Misery

My first Stephen King novel!!
Is it puny if I say I was very miserable reading this? It started out so slow and took so long to pick up to a pace I like. Maybe I'm just not a fan of this genre?? I don't know. Contemplated giving a 2 or 3 star rating - but 3 stars means I would most probably pick up another novel of his but I don't see myself doing that in a long time, at least.

Es difícil calificar este libro. Ha sido increíblemente lento en la primera parte, y hasta cierto punto me estaba aburriendo. Sin embargo, la segunda mitad ha sido cautivadora. La locura de Annie y la decadencia de Paul hicieron que la historia sea muy adictiva.

No me siento muy satisfecha con el final, pero tampoco puedo decir que hubiese querido tener un final del tipo “y vivieron felices por siempre”. No obstante, me ha dejado con una sensación un tanto agridulce.

This book occupies a kind of strange place for me in that I found myself thinking of it as sort of a pulpy horror, but King's writing is great and elevates it beyond that, yet I think I'm willing to overlook some flaws because of that initial label I put on it going in.

Anyways, I just think this is a great little single-location thriller/character piece. I have not seen the movie version, but I'm familiar enough with it that I was expecting to just picture Kathy Bates and James Caan the entire time I was reading it, but I found my imagination creating completely different images for some reason. Annie is so interesting because her madness is a strange perversion of logic and justice. Paul's overactive imagination as a writer adds a lot to the narration.

I listened to this via audiobook from the library and I really enjoyed Lindsay Crouse's reading of it. She puts on a voice for Annie with an appropriate amount of subtlety, as I think it would be easy to play her as way over the top.

This was creepy! Probably the best King I have read so far! Plays heavily on the psychological horror rather than the supernatural, which I really appreciate - humans make the best monsters!

The central premise is a famous writer gets taken prisoner by a crazed fan and forced to write a book to ‘correct' the ending to a story. The entrapment and torture is gruesome, brutal and deeply unsettling. Annie is completely psychotic as a character, but immensely believable as well. The gradual Stockholm Syndrome of Paul is understandable, the psychological pressure he is put in is visceral in its intensity. The general claustrophobia of the story just acts to heighten the fear.

The history behind the writing of this is also fascinating - written as a backlash against his own fans increasing demands it is a powerful counter to the worst tendencies of fandoms.

Be prepared for an uncomfortable but brilliant read

Paul Sheldon is on top of the world. He has just finished a new novel, and is setting off on a jaunt, because he can. However, he is about to find out that having adoring fans is not always a great thing. When he crashes his car, he is found by one of his biggest fans... and one of the craziest. What happens to Paul over the next several months unfolds in this story, as we see terror unfurl under one roof. Who knew Annie Wilkes was such a crazy adoring fan?
She insists that he bring back the character he hated, and finally killed off. But as he works on the new novel, the house of horrors begins to unfold even more. He carefully navigates around her moods, but there is no telling when she will snap and pain begins.
As he contemplates his escape, he rejects idea after idea, but eventually something will work, and its the state trooper who showed up, the one who died in her driveway that will prove to be his way out... if he can survive long enough..

This book was fantastic! There is some rather strong language, but the premise and the story line kept me hooked the entire way through!! This is one book that will have you reading with a flashlight in the dark - you cant just put it down and walk away!

Misery by Stephen King is a novel about pain, obsession, and writing. Paul Sheldon, the stories protagonist, is 42. He is a celebrity writer, twice married and divorced, drinker and smoker, and he is in a lot of trouble. So much trouble. “umber whunnnn yerrrnnn umber whunnnn fayunnnn These sounds: even in the haze.” Even through the haze of drugs and pain, he knew something was off; something was wrong. There was pain, so much of it. “The pain was somewhere below the sounds. The pain was east of the sun and south of his ears. That was all he did know.” His memory was hazy. He remembers a crash. He remembers he stopped breathing, then breathing again. A mouth, spitless, dry, and tight had clamped on him like a vise with its breath. It was “a dreadful mixed stench of vanilla cookies and chocolate ice cream and chicken gravy and peanut-butter fudge.” It was awful, Paul begged and pleaded to be left alone. But Annie couldn't leave him alone.

“Breathe, goddam you!” the unseen voice shrieked”

This was Paul's introduction to Annie Wilkes, Paul's number one fan, the stories antagonist and Paul was in a lot of trouble.

Paul was out celebrating the finishing of his newest novel. “Fast Cars.” A story that Paul had written after putting behind him his best-selling romance series staring the heroine Misery Chastain. A story that, to him, was not writterly and deserving of praise. He had drunk champagne, high on the excitement of the victory, and went driving. He crashed his car spectacularly on a snowy road outside Sidewinder, Colorado. A place that many King fans will recognize from Dr. Sleep, American Vampire, and The Shining. He is found broken and twisted amongst the remains of his car by Annie Wilkes. His legs are a badly broken puzzle of bone shards and pain. He awakes in Annie's farm somewhere outside of Sidewinder with only the sounds from an unhappy cow and a pig that Annie had named Misery to greet him.

