From a Buick 8

If you want to be told when to be scared rather than to actually be scared, this is the King book for you! A sparkly/glowing Buick-that-isn't-a-Buick eating some people (and a few local fauna) “off-screen” doesn't make for a scary read. When you combine that with the reactions of the cops, which were almost comical in their absurdity, it makes the Buick seem less of a threat and more just a gimmick. King is ASTOUNDING at terrifying me, conjuring imagery in my imagination that haunts me for YEARS. None of that was in this. A lot of the time, he falls back on “oh, it's just too terrible for the human brain to conceive of such horrors” in an almost lazy ode to Lovecraft.

Oh, and the filing cabinet...don't even get me started. How long was that thing just rotting in that bag before they pulled it out to do an investigative autopsy?!?

has fit for ten minutes

ahem

Despite the negatives, King's uncanny ability to make ANYTHING “fun” to read pulled me through. I did feel unnecessarily called out by Sandy in his view of Ned “feeling entitled to a story” because that's how I felt through much of this. I think, that really might have been the moral for me. “Let it go. You can't and certainly WON'T always get the answers to everything.” The characters weren't nearly as fleshed out for me as other King characters, but it's also one of the shortest King books I've read, soooo...

In an ironic twist, considering what most people tell Mr. King, I truly liked the ending. I'm happy to know that Ned is safe, that the Buick-not-a-Buick is dying, and that Brian Lippy got his swastika-wearing ass eaten up by “something”.

This gets to stay home on my shelves by JUST a margin, and I truly blame my King bias for that.