Lisey's Story - by Stephen King

I am so over Stephen King! I thought I'd give him another chance, since in the past, I've been such a fan. However, this latest story, Lisey's Story, went beyond stupid! I have never read such a poor book by Stephen King, as this piece of drivel.

It starts out in Lisey's mind. Her thoughts about her husband, his death blah blah blah. During this interminable length of time, I considered putting the book down many times because I feared the entire book would be exactly like the beginning - Lisey's thoughts.

It wasn't though. It eventually evolved into a real story but it was so far-fetched (without any "real" explanation as to how it ties to reality at all) that it was difficult to swallow. I mean, was Booya Moon (I listened to an audiobook of this so spelling might be wrong), a real place, or something made up or what? I just couldn't figure it out! I get it's different for everyone but it just made no sense!

Not to mention the fake jargon. King makes up about 50 new terms in this book that are supposed to make sense. They don't. The entire book supposedly revolves around a term called "bool" which I think he made an attempt at explaining in the beginning, but it was such a poor job that I really never did get it - and thus was lost for most of the book when it referred to this term. And since it was such a large portion of the book, it made no sense. Maybe I'm slow.

Lastly, something that was SO ANNOYING was the little "thoughts" he'd throw into the middle of a zillion sentences. Like Lisey would be having a thought that was distressing her: she'd be thinking this thought and in the middle of the thought..."hush, Lisey"...and then the thought would continue as if the interruption never happened. He did this so many times it was ridiculous, not to mention completely unnecessary.

David Trosky, in a review on Amazon put it succinctly when he wrote:

My problem with Lisey's Story, though, is that I'm starting to find King's writing style downright annoying. I understand the importance of internal dialogue so we know what the characters are thinking, and I know he tries to use this to build tension, but it's simply overdone here, as is his use of parentheses. To give you an example, if King were writing a review of Lisey's Story, in the style of Lisey's Story, it might read something like this: ---

How good is Lisey's Story? Well, that's the question, isn't it? And it's not just the question, it's the BIG question. The BIG SMUCKING QUESTION. Yessirree, the question to end all questions. Because when you get right down to it (oh and we will... we will get right down to it... BOOL!) reviews are really about how good something is, are they not? Of course they are. ---

Words & sayings that were annoying from this book:

"smucking", "shite", "bool", "nubby", "hush, Lisey", "baby-love", "southern-fried chicken-sh**" - and the worst "puffickly huh-yooge piece of orrifice" (WTF is that supposed to mean?), SOWISA, long boy, bad-gunky.

I have no idea what any of these words or phrases mean other than the sad explanations given.

Every well-read King reviewer had the same opinion I did.

I'm sorry King - I usually really like your work. Maybe I've read you too much and you've gotten under my skin. You'd be better to completely retract all copies of this novel and burn them at the stake. There's just no comparison with The Stand. Come on, you can do better!