“This memory circled and circled, maddening, like a sluggish fly. He groped for whatever it might mean, but for a long time the sounds interrupted. fayunnnn red everrrrrythinggg umberrrrr whunnnn Sometimes the sounds stopped. Sometimes he stopped”

Paul realizes that his legs are a broken and splintered mess pretty quickly. Ironic because Annie is an ex-nurse and probably could have set them to rights. He is in excruciating pain and hooked on pain killers, and is entirely at the mercy of his number one fan, and something is not quite right with her. There is something diabolical and insane in Annie Wilkes. Something dark is inside her mind and only comes out sometimes, something that can hurt him, something that will eventually kill him. If he wants to continue his existence, he needs to write a new Misery novel for her, one that revives the protagonist Misery Chastain. Misery is a character that Paul was delighted to kill off and be done with. Otherwise, Annie might kill him; but she might kill him anyway piece by piece.

Much of Stephen King's Misery is psychological terror and internal turmoil. The psychological terror is palpable. Annie Wilkes might be the scariest villain I have ever read. She is cruel, but her cruelty is unknown to her. “You did this to yourself, Paul!” She is also efficient and diabolical. “Annie was not swayed by pleas. Annie was not swayed by screams. Annie had the courage of her convictions.” When Paul is found to be investigating the farmhouse while Annie is out, Annie decides that he needs to be punished, so she cuts his foot off with an ax and cauterizes the stump with a blow torch. It is brutally efficient, and in its way, Annie thinks she is weirdly kind. She gives Paul a pain killer and a slight sedative beforehand. Much like grounding a wayward child for being naughty, Annie feels she needs to punish Paul. Although her punishment is violent and cruel, she doesn't know it.

Misery is a spectacularly, cruel novel, and it goes beyond the usual horror that we can expect from King. This novel touches on the psychological horror and self-flagellation of a writer. Paul must create a story that he does not want to tell, then the story takes ahold of him as he begins to tell it, and he must see it to the end. Annie is both a jailer, muse and finally the ultimate critic. She punishes failures by cutting off pieces of him. Deadlines and writerly problems take on whole new meanings for Paul.

The ending is almost anti-climatic. As a reader, I want fire and brimstone to fall upon Annie. She deserves so much comeuppance. But I think the way that King handled it is perfect. A battle between writer and critic needs to happen, and the struggle between jailer and inmate needs to happen. “It was always the same, always the same-like toiling uphill through jungle and breaking out to a clearing at the top after months of hell only to discover nothing more rewarding than a view of a freeway - with a few gas stations and bowling alleys thrown in for good behavior, or something.” And, as King says here, writers plod through, whip themselves, battle their muses, and in the end, it is anti-climactic - a bowling alley and gas station. It is not satisfying, but the ending is right. It is terrifying for Paul and quite disturbing as a metaphor for writing.

Misery is King writing at his finest and possibly most introspective. It is, at times, a painful and terrifying read. I had to put it down a few times to take a breath, pet a dog, and watch some happy youtube video. But it is worth the read, and I am so glad I took it on.

Esse é apenas o segundo livro do King que eu leio e posso dizer que é muito melhor que Carrie. Apesar de eu ter achado que em algumas partes é bastante enrolado, o cenário que o Stephen King cria no livro deixa o leitor querendo saber o que vai acontecer o tempo todo. Tem partes que me deixaram extremamente desconfortável, mas obviamente essa é a intenção.
É muito bom e o final é ótimo. 

Stephen King wanted us to hate both these characters, right? Well I did, which is totally fine, but I also felt guilty about it because Annie is obviously seriously mentally ill. I'm not sure I'd even consider her competent to stand trial for her crimes. She's delusional and needs help.

I was annoyed by the comparison of CPR to rape. A few men have tried to explain to me what King meant by the comparison... I know what he meant. I don't need anyone to explain it to me. The comparison was inappropriate.

I didn't find Misery to be frightening in the least. It was just slightly gory and a sad depiction of unmanaged serious mental illness. I had to make myself pick the book up so I could finish it because it was almost boring at times. I did not care in the slightest about the book the main character was writing. The inclusion of so much text of the fictional story within the fictional story was mind-numbing.

King should not use the n-word in his books, ever. It was completely unnecessary and, again, inappropriate. Annie didn't need to say the n-word for the reader to know she's racist, unlikable, untrustworthy, and deranged. Trust me, we already knew.

Finally, I found King's writing to be really repetitive. He'd find a phrase or word he liked and beat it to death for a chapter or two, sometimes bringing it back for a cameo or two later on.

