Fairy Tale (Audiobook)

Stephen King really shines when it comes to the human relationships and the depth of the main characters. He has a great knack for building those grounded connections. However, the fantasy elements didn't quite work for me here. About 30% of the book felt a bit slow. I loved the beginning, especially before Charlie heads off to Empis, and I also really enjoyed the ending and the lead-up to it. Despite the slow parts, I still found the story enjoyable overall.

3.9/5

This is a hard review to write. I had so many people telling me this was my perfect book. A boy who loves his dog, and tries to save her by going to a magical world with the ability to turn back time.

Unfortunately this did not live up to the hype and became a chore to read. My biggest issue is the length. There is a lot in this story that could have been cut or paired down. It is full of obscure references that didn't need to be there. It was fun at first, but quickly grew tiresome. It felt like King has this collection of favorite shows/movies/heroes/etc and wants to make sure they aren't forgotten so he ends up including everything possible in this book. Just as I got into a section of the story, these references would pull me back out. Then I'd have to fight to get myself back into the story.

A few times I started to skim the pages, ready to be done with this book. In fact, it took be almost two months or fairly consistent reading to finally complete this story.

The unfortunate thing is that the summary of the story was perfect. It's the execution that became the problem.