Fairy Tale: Book Review

It’s been a long while since I read a book from Stephen King, and although I liked and respected his writings, I can’t get in much with the horror themes for most of his books. This book has some ‘scary’ part but for the most part of it, it is a mix of fantasy, fiction and adventure.

Which suits me fine, as I really like fantasy. However I was very let down from the Wheels of Time, which has a lot of things that make fantasy book feel dull; weird names, expansive and unnecessary details and story driven by plot, and not by the story itself. Reading Fairy tale seems like the opposite; it has very little weird name or magic power, has a longggg background story, but the story is more driven by the character. And the character I would say is very well established.

The book goes over a very long reason why Charlie does what he did, giving grounds to why he did his good deeds, and showed different sides of the main character, early on. It showed also early on how people changed, due to certain events, and can change too, with clear intention. Even the early parts where the background story was being told, could have a made a decent book by itself.

Typical of King is also that there are many culture reference thrown here and there, and it makes you feel good when you can spot or understand the connections. I guess it is harder for people who is not from the States. I remember reading ‘It’, the creepy alien clown, and there were a few paragraphs that I completely did not understand what they were because the phrases are so foreign. In this book, I think King has toned down it a bit, or I maybe have been reading and being exposed more to things from the USA, that I find it to be easier to read. There are some weird phrases though, like “on the Net” where I think people normally say “online”.

Overall it was an interesting book with a strong start, with a bit loose ending at the end. Well worth a read.

Thank you for reading.