lewis.… show more.