This was my first time reading a Stephen King book as an adult. As a high schooler, I wasn't a fan of Four Past Midnight and didn't get the intense love for The Long Walk among dystopian fans. Based on this recent read, I still don't get the collective obsession readers around the world have for his books. I still plan to read The Stand (my dad's all time favorite book) and The Green Mile since they're on my shelves, so I'm hoping they'll change my mind a little bit.

boring, not that original, annoying and with some unfortunate narrative choices (for example the insertion of chapters from the pseudo-novel inside the novel - it was terrible).
Definitely not the SK I love, but an atypical one (I prefer his more story driven ones, with mysteries to solve).
Rather a study in sadism (which I did not enjoy).

This was an awesome, awesome book! One thing of Stephen King's books, that make them so wonderful and gripping, is the Psychology of the characters that makes up a large part of the reason why I can never put one of his books down, once I've started reading it. From Page 1, you're hooked, and Misery was one of the best. I also watched the movie twice!

Stephen King is always a win.
This is a very simple book exploring a very simple concept, but it still got me captivated and on the edge of my seat until the very last page.
This book is about a bestselling author being kidnapped by his number one fan in order for him to write her a novel. A very simple premise and the hole story takes place in a single bedroom. But somehow it works. At the beginning I was skeptical on the premise, it sounded cool but I could not imagine how to maintain suspense and avoid it becoming repetitive and boring. And it did get more interesting as the book went on. On the one hand we have the main story line, then we get a peak at Paul's writing and finally we slowly discover about Annie's backstory.
I must admit at the end of the book the whole novel subplot became a little distracting, it felt like reading the first chapters of a book and then the last ones without any additional context (because this is precisely what happens) . In retrospective totally necessary, because Paul projects into the story and then the story projects back into Paul, and there is a parallel between one story and the other, but it felt confusing.
This book explores the impotence and sense of defeat when you are trapped and there is no viable option out. You are clinging to a very thin edge of hope, but as time goes on you slowly give up. This is masterfully represented with the character of Paul.
I loved the metaphors presented through the book in order to materialize Paul's feeling, the stone pilings(as pain), the hole in the page (as coping mechanism) and the African bird (as this feeling of being trapped until the end).
I must admit it is very visual, but that is King's specialty. I wouldn't it is specially scary but there were some scene which were unsettling. But more in the disgust direction than actual fear.
All in all a great starting point for King's novel, you get a taste of what he is good at without the nightmares and it is a short novel you will power through without even realizing it.

(I'm currently doing this from my phone as I just moved and don't have internet. I apologize for brevity and errors!)

I hated this book from the beginning. I only finished it to see how it differed from the movie. It is full to the brim with misogyny and hatred for the mentally ill. I even took screenshots (I read the ebook) while reading to share on Twitter and in my video review, whenever I can make that.

I won't spoil anything, but Paul, our main character, uses the rape word twice to describe something unpleasant. He refers to most women in the book as bitches. He goes on tangents describing how simple minded his female fan base must be. It was highly insulting and aggravating to read. Hating Annie, calling her a bitch, makes sense. But Paul feels the same towards all women.

Then there's the talk about the mentally ill. In this book, they don't need help. They're just scary. King boils it down to this handy statement: “Depressives kill themselves. Psychotics, rocked in the poison cradles of their own egos, want to do everyone handy a favor and take them along.” That's useful.

I hate this book. Do not recommend. Even if I could get past these things, the actual story is boring, gruesome, and gratuitous. This should have been a short story or novella.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
A book that I loved, an absolute must read, and now a favorite of mine. It's a book that will live on my shelves forever and I would re-read in the future. I would pick up anything else by this author without question. This book is now one of my all-time favorites.

This is the second book I've read by Stephen King and I loved them book. I was invested in the characters from the very start. More so Paul than Annie. I rooted for him to come out of his downward spiral of insanity as he was held captive by Annie.

I even got invested in the story within the story. Misery's story.

I'm very happy that I finally picked this one up. I'm starting to see why King is my husband's favorite author.

i ended up going with 5 stars. the first 15 pages were sorta hard to read/too descriptive but i enjoyed the rest of it. The misery chapters were just filler pages but I understand the purpose they were there. The reason I went with a 5 star was the SUSPENSE and just the overall chills I got reading this and when the scenes happened and the end had me shocked which is an amazing factor. I cannot wait to read more Stephen King because I absolutely loved this one

This book is terrifying in a very unusual way. I was expecting to be bored, considering that most of the book happens inside a single room, and knowing that King can sometimes be overly descriptive, but I was somehow very invested throughout the whole thing. It also doesn't suffer from the problem that a lot of King's books do with the endings not making sense. Perhaps because this is not a supernatural book, he had to actually write a good ending instead of going for a deus ex machina or pulling something else out of his ass.
I listened to the audiobook for most of it, and the narrator was amazing. She put so much emotion and nuance into it. Her name is Lindsay Crouse. I was only slightly disappointed with her delivery of a certain line involving a cockadoodie car, but it's not the narrator's fault that Kathy Bates is so iconic. Overall, one of the best Stephen King books I've read.