“This is the first King I’ve read that I would put below excellent.
You’d think it’s because it’s about a haunted car. But that has nothing to do with it, weirdly enough. In fact, I’m a big fan of writing that manages a super ridiculous premise. If you can write a book about something pretty stupid and have it work, that’s almost better than a solid story that is told in mediocre fashion.
This was the first King I read where it seemed like it took the characters WAY too long to buy the premise. It was made pretty obvious to readers what was going on, and I bought into it, but the characters who witnessed and experienced all kinds of weird stuff didn’t seem to believe it themselves until near the end of the book, when it was pretty much do or die and the narrative required them to believe it.
Thinner has a similar thing, a situation where the cursed fatso doesn’t really believe he’s cursed, until he’s a cursed thinso and seriously struggling. But I feel like that one moves a little faster, and I think that one also has the understanding that the reader gets it.
I’ll say that the ending is pretty redemptive, and I’ll also say that it highlights a strength of the book, which is that I think it’s a horror take on something lots of us experience, which is something getting in the way of a friendship, and then it’s like you don’t even know your friend anymore at some point. How impossible that seems. You were best buddies with some dude, and then you’re just…not. “